Kintsugi Heroes
Matthew Tulle
Matthew Tulle traded hiding his identity for drugs, then discovered his lived experience of addiction and recovery was his greatest professional asset.
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Matthew Tulle grew up queer in rural Queensland, where the cost of hiding who he was became unbearable. He knew from childhood he was attracted to men and women, but in early 2000s Gympie, that truth felt dangerous. He performed homophobia as survival strategy, burying shame so deep he turned to drugs to make himself tolerable. For ten years he held down jobs and relationships while using cocaine daily, then ice, telling no one how much he was struggling. His father, who battled his own mental health crisis, always believed in him. Matthew couldn't return that belief to himself.
When his father died, Matthew was still caught in cycles of addiction and suicidal despair. Living back home, grieving and unemployed, he attempted suicide. The next morning he realised he wanted to get better, not to die. A single friend who stayed with him through that attempt became his first experience of peer support, though neither of them knew that's what it was. Years later, after applying to university to study social work, Matthew discovered something unexpected: traditional social work asked him to hide his lived experience. Peer work let him use it intentionally. He realised all those years of being there for his father and friends had already taught him the skills he needed.
Today Matthew works with men in addiction and mental health, helping them shift from shame to guilt, from 'I am a bad person' to 'I had a bad moment.' He's built a life with genuine support around him, a partner who believes in him, a supervisor who carries the weight with him, and a mission to see peer work valued as a profession at the table with other disciplines. His next frontier is supporting trans people facing the discrimination queer people once did. The characteristic he looks for most in others who might do this work is simple: genuine curiosity about another person's life.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery and suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
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