Chapter 7 Kieron’s Story

“Recovery has helped me growup and become the person I was meant to be.” - Kieron

Chapter 7

Kieron’s Story

“Recovery is something that you have to work on every single day and it’s something that doesn’t get a day off.” -Demi Lovato

I grew up in Ballymun. I was the oldest of 7 and I still live here today. Ballymun is my home. We did not have much in our house, but we never had to starve. Food was always on our table, and my parents did their very best. I grew up and loved football. I always had a dream of playing for Liverpool. As a kid walking around, you would always see me with a football.

I just loved playing and would stay out very late, scruffy dirty and playing in muck and having loads of fun. It was always about winning. I hated losing. I played in Croke Park and won on a few occasions. I played with lots of great clubs in Ballymun. I was always afraid growing up. I walked around full of fear and I was a very insecure child and I was always comparing myself to others. I wanted what other people had.

I started drinking and taking solvents from about the age of 11. I knew it was wrong, but the fear of getting into trouble never stopped me. I was always in trouble at school. I was always looking for attention and I wanted to be noticed all the time. I started smoking hash and going to discos on a Saturday night. I never had any confidence around women, but when I was drunk, I could talk to anyone. I got expelled from school when I was 16 and got put on a training course. I used to get £27 a week and that would be my drinking money for the weekend. I had some really great memories of those weekends and I would not change a minute of it. However, I would be obsessed with getting from Monday to Friday so that I could get drunk all weekend. I didn’t just drink to be sociable. I drank to get out of my head.

I started going to raves and taking acid(LSD). I did not like it and eventually started taking ecstasy. Every time I took an E, I always thought I was going to die. A lot of people were dying from taking them, but it never stopped me. I continued to take them. Then I ended up back at a house party and heroin was introduced. I started to get curious about this and eventually, I tried it.

The first time I took it, I hated it. I got really sick. But it did something to me and I tried it again, even though growing up in Ballymun, I saw a lot of people destroyed by drugs. I thought I knew better and that I was smarter than them. I learned the hard way that I was never in control, the drugs controlled me. I had no choice. It was bringing me to places I swore I’d never go. It took all my values, robbed me of my relationships, and my soul was destroyed. All these dreams I had as a child were gone. I ended up on a maintenance programme and that made me worse. I had a heroin problem and a methadone problem, too, that lasted 20 years. I got into a drug relationship and I had two kids born into addiction. I still carry that with me to this day.

My life never got any better; it got worse. I was a lone wolf going around and could not look people in the eye, looking full of shame but somewhere inside me, I knew there was more to life than the way I was living. In 2010 I just wanted to die. I could not take it anymore. So, I asked people for help and I ended up in treatment for the first time after 20 years of drug addiction. I thought it was about just getting off the drugs. I hadn’t got a clue. I’d no life skills, all I knew was how to take drugs and even at that, I was useless. I had 2 kids. I did not know how to be a father. Drugs took everything from me. Getting off the drugs after so long was like being a baby and learning to live again. When I got out of treatment, I started to drink again, and it was not too long till I was back to what I knew best. It brought me back worse than ever.

It was horrific. No matter how much drugs I took, I could not leave my house. The paranoia, the fear, the anxiety, and all the guilt. I had mended relationships but threw them back in people’s faces. My kids lost a father again. I ended up back in a treatment centre and I was like, “how am I back here”? It was not about talking anymore; it was about listening to people who went before me and trying to put everything into recovery because I knew nothing. All I knew was to go back using. When I left treatment, I did a day programme and went to the 12-step fellowship. I started to be a father, and I wanted recovery. It felt good to be clean.

I got bad news about my mother. She had cancer and only had a few months to live. It was really hard, but I did not have to use. I had lots of support. I got to be a brother at that time and my family relied on me, even though I felt really alone most of the time. I got through all that. My mother is with me today, watching over me. I used it again a few months later and ended up at a 12-step meeting(a set of guiding principles outlining a course of action for addiction recovery). I just cried out in that meeting and said, “I need help”, because I knew I would die if I carried on. I wanted to be clean. I wanted what other people had. I gave myself to the programme which I am still part of today, 8 years later. I have custody of my 2 children and I am also in a loving relationship and have another beautiful child. My kids depend on me today. I have a full-time job and I am employable today. I do my best every day in life. I was given another chance and today, my job is to give to other people. Miracles happen. I am proof of it. Drink and drugs are fun at the start, but through my experience, they turn on you and become your enemy. Recovery has helped me grow up and become the person I was meant to be.•