Chapter 6 Kevin’s Story

“Now I’m giving my recovery 110% and that’s what I’m getting back.” -Kevin

Chapter 6

Kevin’s Story

“Recovery is not for people who need it, it’s for people who want it”. -Anonymous

I’m just going to give you a quick introduction into what it was like growing up and getting involved in drugs and stuff. I come from Ballymun and I come from a broken family, so my mother reared us. She was both Ma and Da. At an early age, about 12 or something, I started drinking then I started to smoke and then I started smoking hash as well. I got a good feeling every time I drank and smoked hash. It was like I got a feeling that I belonged or that I was part of something. Even though that was just experimenting, it quickly escalated from a Saturday night thing into a Friday to Sunday thing. Obviously, I did anything just to get the few quid up, probably even robbed me Ma’s money just to get what I really needed. Before I knew it, it was a problem, experimenting stages stopped and it became a problem.

I started going to raves and taking ecstasy, then speed and magic mushrooms. I’d find anything that I could escape from. It always felt like there was something missing and at the time, I thought that’s what it was, I was just filling a void. I was taking E (ecstasy) constantly every weekend. Then I got introduced to coke(cocaine), sniffing coke. I really did not get hooked on coke; to me it was a rich man’s drug. But I smoked hash(cannabis) constantly every day and I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. I just used to convince myself that all it did was relax me. I remember there was a drought on early in the 90s and you couldn’t get hash anywhere. I was in a flat in Ballymun and there was a girl there smoking heroin. I used to look at it as a nasty drug. She was sitting there and she says to me “can you not get your hash anywhere” and I said “no” and she said “why don’t you try this, one line is like smoking a joint”. I said “no” and I left the flat and went out looking for hash but I couldn’t get any and later that night I was back at the flat and the girl was still there. She said, “you might as well just try it, it’s just like smoking hash”. I was like ah f**k it, so I started smoking it, and then that was it. You hear about people saying once you smoke “gear” you’re hooked and I was one of those people.

I just loved it and at the time I really didn’t see anything wrong with it. I kind of defended it. I was smoking every day, smoking heroin every day in tinfoil. It wasn’t long before I was taking it intravenously, injecting it and that was every day too. It got to the stage I had to sell it to be able to take it. To take the amount I was taking wasn’t nice. I was looking for the escape and I didn’t realise how quickly it was going to be a problem. I ended up being locked up a few times. I ended up on the streets homeless. I used to sleep at the back of a loading bay at the Ilac Centre. I was there for 2 years, and I just couldn’t see any other way. But it’s mad in some ways. I was comfortable. I had family I could have gone to. I could have gone to my Ma’s, but I just got comfortable in it.

Pride got in the way and I didn’t realise how quickly it was going to escalate. Then I was introduced to crack cocaine. As soon as I did it I wanted more and more, one was never enough. I was bad on the crack and it went on for a number of years. I went to the clinic in Ballymun to come off the heroin, a methadone clinic. I was at that clinic for a good 15 years, which I believe now there was no need for it. However, it served its purpose. At the time, I was on the maintenance programme and they had me on 120 mls of methadone. Then I decided I wanted to change, I wanted to have a few kids so I decided to reduce myself down off the methadone. I got stable first on it. I tried to stop smoking the heroin and injecting and smoking crack and stop all the tablets I was on. I was on antidepressants, relaxers, sleepers and all sorts of bleedin’ tablets. I eventually got into treatment and got down to 50 mls. I remember the first time I went into treatment, I was coming off everything and I got a phone call in treatment that my best friend and cousin was after hanging himself. I was halfway through my detox and I decided to leave.

The staff in Cuan Dara(Inpatient therapeutic detoxification centre) asked me not to leave, they even offered to bring me to the funeral, but I wanted to leave. I left anyway. I went back on the stuff straight after the funeral. I was lucky enough to get back into Cuan Dara 7 weeks later. I was actually only the fourth person in there to come off suboxone(used to treat dependence on opioid drugs). I completed the detox.

From there, I went to Keltoi(Substance Misuse and Trauma Residential Treatment Centre), which is an aftercare place and I stayed there for another 8 weeks. 2 of the lads I met in Cuan Dara went to Keltoi with me for the 8 weeks. We got on great. Everything was good. We were having belly laughs, something I hadn’t experienced before. Loads of emotions and feelings were coming back and I didn’t know what was going on. I was like an emotional wreck. I didn’t realise that I suppressed everything from an early age taking drugs. I had to start experiencing all this stuff at a later age. I was going to meetings, seeing my counsellor and doing aftercare. Everything was going great and I thought jeez this is great but I didn’t realise that when I went into treatment after I came off the suboxone. I brought loads of photographs of my kids, put them on my wall over my bed. I kept saying to myself I’m going to do it for them, I want better for them. I want them to have a good life, I want them to have the life I didn’t have. I didn’t realise at the time that they were the wrong reasons. When I was finished all my treatment, I remember I was 6 months drug free and I was in the car with the two lads I was in treatment. All three of us were drug free 6 months and life was great. I remember driving down the road and I’m sitting in the back of the car and one of the lads said “wouldn’t it be great to have one more” and my stomach was like a washing machine in the back of the car. My head was saying tell them to stop the car and get the f**k out and the words that came out of my mouth was “well, if you are, I am”.

Before we knew it, we were sitting on Dollymount beach in the car smoking heroin. As I was smoking it, I was crying into it. I kept saying to myself, that’s it, I’m f**ked. I can’t do this now, not after doing treatment and doing a detox. Not after doing talks, not after my family telling me how good I’m doing and how well I looked and how proud my kids were of me. I just felt like I’d let everyone down and myself down. I couldn’t believe it. The other lads that day kept saying, “you’ll be grand, you’ll be grand, just don’t do anything else tomorrow”. I started laughing and said to them, “I’m an addict. There’s no such thing as not doing it tomorrow”.

I was full-on for 3 weeks, back trying everything again. Then I decided that’s it. I have had enough after doing treatment and detox and everything, aftercare, counselling and nothing worked. I realised that was my rock bottom. I was hitting rock bottom. When I went to treatment the previous time and completed everything and had 6 months drugfree, I did it for all the wrong reasons. I had never hit rock bottom before. So even though everything was great, as in I completed detox, I completed aftercare, but I did it for the wrong reasons. I didn’t do it for me, I did it for my kids or my family, whatever the case maybe, and it never worked that way.

You have to do it for you, you have to want to do it for you and I learnt that the hard way. I remember deciding I am going, I’m checking out, I don’t belong in this world, there’s nothing here for me. I was contemplating the best way to go. My best friend hung himself and I was thinking yeah, I could easily do that. Then I was thinking who was going to find me. I had another cousin who swallowed a lot of heart tablets and I was thinking I could do that. Then knowing my luck, I’d end up in the Mater Hospital after getting pumped out, so that wouldn’t work. Then I had another cousin who shot himself, so I was thinking of that. This is how messed up my head was, that is where my head was at. What was I thinking? I had decided the way I was going to do it and just at that point where I was ready to end my life, my daughter, who was only 2 years old, woke up and screamed the apartment down. I remember thinking, what the f**k. I went into her room and looked into the cot and the tears were flying out of her eyes. I could just feel tears dripping out of my eyes and I was saying to myself, this is not about me anymore; this is about them. It was like a realisation. I sat up with her the rest of the night and early the next morning.

I rang a fellow I knew from the fellowship and he told me to go into town and get a meeting. I left the house and went into town, but there was no meeting on. I rang the chap back. He said there’s a little chapel on the quays; go in and sit with yourself for an hour until the meeting is due to start. I’m not a big churchgoer or anything and I said to him, “I’m not going into a church”. He said, “what do you have to lose”, just go in and sit at the back of it, just sit with yourself for the hour. So I was like f**k it what do I have to lose, so I went into the church. The priest was up on the altar doing his thing, loads of people around. I remember walking straight in and walking right up to the altar. I’m sure the priest was looking at me and thinking, what the hell. I dropped to my knees, and I was roaring, “If there’s anyone there, cuz, anyone, please help me, I can’t do this”. I remember getting up and walking out of that chapel, walking around to O’Connell street.

I went into Supermacs and ordered a cappuccino and sat at the window. I was in floods of tears and couldn’t control it. The only thing going through my head was I’m actually powerless over my addiction and I just kept repeating that in my head. It was like a light bulb moment and I believe today that was my acceptance. I accepted that I was powerless over my addiction. The meetings I used to go to, NA(Narcotics Anonymous) at the time, there wasn’t a meeting on at that time, but thankfully there was an AA one on that night which I attended. I opened up about where my head was at and I met good people, very good people, who became great friends. I went to an AA meeting every morning and every night for the next 3 and a half years, because that is what I needed. I went through withdrawal symptoms in the meetings. I didn’t go back to treatment, I just did it through the meetings and with the support and help of other people. I haven’t looked back since, which is great.

On May 13th 2021, I was 10 years drug and drink free. It’s gas because I used to live on the streets for 2 years living behind the Ilac Centre and now I’m around the corner at the G.P.O.(General Post Office) feeding the homeless. I’m one of the founders of our soup run. I’ve been doing that for the last 4 and a half to 5 years, every Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I went back to college, jeez I would have burnt my Ma’s house, our flat in Shangan, down to leave school at 14.

The first time I went to college was to become a fitness instructor and personal trainer to follow on from the course I did in Ballymun, a fitness and education programme. That was the first course I ever completed in my life. I then went on to do the fitness instructor and P.T. (personal trainer) training. I’m qualified in that and then I decided I’ll keep going and I went to U.C.D. (University College Dublin) and did a Diploma in Drug and Alcohol Work. I passed that as well. I lost everything when I was on drugs. I got banned from driving. I had no life with my kids.

Now I have a great relationship with all my kids. I’m a Granddad. I have a grandchild of 3 years and I have a great relationship with her. I’m back driving and I’m working full time in the community where I grew up. I’m actually working on the same street. Life is good. There is an alternative, another way. I always say to everybody what you put into it, you’re going to get out of it. I used to give my addiction years 100% and that’s what I got out of it. Now I’m giving my recovery 110% and that’s what I’m getting back. That’s just a brief snippet of my life of growing up in addiction. I hope somebody gets something from it. •