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Chapter 8 Eileen’s Story
Chapter 8
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Eileen’s Story
I grew up in Ballymun. We moved around Ballymun a lot when I was a child. When I was in 6th class in the Holy Spirit, we moved abroad for three years and that was a big change for me because it was like I was trying to fit in straight away when I got over there. That’s when I would have tried marijuana(weed). I didn’t like it, I hated it, but I still did it because I just wanted to be accepted. 3 years later, we returned to Ballymun, and I tried to fit back in again. I started palling around with people that were drinking on the blocks. Drugs really didn’t come into it until I was about 16 or 17 when I started taking E’s and going to raves and that kind of stuff.
When I was 19 years old, I first tried cocaine, and I thought this is it! I can drink more, party more, party harder. It was nearly okay to take cocaine because it was the new drug then. I had easy access to drugs, I could literally get drugs when I wanted and that would have been every weekend. In my head, it was all glamorous. It was a party lifestyle, getting dressed up the fake hair, fake nails and going out to nightclubs. There was something very glamorous about it, staying in fancy hotels drinking champagne. It quickly changed from something glamorous to sitting in the house in my pyjamas, messy hair bun in my head. The going out, the partying lifestyle had left, but I was still partying.
My mind used to suffer terribly because I’d go 3 days on a binge and after the session was over, I’d start feeling suicidal. I felt shit. I couldn’t look people in the eye. It was like, what am I after doing? Who did I upset? What did I do on somebody? I’d kind of go into a morbid depression Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and it would be Thursday before I would start to feel alright again. I would say to myself that I wasn’t that bad and by Friday, I was out doing the same thing again. During this time, I lost a lot of good jobs. I also lost the respect of a lot of people because of my behaviour. I was like a different person when I drank and used drugs. I didn’t care about anybody. It was all about me. I left my son with my mam and I’d say I swear I’m only going out for 4 drinks and then I will be home. At that time, I meant it. I really do think I meant it because, at the time, I just wanted to be out, but every time I’d use drugs.
I went to FAST(Finglas Addiction Support Team) in Finglas because my mam was saying to me you need to get yourself sorted. I went there for a little while. It was strange because my mind always told me I was not an addict because I had a job, I had a car, I had a house, so I couldn’t be an addict. For me, addicts were the people you seen on the street tapping for money, or the alcoholics are the ones you see drinking out of a brown paper bag. In my mind and in my appearance, I didn’t quite fit the stereotype of an addict. Having convinced myself, I wasn’t an addict, I returned to my old ways. But this time, there was no fun in it. I would be sitting with people I’d have no business sitting with, like other users, literally anybody with the notion of just don’t let the party end.
Even in work, I’d be talking to people, and they were saying, oh, you were on the bag. It’s like if you went into work and you said, I am just after smoking heroin all weekend or I’m just after smoking crack all weekend, they are going to say you’ve a drug problem. But if I go in and say I’m after taking coke all weekend, they’d be saying, oh, you mad thing. It’s really socially acceptable for you to take cocaine. There was never any judgement with friends or work colleagues. Obviously, with my parents, it was different. I was starting to realise that I was dragging my son down. At this stage, he was 15 and he would see Mammy going out at the weekend making a show of herself and sleeping all week.
Things got so bad I had a suicide attempt when I was 35 because I just didn’t know what else do. I remember doing a Google search with the words “am I an addict” and it was coming up. If you’ve answered yes to more than 5 of these questions, you probably are an addict. I was like f**k, what does f**king Google know? My family didn’t know everything because I didn’t want to believe that I had an issue with drink and drugs. Even now, if I am talking to somebody from around Ballymun, they’d say, but you weren’t that bad. That tells me that a lot of people still aren’t aware of addiction and all the bad stuff it brings with it.
Some people think you have to use drugs every day to be an addict. If you use at the weekend, you are grand. If you lose good friends for stuff you have done, it’s grand. If you drink and drive, it’s grand. It’s nearly okay because from the outside, you still may look like you have your sh*t together, but on the inside, I was dying. I ended up being taken into Vincent’s Hospital at that time and I swore in the hospital, that’s it! I can’t do this anymore. I’m not going to drink or do drugs again. I used to go to one meeting every week, and I linked in with BYAP (Ballymun Youth Action Project). I found BYAP very good, so I regularly linked in with them. I was doing a Smart Recovery programme with them once a week. When I came out of the hospital, I was literally going to the opening of an envelope. I was trying everything because I said to myself I need to get this sorted and I really thought if I could just stop taking the cocaine that I would be able to sit and have 4 drinks. When I say I’m going out for the 4 drinks, I really thought I could do that. I said I’ll do it for 9 months and then I was doing so well I cut it down to 6 months.
For the whole 6 months, I was obsessed about drinking, thinking I’m going to have a low alcohol wine. I really thought I could do this. I would go through the off licence, looking at the wine, saying I can have that in 6 months’ time. I still didn’t think I had a problem with alcohol. I still thought that if I took the other substance away that everything was going to be okay. I quickly learnt that wasn’t the case because when my 6 months were up, I went into the off licence. The drink was 4% alcohol. I thought I better buy 3 of them, so there’s the alcoholic coming straight into play, but yet I still didn’t think I had an issue. 40
I went back out drinking and I went into it deeper. Things that I never thought would happen happened. My life was chaos again and I was saying, ‘how am I here again? How has this happened?’ I went to a 12-step meeting and I remember looking at the 12 steps saying, who do I need to apologise to? I haven’t actually done wrong to anybody. I wrote out my own 12 steps and it was like only have 6 beers, don’t drink and drive and god love me. I thought this was going to cure me. I thought if I just read my own 12 steps, that I was going to be able to go out and have 6 bottles of beer and go home. Yeah, you know that obviously didn’t work.
April 2019 was a turning point for me, I’m nearly 2 and a half years drug and substance-free now. I reached that breaking point and I think everybody needs to reach that point to really recover. You need to be completely broken; you need to get rid of all the self-doubt. I know I have to be completely abstinent from everything because I know if I have a low alcohol beer or a low alcohol wine, it’s will quickly lead me down the same path. My experience has shown me that if I use a substance, I will overuse it.
Today I work the 12-step programme. I’m in CA(Cocaine Anonymous) and I still link in with BYAP in Ballymun. I also recently started doing psychotherapy with them. I didn’t go to treatment as I felt my body wasn’t physically addicted to a drug. It was my mind that I suffered with. I actually moved in with my Mam instead of going into rehab. I busy myself and continue using all the tools that I had picked up in Smart Recovery and in the 12-step programme. While today is not my best day, you know what, it’s a hell of a lot better than what it was 2 and a half years ago. In the round, my life is good. I keep good people around me. I don’t need to surround myself with people that I would have used with.
People I previously thought that I just couldn’t cut out of my life, well yes, I can, like snip, snip. This is something I have fought really hard for and I’m not willing to give it up for anybody. My advice to anybody that is struggling with their drug or alcohol use is don’t let the stereotype of a drug user fool you into believing you don’t have a problem. I sat in meetings and said I was never homeless; I’m not like these people. I never sold myself; I’m not like these people. If you’re sitting in a meeting, you know there’s a problem. You know there’s an issue. You know, if you’re linking in with supports around Ballymun, you know there’s an issue. My advice would be to use the services that are there, keep your group small and cut out your using people.
My son is 17 now and he doesn’t need to worry about me anymore. When I say to my son I’m going to a meeting or I’m going training, he says, “okay, enjoy.” Before, when I was using, he’d be full of anxiety, thinking will she come home?, what’s going to happen?, and who’s she going to take home with her?. My mother and father don’t have to worry about me. I can walk around Ballymun with my head held high because I don’t do harm to anybody. I don’t maliciously go out to do or cause harm to anybody, so that’s what recovery has given me, the opportunity and confidence to hold my head up high again instead of walking with my head down. I’m a present mother and a present daughter who has a life to look forward to free from drink and drugs.•
