|
EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 17 |
April/May 1999 |
| I DON'T NEED |
| Steve is no longer a client he has joined our staff. | DRUGS |
| ANYMORE |
| . |
My
life, through addiction, had taken me into some terrible places;
homelessness, jail, problems with family, family not knowing what to do
except turn their back on me, loss of weight. All of this was through my
addiction to Heroin and anything else that changed the way I felt about
myself. This is when I first met Father Jim McCartney. I felt at that
time that I had already had enough, but life was to deal me a few more
blows. Finally, after my father committed suicide, it gave me the shake
that I needed. I know that sounds kind of heartless maybe, but that's
what I needed at the time. Probably if that hadn't happened, I would
probably still be where I was then ... or maybe even dead. After this time, I used to see Father Jim on a regular basis and the people at St. Anne's House, popping in and out for food, asking for money, being homeless. They helped me quite a few times, put me into hostels, paid the hostels for me and one thing and another. Then after my father's suicide, Elaine, a member of T.H.O.M.A.S. , came to my dad's funeral, and then I really realised what I had got with these people, they really cared, and no matter what I did they didn't seem to turn their back on me, that was something that intrigued me. I always thought that in life if somebody gave you something, then that meant that they wanted something back from you, but here was a time, when aside from my parents, somebody had given me something without asking for anything back. This kind of intrigued me.
I went to a rehabilitation unit in Birkenhead. I spent quite a while at this treatment centre and I had problems with an old injury in my leg. I was given medication for this, Dyhydra-Codeine and other substances for the pain, which I'd never felt before. The drugs had always stopped it. This was a treatment centre where you could socially drink. I have nothing against addicts who drink but don't use Heroin. All I know is that after this experience, I know that it is not right for me. The way for me is that I can't take any kind of a substance with any kind of limitations because I always want more, more, more and more. Obsession is what it is about for me.
After several months in this unit, taking the medication , being allowed to go home at weekends, and go and get drunk, I started mixing in all the same circles. By the time I left this treatment centre, I was worse than I ever had been before. I was injecting cocaine by this time, which I had never done before. Also I decided to come back to live in Blackburn at my mum's house, which again was something that I always said wouldn't work for me, but I thought I knew best. So I came back to Blackburn, mixed in exactly the same circles as before, going out drinking, it was Christmastime, I was smoking Cannabis, started taking Amphetamines to help me be able to drink more. When I needed to get to sleep later on at night, I used Heroin by choice. So I just said to myself that I'd just have one or two lines. But as I mentioned earlier, one or two is never enough for me, its all or nothing and then it kicked off my addiction all over again, and I went down and down and down and down.
Again, I returned to Father Jim's and the staff at St. Anne's House who were very supportive. I'd been kicked out of home again and I had a habit that was ten times worse than I'd ever had before. Father Jim paid for me to stay in the Salvation Army, which was one problem solved; at least I had somewhere warm to go back to and somewhere to sleep at night. My addiction was at its worst. I used to spend all my time concentrating on getting up in the morning, feeling rough, going out on my own doing what I needed to do to get the money to get drugs to go back where I lived. That's the way I lived for the last five or six months of my addiction.
Still I received the constant support from the staff of St. Anne's. I spoke to my counsellor at the Community Drugs Team and they offered me a detox place at Gisburn Park Rehabilitation Unit. Half of me really wanted it, but half of me said that it wouldn't work anyway after the last experience. I thought nobody could understand, nobody could help me and I was destined to die basically, quite a low point of my life; suicide I'd thought about quite a few times but I didn't have the courage to even do that. After lots of thought and more support again from St. Anne's House I managed to go to Gisburn Park Hospital for a three week detox and when the day came for me to go I didn't want to go, but Father Jim arranged for somebody to take me over - I'd had a lot of drugs that day. So I landed at Gisburn Park Hospital and I thought I'd come to the wrong place, this was a very nice place and all these people were interested in helping me; It was as if it was all meant to happen. Once I showed my commitment to it the rest just seemed to happen. I haven't got a problem accepting that there is something else that goes on, the word God seems to frighten me. I just know that something personal to me has something else to do with why we are here and that's enough. I don't try to question or analyse why or ask the ifs and buts, I just have to believe for my own benefit and it's through that belief that I am where I am now.
Since leaving Gisburn Park, I have got my own flat; Father Jim helped me pay for a deposit. I am doing a Level 2 Counselling Course, which is something I have always wanted to do. The way my life has changed around is unbelievable. I had constant support through Gisburn Park Hospital and also from St. Anne's House. I am now working here on a practically full-time basis and I have put on 3 stone in weight. I go to the gym, I go to college, these are the things that I never thought that I'd ever be able to do. The only two rules that I have to follow really for me personally, are not to drink and not to use drugs.
At last I have got my independence. I go to college. I used to look at other people, if they were doing these sort of things, I'd think they were boring. But they are not, it's just normal stuff. I don't have any kind of image, there's isn't anything that I am bothered about, I don't feel that I have to fit in so much with what everybody else wants. Now its about what I want and what I need. As long as I put the work in then, there is nothing that I can't achieve.
All this work I have to take credit for, for myself firstly, because breaking away from an addiction and starting all over again is one of the hardest things that I ever done. My whole life was centred around drugs and the lifestyle that came with it, it is what I was used to, its what I was good at, it was my best friend, it wasn't my enemy, it was everything. It meant everything to me, no matter how destructive it was, it was my life. So to break away from that and start all over again is a daunting task, but at the same time it was an essential one for me to do. I would be in jail again or dead. I was comfortable in chaos, chaos was all I knew, I'd got used to it, grown used to it and in a strange kind of way I loved it..
Now I see other people going through the same sort of struggle I went through myself. I am wanting to help them. We can change, we can be what ever we want to be, once we get over the addiction feelings. I see more and more in advertisements these days, about drugs. If you are not feeling well then there is a chemical to help you, or if you're not sleeping then there is a chemical to help you. I see all these advertisements as negative.. One thing I have discovered from being eight and a half months clean now, is that it is surprising how much pain we human beings can put up with and can get through and can get out of the other side still intact. We can become a stronger person for it. So I will end on that note because I don't want to sound as though I am getting on a soapbox.
I would like to thank first of all Father Jim and all the staff at St. Anne's House for all the support they have offered me throughout the last three and a half years. Also I would like to give my thanks to Marlene Holgate, Wayne O'Sullivan and the team at Gisburn Park Hospital where I did my rehabilitation and, last but not least, my mum and all my family for always being there.
