Wasted (25 page)

The day I visited the centre, clinical manager Geraldine Hartnett said that alcohol remains the number one drug problem for adolescents who come into their care, although increasingly in recent
years clients have more than one addiction. The centre provides a wide-ranging response to the emotional and psychological needs of the young adults and children who are admitted to its six-week
programme. Daily counselling sessions are combined with arts and crafts, personal development and other therapeutic approaches, and the children are drawn from a wide cross section of society.

Hartnett wouldn’t be drawn on the percentage success rate for those who are treated at the centre, yet international statistics suggest as few as one in three will beat their addiction
following treatment. Hartnett takes a wider view and believes every youngster who passes through a treatment process benefits, but the programme doesn’t come cheap, costing in the region of
€350 per day. Despite the best efforts of the staff, the social environment clients come from and return to is what makes breaking the cycle of addiction at a young age so difficult. Yet,
again, the message from the centre’s staff is that Irish parents need to take more responsibility. ‘The culture of alcohol in Ireland almost encourages relapse. In terms of rates of
addiction reoccurring, or relapse, I wouldn’t like to put a percentage on it. I think, though, parents’ own drinking has a lot to play with the kids ending up in here,’ says
Hartnett.

While the centre is not directly funded by government, it does receive income from providing beds to the probation services and the
HSE
. With studies in Northern Ireland
showing that an untreated addict can cost society upwards of £500,000 during his/her lifetime, it’s difficult to understand why government places such lack of emphasis on residential
treatment funding for young addicts. ‘We don’t actually get any funding from government,’ says Geraldine Hartnett. ‘It’s very expensive to keep someone in prison. But
if money is invested in services such as ours, and people are worked with therapeutically, then that gives them a greater chance of becoming effective members of society.’

In recent years, like many others on the frontline tackling Ireland’s addiction issues, Hartnett has seen an increase in the number of youngsters presenting with multiple addictions.
‘A few years back alcohol was the main drug in Ireland and there wasn’t a lot of disposable income knocking around. Five or seven years ago, the trends began to change. The sheer volume
of drugs and the number of drugs being taken and that was very noticeable to us. There is this whole subculture emerging and everyone knows who is dealing and how to get in touch with the dealers.
Most of the youngsters who come in here ended up dealing to fund their own habit. This creates a culture of violence. There is a sub culture in Ireland where drugs are freely available and there is
no need to control use and people don’t have to work to get large sums of money.’

Defining problem drinkers, though, is still an issue in Ireland, says Hartnett, who also believes many youngsters don’t seek treatment because the terms ‘alcoholic’ and
‘drug addict’ have quite severe social definitions placed on them. ‘I don’t know if you can define someone under eighteen or twenty-one as alcoholic. Perhaps they are not
psychologically developed enough to know alcohol is a problem. But I do know in my heart if someone is a true addict. Often, it is someone who suffered or is suffering from something such as sexual
abuse, and to live with that pain they have to drink or use. They often don’t have coping skills to live with the pain. Sometimes, alcohol and drugs keep someone alive until the pain is too
much.’ Again, Hartnett points the finger at the society these youngsters come from: ‘In Ireland drinking alcohol is normal even when it is causing problems. There’s a delusion
around the effects of drink. Even if is someone is holding a business together, often alcohol is robbing their family of their presence, be it due to too much time spent at the golf club or the
GAA
club and so on.’ The solution, she feels, lies in greater parental responsibility. But it’s not easy.

‘People always talk about school playing a role, but it needs to be parents. Everything we do in life reflects how we are in our own family. Parents need to be educated around alcohol and
abuse and use. Another thing which has had a huge effect on our culture is suicide. Parents have been emotionally disabled in a way and now have huge fears for their children. Some of them will say
it is okay for them to behave any way they want, as long as they are alive. It’s hard not to despair sometimes. I mean, having ninety-one youths on a waiting list to get in here is really
saying something about our society and how seriously we are taking this problem.’

——

Three of the youths at the Aislinn Treatment Centre agreed to speak with me on condition that I didn’t name them. These are their stories.

‘Mary’ was a 21-year-old from the south of Ireland who had developed an enormous capacity for drink and drug use from a very young age. This was her second time
attempting to get sober.

I started drinking when I was twelve. There would be a lot of alcoholics in my family. My dad is in recovery twenty-five years and it is in both sides of the family—both
my mam and my dad’s. The thing is I would have been aware of it all my life but you don’t accept it when it is happening to you. I would have really seen myself at sixteen or seventeen
as just having a good time and having drinks and doing what all my other friends were doing.

I grew up in a rural town in Kilkenny and would have moved to Callan and then on to college in Waterford. From the age of twelve to fifteen, it would have been just naggins of vodka or stuff
before a disco maybe once a month. Then the time intervals got smaller and when I got into college it was four or five days a week. Drink was so widely available and so cheap and everybody was
drinking. That was the thing to do in college. Then when I went to work full time I had a week’s wages, so was coming out with six hundred euro or seven hundred euro a week. I would spend my
days off sitting in the pub from half nine in the morning until closing time that night. That’s what I did on my days off. Obviously it became a problem as my life just became too
unmanageable. I wasn’t able to get into work. My friends were slipping away and I was in with different crowds. The drugs came with the drinking. It blew up from there. March last year I went
for treatment and it lasted for three months and I relapsed after that.

You have to give up a major part of your life and start a new life. I have to give up all my friends this time and my meetings are going to be my social life from now on. When I got out of
treatment the first time I stayed with it. Someone gave me an example, saying that addicts and alcoholics are so used to these massive highs that normal life seems boring.

I would have been away from home a lot so most of my drinking and using would have been hidden. My dad would have known the signs. I got in trouble before I came into treatment last time and my
back was against the wall. I went into treatment not having a choice. This time I decided I wanted to go in for myself. I was drinking in pubs very young, from the age of fourteen upwards. You
don’t know when you go in what you’re going to like, so I would have started on alcopops and vodka. Then it progressed to cider when I was around sixteen. I’m now twenty-one years
old and if I went into a pub now I could drink twenty-five plus bottles of beer along with ten tequilas and a half bottle of wine on top of all that. I have a massive tolerance. I could be sitting
beside a man of forty or fifty years of age and sit at the bar beside him all day and have drink for drink with what he was drinking.

I knew one of the counsellors here and talked to him about two weeks before I came in. He knew I had problems with drugs and alcohol and so he pulled a few strings for me and got me in. I was
ready to leave Ireland before I came into treatment. I wanted an easy way out and now that I’m here, it’s making me stay. My dad was in recovery when I was born and my mam and my two
sisters don’t drink, so none of my extended family drink.

But anywhere I would have gone or lived I would have looked for drink or drugs. It was there in front of you and all around you. Even walking down the streets, there was heroin addicts on the
road and people smoking joints. If you know what to look for you can find it so easily. But to avoid it and live in Ireland? You can’t avoid it because it is all around you and that’s
why it is so hard to abstain. I think we are bad here. For instance, on holidays I have brought drugs through the
US
and Spain and when I get there, it seems the same; there
are drugs widely available there. Drink is everywhere too. It’s part of other countries’ cultures but the likes of Spain and the
US
and that don’t seem to
abuse it as much as we do.

I think the government should be ashamed of the fact that this is one of the only adolescent treatment centres. It’s a disgrace to any government in any country. The problem is right there
in front of them, they can see it. It’s getting bigger and bigger and if there’s no help for people they have no hope. It’s very hard just to stop from going to
AA
meetings or
NA
or whatever. You need special treatment and somewhere to go. A lot of people coming in would be in trouble with the law, maybe, and this opens
their eyes. The first time it opened my eyes to everything and you accept it. It’s not something that you can get in your environment naturally. I think the stigma has gone away now too,
because people realise that drink and drugs problems ruin people’s lives and this is a positive way to deal with it. I’m three weeks and three days here and I’m off drink three
weeks and six days. Before I came in, I had lost my job and life was a total disaster. I broke up with my boyfriend. My parents weren’t talking to me and I was just totally isolated.

I drank for about three days before I came in. My advice to parents is that I tell them not to be fooled, because we are all very deceptive. I lied for years and it comes off the tip of the
tongue. If parents were worried I would suggest a consultation with their children or get someone in
AA
to go and talk to them. Pressure from parents isn’t necessarily
good and they can go about it a different way instead of pressuring their son or daughter.

There’s plenty ways to do it.

When I come out this time I’m going to stay away from pubs. Because that’s what happened to me the last time. My first time back in a pub after treatment. The first time I went in. I
went in to meet a friend and he asked me what did I want and I said an orange juice. The barman came to the bar and he asked me what I wanted and I said, ‘A Miller, please.’ Just like
that and I had it half drank before I consciously knew what I was doing.

I don’t really have any true friends left. The true friends I had are lost and the ones I am left with are the ones that are using. They’re pub friends.

People find that when they are in my kind of situation that there are very few people that will be there for them apart from family and one or two close friends and that’s the reality of
it. When I was going into treatment the first time, people said to me, ‘Jesus you don’t have a problem,’ or that. But they just don’t see it. Lot of people would have said,
‘Sure this is crazy, your dad is only sending you in there because blah blah blah’ or ‘You’re only nineteen or twenty and growing up like anyone else.’ The fact of the
matter is, though, I know that I have ruined my life.’

‘Seán’ is originally from the UK and now living in Munster. This is his third time attempting to get clean and sober. He is 16 years old.

I was born in Manchester and lived there for twelve years before moving over here. I hadn’t drunk once when I lived in the
UK
. Since I came over
here, the drink has taken over. I didn’t know anyone over here, but after I went to school I got to know people.

First thing I drank was a naggin of vodka and I just threw it down my neck. The feeling I got walking around and not knowing what was happening got me straight away. Everything was a laugh. My
dad is an alcoholic and my mum drinks every now and again. My dad used to be around the house every day drunk. He used to be pissed off his head every day and wouldn’t go a day without
drinking. I don’t know if he still drinks or not; I haven’t seen him in about ten years.

I only got drunk once every now and again when I was twelve. But soon as I turned fourteen, I started going to parties and raves and discos. I started drinking more and more and dossing school
every day and going drinking. I moved on to Ecstasy then and buying litre bottles of vodka for myself. I would go crazy after vodka, go fighting and smashing up the place. I was sent to a detention
centre for criminal damage. I smashed up my principal’s house when I was drunk. His wife and kids were in the house at the time. I drank two naggins of vodka and five or six cans of Carlsberg
before I did it.

The amount I drank depends on how much money I had. Usually I’d just go buy a super naggin or a shoulder of drink with a few cans. I stopped drinking vodka for ages, because I went over to
Spain on holidays and I nearly got sent out of the country for fighting.

I was drinking in pubs. Most of my mates would drink but not as much as me. They might drink four or five cans and they’d be fucked.

I got the money from going to Youthreach, which I got paid a hundred and twenty euro a week for. If you have been kicked out of mainstream school, you can get your education there and they pay
you. I did my Junior Cert and got on okay. I’m bright enough. I ended up here this time from drugs and for being out of control. I’ve been off drugs a few months so drink is my main
problem now. It always reels me back in.

I love drink. The day before I came here I got kicked out of my house. Me and my mate bought two slabs of drink and had one each. There are twenty-four cans in a slab. I didn’t get any
sleep and was drinking right through the night. I was still pretty pissed walking in here. It’s my third time in treatment. I have copped on a little bit now. First time, I just came in here,
I was only doing it so I would make people happy. I left after four weeks. I came back then because I relapsed. Then I came back because I was sent to court. If I don’t get clean and sober
this time, I’m looking at two years in a detention centre. My plan in life is to join the Army and become an electrician. My older brother was in the Navy but got kicked out. A lot of my
mates are in the Army.