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Amy Winehouse was found dead last Saturday after a high-profile struggle with drink and drug abuse. Here, former user Brendan Magee reveals how it feels to wrestle with addiction – and why even a family’s best intentions cannot make an addict stay clean.
WHEN A HIGH-PROFILE tragedy happens, the media make a fortune out of it.
It’s big news, it sells papers and pulls in viewers. Public train wrecks are great for business. The constant coverage of Amy Winehouse’s struggle with addiction was a sick form of entertainment. But for families living with alcoholism and addiction it isn’t entertaining. I know my own family was devastated by alcoholism and addiction, seriously destroyed. A lot of families in both Ireland and the UK are facing the same problems.
Photos of a public meltdown don’t tell you anything about the pressures and problems that drive a person into addiction. A lack of acceptance at home drove me. I felt a great sense of loss from a young age. My grandmother reared me until I was three, and when I was taken from that environment and placed in the family home with an alcoholic father, I really felt it. I hated that feeling and I tried to escape into anything and everything. When I found drugs, I thought I’d found a comfort. I didn’t realise how devastating it would be, so I just went for it. I progressed from simple things like cigarettes and cider through the whole lot – from Tipp-Ex, glue and hash to speed, coke and eventually heroin.
When you’re using, you’re not thinking straight. You are consumed with finding ways and means of getting more drugs. The obsession and that compulsion to use is just really heavy. The physical damage can be huge. You don’t eat, so you lose a lot of weight and have no energy. When you use needles you can get abscesses and all sorts of illnesses and infections as well as the big ones, Hep C and HIV (which I was spared thanks to clean needles from Merchants Quay). It’s just devastating.
Psychologically it’s hell. The self loathing is really amplified. You hate yourself and you turn everything inward. It’s a vicious circle. The physical addiction is terrible and the mental obsession and the compulsion to use is so strong, really strong. You feel worthless, thinking you’ll never get out of it and you use more drugs to suppress that hopeless feeling. You just keep pushing stuff down when it comes up, pushing it down and covering it up with more drink and more drugs.
Families try to step in, but they get pushed away. You can bring a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. You can only show them the way, then it’s up to them to do the walking. It’s important that families don’t blame themselves. And don’t forget the other children in the family – because the addict becomes the focus of attention even though it’s negative. The rest of the family needs to be loved and nurtured. They need help dealing with the stress and conflict that addiction creates in the family.
When you finally enter rehab it’s tough. The emotional pain you have to deal with can feel overwhelming. It’s commendable when anyone goes into rehab and stays and sticks with it. It’s really hard. The emotions you have been pushing down with drink and drugs begin to surface. You can start feeling like a ball of shame and guilt and you want to run from that feeling, back to the drugs and drinking. Some people do run and the cycle of self-hatred starts all over again. But many people, like myself, stay and do the hard work it takes to rebuild our self-worth and self-respect. You have to forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made, for the damage you have done to yourself and others. Making amends to your family and rebuilding relationships is all part of the on-going process of recovery.
But many young people aren’t even given the chance for recovery from addiction. I think there should be more focus in Ireland on people getting off drugs, and not just on giving them methadone maintenance. I think the focus should be on rehab beds and detox units that help young people move out of addiction. There are an estimated 20,000 heroin users in Ireland and we have a shortage of 104 detox beds and 252 rehab beds. You can’t break free from addiction if there’s no place to go for help.
Brendan Magee will graduate in 2012 with a Social Science degree from UCD and is an addiction counsellor working toward his IAAAC accreditation. He completed his drug-free rehab at Merchants Quay Ireland.
The current strategy isn’t working. It may seem like compassion, but the rest of us have rights too.
Its not fair to the rest of society that in Dublin the board walk along the Liffey and the O’Connell Street area are dangerous during the day and virtually no go areas at night.
@Fiasco99: If you think that part of town is dangerous, bring your Mommy next time.
@Fiasco99: no go areas? Slight overreaction there surely?
@Val Miggin: honestly, have you been in these areas? Particularly late on a week night when there are few pub goers and especially if it’s a dry night as many of the users choose not to go to a hostel.
It’s not a good place to be. I would not like a family member to be there.
The Gardai choose not to carry out policing here, I assume because it’s pointless bringing the drug users to court for yet another suspended sentence.
Methadone is just a park and containment strategy effectively giving addicts a free heroin substitute. It does nothing to address addiction. It’s obviously been adopted as policy as it is relatively inexpensive and somewhat effective in achieving its limited goals but it offers no real hope to those afflicted most of whom will be on it for the remainder of their shortened lives.
Methadone makes too much money for the health professionals and big pharma , it is the golden cow. It is ten times more addictive than heroin, they do not want to rock the boat.
@Mr Jerry Curtin: Twit.
methadone….I always feel it’s a bit like a cigarette smoker switching to just pipe / or cigar smoking-
@Frank Dubogovik: More like switching from Major to Silk Cut.
Far better to have mandatory residential centres to assist drug addicts get off their addiction
@Stephen Kearon: are you serious !?
@Cathal: sounds like a winner to me.
@Stephen Kearon:
I see your advertising your British poppy again Stephen, any chance Micheal Martin or any one in FF is going to be seen dead wearing one?
I think we need to work on the homeless situation and the issues with the health service . If people really wanted to get of drugs they would .
And trust me I know .
@Greg: really? Is there a magic pill or potion. Utter BS
I was employed as a counsellor for many years in a large methadone clinic in Dublin. Its not true that service users are excluded from a treatment plan . I personally know Doctors ,Counsellors , Nurses, Pharmacists and General assistants who put in many hours encouraging users to take part in treatment programmes. Doctors are very willing to reduce and end Methadone treatment. If the Service users are willing to take an active part in reduction programme’s ,which are available to all Service users. Lynn’s article is not correct in many respects . In order for Doctors or Pharmacists to dispense Methadone they have to carry out specialist intensive training . And the majority of community based Doctors do not have any inclination to do this training , as they do not want to work with those who are abusing drugs. Over the years that I worked in the clinic I saw Gran parents , Parents Daughters and Son’s all from the same family attending for Methadone treatment. For many , addiction passes down through the generations. There are very few programmes or interventions for Young Children to stop them going down the same road as their Parents and Gran Parents. I have also known many S.U who having come off all drugs including Methadone . Relapse because they have to go back and live on the streets or into Hostels that are nothing more than drug den’s with a bed for the night . I think Lynn Ruane would be better employed trying to do something about homelessness and lack of service’s for the Children I mention here. Rather than taking a cheap shot at the Staff in the clinics who are doing their best to provide a good service, under what are often very difficult circumstances.
“service users” watch out for that one.its what they’re calling prisoners now too.
It seems to me methadone sacrifices the individual drug user and their family. It is given to reduce offending and theft etc in cheapest way regardless of if it consigns the drug user into another dependency stupor. Individuals and their children etc deserve the chance to be drug free. Ultimately this will benefit society with functioning individuals and families who can contribute to society. Invest the money into counselling and residential services aimed at getting people drug free not invest in maintenance programmes that lock people into addiction substituting one drug for another
The central issue you highlight is the conceit of doctors, the so called ‘experts’ and how the political establishment is in thrall to their ‘expertise’. Methadone can be a life saver and is for many but many doctors believe that the best that can be achieved is to turn drug users into professional patients but above all also is their belief that they know best when in truth many have minimal understanding of drug users and addiction.
@Liam Hunter: Utter nonsense. You clearly dont know how this operates with individual clients. Maybe ask a GP in a practice that prescribes it.
@Margate: you have no idea how much I know about this..way back before even the protocols… As for ‘utter nonsense’…some of us have profound understanding of this issue going back as far as the eighties…where does yours emanate from ?
Short termism and quick fixes is what our political system and can kicking… the methadone programme is a case and point.
It’s a good time to raise the question Lynn, you may need to take this further in your position as Senator so that the policy is reviewed and recommendations dealt with before another 20 years passes. Good work but more steps are required other than an article in the Journal.
The major issues are policing of clinics , addict goes in to try come off hard drugs and are met on the way out by dealers peddling drugs/tablets . The fact that the clinical staff will not entertain addicts looking to reduce their dose isn’t a surprise when you see the monetary incentive to keep addicts on their books.
It’s a cash cow for doctors administering methadone to addicts.
I look forward to your night in Donore Youth Centrethis coming month. As someone who was involved in Treatment service development in the 90′s in Dublin. It sickening me to my stomach that successive govs pay millions for mrthadone. There’s no stomach by this gov or agencies to setup up a programme that take users of Heroin of methadone to a completely drug free lifestyle….just keep the merry go round spinning for big pharma.
There needs to be investment in residential detox.
Addicts going into prisons should be put on detox.
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