Jamie, 20
I am an addict. I’ve been addicted to drink, drugs and gambling for 7 years.
My mother and father split up when I was younger and after this I guess I thought I was the man of the house when living with my family. I shut myself off from them and did my own thing. I started drinking at the age of 13 and I started smoking hash at this time as well. I now see I was an addict from day one. As soon as I started class A drugs such as E’s and speed I fell in love with drugs. I was still “half” going to school at this time because half the time I would mitch to go smoking hash or gambling and when I was in school I would always be stoned. I managed to complete my junior cert and barely pass it, I guess I really did this to keep my mother happy and I left afterwards. That summer I started an apprenticeship. I lasted eight months at this, eventually they got sick of me not turning up and this was the first and last time I had a job.
This is when things got really bad. I was using a lot of drugs and I had no way to pay for them so I started dealing to feed my habit. This lasted for about 6 months until one week I had about one thousand pounds I owed and I drugged it all away. There was only one other way for me to feed my habit – robbing. And when I went robbing I really went robbing. I turned into a kleptomaniac. After a couple of months of being gone for days and weeks and Guards calling to the house, my mother had enough and she threw me out of home and I don’t blame her either.
My robbing and drug taking just got worse and worse. I was a speed-freak. I was taking speed for twelve months solid. I would stay awake for about five, six or sometimes seven days and then sleep for about 2 days and as soon as I woke, I was back on the “buzz.” After this I was staying everywhere and anywhere. I wasn’t washing, eating or sleeping. I was like something out of concentration camp. I weighed about eight stone and I am 5’11. About two weeks before my 18th birthday I had taken a load of D10’s and I fell out a three-storey window. I escaped with a broken back and a sprained ankle. You would think this would have been enough to make me stop and think, but two days out of the hospital I took a few E’s and off with the back brace and back on the “buzz” again. I didn’t last too long more, a couple of months and my fun was over.
I first got in trouble with the Guards when I was 14 and they would pull me in and question me over things but this time it was different, they had evidence.
I came out of the station with 10 charges, four of them burglary. So when I was 18, my first time in court I got 18 months in prison. In a way I was lucky because if I had got caught from everything I did, I would have got about 7 to 10 years.
All the time I was in prison I was still using and all I could think of was what I would do when I got out, robbing and drug wise. Two weeks out and I was back to my old ways but worse. About 6 months later I got my last warning and my worst experience of my life. Me and my friend were out taking E’s and speed and my friend passed away when it was just the two of us there. I ended up in a Maximum Security Mental Hospital for 10 days and to make it worse when I came out I had to face more court and burglary charges.
Then I heard about Aislinn I didn’t really want to come here but I did. The first week was hell because I had so much hurt inside me and I felt isolated from counsellors and peers. As the days and weeks went on I opened up and started to listen and I realised bottling up my feelings and fighting the staff was never going to work. You’ll never get treatment if you don’t work with the peers and staff. The things that worked for me were having one to ones with peers and staff. Talking openly within the group about my addiction and everything that goes with it. The steps 1, 2, 3 also helped me. The first step opened my eyes to what I was really like through my addiction and steps 2 and 3 are all about believing that a power greater than you, could be guiding you through life.
The one thing that stands out in my head is one of the questions in an interview I did here. Most of the time addiction ends up in prison, institutions, death or recovery and I have seen three out of these four so I think its time for me to give recovery a good go. I have finished my six weeks here but I know my recovery is only started. One bit of advice: if I can do it, anyone can.