Wasted

by Brian O'Connell

  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.

  When I came in here I was talking about the drinking and I said maybe it was a gene because my dad was an alcoholic. Everyone was saying, ‘You can’t be blaming your dad.’ I reckon, though, it was just a case of as soon as I got a taste for it I couldn’t stop.

  I never had a problem getting served and anyway, I always hung around with lads older who got drink for me. In here I’m not around the streets, starting fights or getting beaten up. I reckon it would be better if there were a few more treatment centres around.

  [A] few of the guys I hung around with could end up in here. Some of them will never try to stop and they would have been saying to me when I came in here—‘you’re a quitter’ and that. But I don’t give a shit. Their life is going to be ruined and I’m going to get mine back. I have to stay off it this time. I owe dealers money and they have been calling to my house threatening to break my legs and that. I was always hanging around with older people. When I was nine years of age in England I was hanging out with eighteen-year-olds.

  Most people in Ireland don’t mind the fact I have an English accent. But anyway, fuck them if they do. Whatever happened eight hundred years ago is not my fault. My brother got put in hospital once—someone slashed him a few times. My mum is glad I’m here now. She was always worried where I was. There were times when I wouldn’t answer my phone for days and would just disappear. She’d be driving around the whole city looking for me.

  The worst thing parents can do, I think, is have a go at their kids when they come back drunk, shouting at them or whatever. That’s stupid. Whenever my mam does it, it just makes me want to go out and drink again. I think if parents approach the situation with a little more calm. I have four weeks left here. I do my Leaving Cert Applied when I get out. Think I will stay home and out of everyone’s way when I get out and try getting a new crowd to fall in with. If I go back to the way I was, I�
�m going to end up dead and I know that for a fact.

  ‘Paul’ is 19 and from the South. His father has chronic liver disease and introduced Paul to alcohol at a young age.

  I was here last year and stayed for eight weeks and was sent home. To be honest I didn’t change the places I hung around in or the fellas I hung around with so I’m back here.

  When I left the first time, I never thought I’d smoke heroin and I smoked heroin about three months ago. I only smoked it for three or four nights and then I stopped. I had no intention of smoking heroin but when I had eight bottles of Bulmers drank, I thought, ‘Here, fuck it, give me the heroin and show me how to do it.’

  I’m drinking since I was thirteen years of age. It has had a big effect on my life. My father gave me my first drink. He gave me a can. He was drunk one night and he said, ‘Come on in.’ He needed someone to drink with so I started to drink with him. The next day he brought me out to the pub and he gave me a pint outside. He just wanted a drinking buddy, as he didn’t like drinking on his own. He wanted someone to talk to and have a singsong with and have a few jokes and talk about his past. I have been drinking with him ever since. It got heavier and heavier. First I might have had vodka and a few cans. Drugs got worse. I’d drink a litre of vodka and be drunk so I’d take a line of coke to wake myself up. Drink another litre of vodka then.

  On a night out I could have two bags of cans, vodka, whiskey, anything I could get my hands on. Anything I could rob. Anything. I started to rob my family and going through a bad way. I lost my mother when I was sixteen. Three years ago. I couldn’t deal with it. That’s when I started going on the drugs, you know, to take the pain away. My dad is still drinking. He has cirrhosis of the liver and he was asked to go to the hospital and basically he stuck up his finger at the doctors. He keeps passing blood and his legs are very skinny. He can’t sleep and can’t eat, just drinking and drinking.

  It’s Ireland, though, and as far as I can see, everybody drinks. I think the place has gone to the dogs, to be honest. I was drinking in pubs at the age of sixteen with my dad. I used to get money off my dad for drink. Sometimes I’d go robbing CD players out of cars and selling them. I broke into houses and stole plasma TVS. I even broke into my school and robbed four computers out of it.

  My dad admitted last year that he is an alcoholic. He went to Bushy Park for three months. The day he got out he told my sister he was just going down to pay the ESB bill. When she went down to the ESB to see what was keeping him, he was in the pub next door. My granddad was a madman for drink too. He passed it onto my father, so it’s in the genes. But then, sometimes it’s not all about the genes. It’s not as if my father held me down and poured that can down my throat. It was my choice. That’s the way I see it.

  I dropped out of school before my Junior Cert and went straight into FÁS working. I was there for two years. But I’m always getting arrested for theft, burglary and assault. I tried to commit suicide twice. I put a rope around my neck and a friend saved me. Another time I had to get twenty stitches in my hand. I went into my bathroom and got a razor and just started slicing. I wouldn’t do it when I was sober. Not once. It’s a disease. I have to stop, because if not, the next time I pick up a drink I’ll be dead.

  Most of the people I know are saying, ‘Ah sure when you get out you know you’ll go drinking again.’ This time, though, I’m going straight into a halfway house for three months. After that I’m hoping to move to Wexford or Waterford and get a flat. You know, get away from the places where I grew up.

  The more I look at it it’s getting better and better for me. I want to be a mechanic or a mason. I have a failing to appear in court and a bench warrant out on me for assault, but I have a drugs taskforce officer looking into it for me. When I get out it’s going to be very tempting. I don’t know what’ll happen. I might last and I mightn’t last. There are adverts on the television, it’s on posters and there’s a pub on every corner. I’ll just have to pick up the phone and call someone. I was in foster care after my mum died. They told me, you get help for you[r] drink or you’re getting thrown out. So I decided to come here to this centre. I was only doing it to keep a roof over my head. But four weeks into it I started to realise that my life was a disaster. All the damage I had caused. It hit me. The only person I know that doesn’t drink is my brother.

  With my dad, though, there’s no hope for him. He said he doesn’t care. He stays on the couch with his bottle of Paddy and his bottle of vodka and drinks away. He only uses the car to go to the off-licence and back. He keeps saying he has nothing to live for. We have a good relationship since I came in here. He can see me improving. It’s very safe in here. You’re not afraid of people knocking on your door. You’re away from drugs. People in here actually listen to you. If you tried to say what you were feeling on the outside, they’ll tell you to cop on or fuck off.

  I think the government need to open up more treatment centres. There should be more clubs and organisations to take fellas like me away from the streets or even away for the weekend.

  I only went drinking because of courage to talk to boys and girls and go dancing and stuff. I was very shy. Give me about eight cans and I’d talk to anyone and dance and [do] all sorts of things. Nearly everybody I know is like that. It is getting worse if you ask me.

  ——

  Okay, so not every child in Ireland who opens their parents’ drinks cabinet or drinks a can of cider in a field will end up in the Aislinn Centre. By choosing to present these testimonies, I could be accused of distorting the general experience for Irish adolescents. But these testimonies are real. They exist.

  The fact remains also that for those who take a wrong turn or develop an addiction at a young age, specific treatment services and approaches are wholly underdeveloped and underformalised in this country. With an adolescent drinking problem as well-signed as ours, it seems a glaring oversight on behalf of government not to provide enough treatment facilities. We’re very good on reports, not so on rehabilitation, it seems.

  Perhaps, though, there is not enough societal pressure to enable a response. In communities such as the one I visited in Clare, the community is aware the society exists. But there is little discussion, few collective efforts made to get to grips with the problem.

  Unlike Copenhagen, where ‘outside the box’ thinking is being applied to the problem of youth drinking, from parental consensus to initiatives such as the Night Ravens, in Ireland we seem to still have a one-dimensional and somewhat wish-based approach.

  Government would like for children not to start drinking so young. Secondary school students, like those in Clare, express a desire for something else to do. So, despite arthouse and mainstream cinemas, more theatres and arts centres, specific youth-orientated gigs, an infrastructure of bowling and arcade centres, well funded sports facilities, additional skate parks and more opportunities for international travel, there is still nothing for young people to do except get out of it. Until parents are able to provide an example of life without alcohol abuse, then perhaps youth-orientated thinking will continue to be blurry. The focus therefore needs to be more on parents than policies, more on personal responsibility than limiting access. Generations of Irish children grow up seeing alcohol as part of their parents’ lives and experience. The token dialogue we have been having with youths is clearly inadequate and needs to be sharper, more relevant and less preachy. It needs to talk about issues such as emotional need, love, friendship, sexual health, peer pressure, respect and social acceptability.

  A recent EU survey pointed out that the cost of alcohol misuse in the EU is estimated at about €125 billion, equivalent to 1.3 per cent of gross domestic product. So in a very real sense, addressing the problem at a young age saves society, financially and socially. With the real cost of alcohol in Ireland dropping at an alarming rate in the past two decades, and youngsters having more disposable income, coupled with the altering of traditional family structure, a perfect storm for the acceleration of
alcohol abuse has been raging. Little has been done to have young persons speak to young persons to allow the dialogue between policymakers, health officials and others to include those most in need. The Pioneer movement are calling for abstinence for all under-18-year-olds—yet that already exists in law in Ireland. What’s needed is a maturing of attitudes and a stricter enforcement of present legislation. The government sees the problem as parents’ responsibility. Parents see it as a government problem. The health lobby sees the problem but can’t get action to tackle it. The drinks industry sees the problem but takes small, somewhat insignificant steps to tackle it. In the meantime, the cycle continues.

  Niall Toibin, Actor

  I started drinking before I joined the Civil Service. I was put in a new section with fellas just discharged from the Army. On pay day they would bring me down to the pub and of course I would be pissed out of my mind, and I wasn’t even eighteen years of age.

  These boys would really give it a lash, and that was normally on payday, which was twice a month. At a young age it was regarded as absolutely natural that this was what you did. They regarded me as a sort of mascot. Of course, I was also great use as I was the only one who spoke Irish very well. A lot of stuff that came up though the Department would have Irish in it—forms and so on—so they came to rely on me. It was the Statistics Department and the job we were working on was a tabulation of the 1946 census. It was the first time any kind of mechanical information-gathering was in use, at a time when statistics and all that were in their infancy. Everything was punched onto cards and they were fed into machines and so on. Some of the equipment was so new that if you put your foot on the pedal and kept it there for an extra ten seconds, the machine would go on fire. Of course the engineer would have to be called from the firm that supplied the stuff and we would all have three or four hours off. They twigged to that in due course, but is just shows you how basic the whole thing was. I mean, it was like being there at the invention of the typewriter. Here we were two hundred years later at the start of the electronic revolution, and I was beginning my drinking life.