Dying to Survive (27 page)

Most days I got great relief from the meetings. I was in a place where people understood me. There were no authority figures or people threatening to throw me out because I was still on methadone. I was told by many that I had earned my chair and that I was to ‘keep coming back’. Other days I hung on by the ‘skin of my teeth’, but I did my best to listen and to take advice. ‘Do the opposite to what your head tells you,’ I was told. ‘If you feel like using drugs, come to a meeting and tell somebody. Bring the body and the mind will follow.’ I used the clichés as my mantra. All that mattered to me now was that I keep moving forward. And as the days passed by, I became stronger and more determined than
ever
before.

_____

Six weeks had passed and I had abided by my bail conditions. But there was still no sign of an available bed in Cuan Dara. My mother had meant what she had said. She was standing by my side in everything that I did, encouraging me to persevere and to have faith. Both of us knew that a lot of damage had been done between the two of us and we would have a lot of talking to do if we wanted to get on with each other, but now wasn’t the time to think about it. Every day she helped me to dress and bandage my arms. They no longer had gaping wounds on them and it seemed that they were beginning to heal well.

In my desperation to get clean I exposed myself to the media and to the public. It was a last resort to get help for my addiction, but to my astonishment my story exploded onto every newspaper across the country and kept popping up in the following months. I had to keep my two feet firmly on the ground and remember what I had done it all for, to get clean; not to get carried away with the little bit of fame and recognition that I was receiving. My life was at stake and I had to remember who I was and where I wanted to go.

Three months had passed now and my frustration was growing over the lack of available beds in any suitable detox unit. And when Sky News asked me if they could make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about my journey through recovery, to follow up on their original story about my addiction, I agreed. Someone once told me that desperation was ‘a gift’. A gift that gives you the ability to run through brick walls. I had that gift now. I had been to hell and back and if I could get through all that, I could get through absolutely anything. All of a sudden I had a great confidence and an enthusiasm that I had never possessed before. I was no longer afraid to face up to myself or anyone else for that matter. I wasn’t going to play a role that others had chosen for me any more. I would be myself, rotten arms and all, and if you didn’t like me, then you could ‘Kiss my arse’.

Sky News used me for a good story and I used them to show people the reality of addiction and the third-world facilities that we have in Ireland for people who were seeking treatment. I had now been waiting for four months to go into Cuan Dara and I still hadn’t used heroin. I was doing everything that I could possibly think of to push my case forward. Becoming an annoyance to anyone who had the power to help me, even storming Dáil Éireann and confronting the minister responsible for the government’s drug strategy. Why was I waiting this long? I demanded to know. I was going to lose both my arms if I didn’t receive help. The minister, who was sitting on a panel with his fellow politicians, had a look of puzzlement on his face, and beads of sweat ran down his forehead. He didn’t reply to my question.

_____

The drugs had taken their toll on my health. My body was still very weak and I spent my twenty-eighth birthday in hospital. At first the doctors thought that I had tuberculosis, but I was later to learn that I had residual heroin attached to my lungs. This blockage and lack of oxygen resulted in bad circulation and clubbing of my fingers. I also learned that I had hepatitis C. But this only made me more determined to become drug-free. Two days after my birthday a bed became available for me in Cuan Dara. I thought that I couldn’t get there quick enough and as soon as I arrived I broke down, crying with relief. I had made it. The nightmare was over now. I knew exactly what to expect this time and I knew exactly what I had to do. And come hell or high water, I would stick it out.

After six days of being weaned off methadone, I was completely drug-free and for six weeks after that I crawled the walls, suffering with the usual aches and pains and insomnia. I cried my heart out and laughed my head off, but mostly I was full of anger and rage. I was adamant that people treat me with respect and I wasn’t letting anyone away with anything. I would no longer say ‘yes’ when I meant ‘no’. Almost everyone got an earful off me. My counsellor, my doctor, even some of the other clients. If anyone attempted to try and drag me down, I was ready physically to harm them. I was fighting for my life here. I exhausted every facility that was on offer. Every bit of energy that I had channelled into my drug addiction was now being channelled into my recovery.

When my six weeks of detox ended in Cuan Dara I was offered a place in a rehabilitation centre called Keltoi. I was clean now and I had already done work on myself in Cuan Dara and was in danger of being complacent. What did I need with another rehab? I was sorted, I thought. I had broken the hold heroin had on me and had promised myself I’d never look back. Then I was reminded by my good friend Declan, whom I had met in
NA
, that this was my addiction talking, speaking to me in my own voice and convincing me that I was sorted. After talking to Declan, I realised that I was actually terrified of going back into rehab: I wasn’t sure I could face further confrontation with myself and others, more First Steps and constant questioning of my motives. But Declan encouraged me to persist, telling me that the longest journey I would ever make would be the journey from my head to my heart. Going into Keltoi would be the beginning of that journey. I felt as though I were jumping off a cliff.

Declan had surprised me throughout my relapse. I had ducked and dived from
NA
members all through it, but for some reason I kept bumping into him. I knew that my relapse had affected him deeply, but he’d managed to stay clean. Every time I saw him when I was using, he offered to help me. He believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. My relapse taught me who my real friends were and I knew that Declan was one of them. It was karma that Declan should be with me now.

_____

Keltoi means ‘the hidden people,’ and is neatly tucked away in the largest park in Ireland. It didn’t look anything like a treatment centre to me. It was a three-storey yellow building that looked more like a modern respite home. Keltoi took in eight clients over the space of eight weeks, which created an intimacy between the staff and clients, and on my first day in Keltoi I was introduced to everyone including the dog. Most of the clients I already knew from Narcotics Anonymous, which made me feel more at ease. There were seven of us in total, five men and a girl with whom had I been through Cuan Dara.

I felt as though I were walking into the Little House on the Prairie. Everything seemed so peaceful and harmonious, right down to the deer who happily nibbled on the grass and lounged around in the garden. I was used to the confrontational approach of therapy, where I was vigilantly observed by staff and clients alike and ruthlessly made aware of my character defects. Keltoi was something completely different. Clients were expected to find their own answers within themselves. The six counsellors on site were there to gently challenge us and nudge us in the right direction.

I had been half expecting somebody to jump out at me and frog-march me into group therapy, where I would be torn apart for being such a bold girl. But that never happened. Everyone was warm and friendly, to the point where I was starting to think that it was all a set-up. I wasn’t used to people being so nice to me without looking for something in return. There were lots of surprises at Keltoi. When dinner time came, two of the staff sat down at the table to eat with the clients. This was a first. Usually in treatment centres the staff eat their meals in a separate room, but I was told that nobody was above or below anybody else in Keltoi. Everything that the clients did, the staff did. We worked together and we ate together. There was no ‘us’ and ‘them’.

The daily routine was laid-back but structured. Breakfast began at ten and we weren’t allowed to eat until everyone was at the breakfast table. Then we would all sit around together and go over our plan for the day. Each of us had a duty to carry out, whether it was working in the kitchen preparing home-made meals from scratch, or cleaning the house. We were kept occupied from ten o’clock in the morning until lunchtime. When we were finished our lunch we had free time until two o’clock. This was when group therapy took place.

At my first day in group I was told to introduce myself and to sit back and take in how the group worked. I couldn’t believe it. The conversation was light on the head and it focused on the here and the now. There was no ‘deep-sea diving’ into the past. It was suggested that unless we really needed to share something of a delicate nature, we could hold onto it until we had our one-to-one session with a counsellor of our choice. But seeing a counsellor needed to be planned one week in advance, so I immediately put in a request to see each and every one of them. Group therapy ended at around three-thirty. Then we were free until six o’clock when we had our tea. At seven-thirty we had a wind-down group, taking twenty minutes to reflect on the highs and lows of our day. After wind-down we were free to watch television or just hang out together until it was time to go to bed.

And that was it. That was Keltoi in a bag. I had never experienced anything like it in my life. Used to guessing what others wanted of me in treatment and giving it to them, I found Keltoi a shock to begin with. No-one gave me orders or showed me what to do, nobody told me what they were thinking. And I
really
needed to know what everyone was thinking. That way I would know where I stood. But it wasn’t a game. It appeared to be the most ‘normal’ treatment centre I had ever come across. I was later to learn that Keltoi was designed that way on purpose: being left to our own devices in a safe place would teach us self-reliance and self-trust. And after two weeks I began to really feel at home.

_____

I had never been one for hanging out with the girls. My experiences in prison had turned me off them and, in spite of everything I had gone through with men, I had always felt more comfortable with them. But things had changed with me this time. I planned to stay as far away from men as possible and to start making friendships with women as Katriona, my
NA
sponsor, had advised me. This would be difficult for me. I couldn’t manipulate women. They would see right through me. But then I remembered that I no longer had the need to manipulate anyone. I had nothing to hide and people’s opinions of me didn’t matter any more.

Rachel and I didn’t see eye to eye at first, in spite of sharing the same name. She had come into Cuan Dara two weeks after me. She was the same age and she had the same taste in clothes. We should have had a lot in common, but I had no idea how to approach her. We tried to be polite to each other, but we avoided being left alone together at all costs. I knew that we had to clear the air, but I had no idea what I would say to her. So I decided to just be honest. We both sat alone together and I told Rachel how much I admired her for sticking with the detox and coming into rehab, as it was her first time. It had taken me ten years to get this far. She then told me how much she admired me and had secretly done so, even in Cuan Dara. But her fear of women had got the better of her.

The more that I spoke to Rachel, the more I realised how much we had in common. We both loved dancing, music and singing. After that initial chat, we became firm friends, so much so that within two weeks, the other clients were jokingly accusing myself and Rachel of being co-dependent. (That’s how rehab is. You enter with one addiction and all of a sudden you have dozens of them!) But the counsellors encouraged our friendship: we had missed out on so many years of doing girlie things and Keltoi gave us the freedom to make up for lost time.

Rachel and I spent most of our free time together, telling each other our innermost secrets, heartily laughing together about embarrassing things that we had done in our addiction and at times crying together with the sheer relief of being clean and having each other to share it with. Any chance we got, we made up dances, chatted about fashion and defended each other in group therapy. I was learning all over again what it meant to have a girlfriend and to be a girlfriend.

_____

My time in Keltoi would be over in the blink of an eye and I planned to make the best of it. I had learned so much about myself and my addiction over the years and my relapses hadn’t taken that away from me. I had no question in my mind or any doubt about whether or not I was an addict. No matter what I did, I couldn’t use
any
mood-altering substance without it having devastating consequences. I truly accepted this now without any reservation. My addiction was intricately part of my make-up. If I really wanted to recover I would have to change
everything
: my thinking, my behaviour, my perception of myself
and
of the world around me. Day by day I would have to learn how to live with that. Keltoi was teaching me how to put into practice all that I had learned.

My new-found ability to do things that had been beyond my control in the past made me question my belief in a power greater than myself. Did I even believe in God any more, or was I the one who was doing all the work and not God? I couldn’t deny the fact that I had escaped death on more than one occasion. Was that just luck or coincidental? Was I making things harder for myself by believing in God, or had I
really
been carried through my addiction by a higher power? If I was, why me? Why had so many of my friends died and not me? I wasn’t sure. But I had always been certain of the fact that when I meditated and I stilled my mind I was no longer tormented by my addiction. I somehow found a strength which surpassed my own capabilities.