I used to be so far up the river nile in denial.

It all started so innocently. I had a headache one morning on my way to work and I popped into a pharmacy in Notting Hill, London near where I used to live. Got to work, poured myself a cup of coffee and popped two nurofen plus (codeine and paracetamol) into my mouth and thus began my life as an addict. A couple of months later I had a different route to work each workday so that I could pop into a chemist and pick up a box of pills. The only person aware of my buzz was myself. The chemist couldnt police it as I was only popping into each one on different days, there were no alarm bells ringing, I had covered my tracks. Active addicts often state that the substance of choice makes them feel whole as a person, that something in their lives had been previously missing and this must be what it is like to feel normal, to be able to deal with the daily stresses or social situations. I was living it.

I was a trendy person, very busy on the London club scene. I burnt the nocturnal lamp oil often getting home at 6.00am to be up and out the door to the office at 8.00pm. I remember my first Ecstacy tablet and was it seemed like I had arrived. I had always been a shy person but Ectasy made me sociable and loved up. Little did I realise that I was a sweaty freak with no boundaries. At the height of my Ecstacy phase it was a quite common experience for me and my druggy friends, because lets face we wouldnt want normal dull people around us ruining our buzz, to sit on top of the bass bins, pop my selection of party pills, black out and wake up 5 hours later with the flourescent lights blazing as the bouncers emptied the club.

After a couple of years of this the honeymoon period in my relationship with my club drugs faded I noticed crushing depressions mid week. I fueled these with benzodiazepines to feel what I thought was normal. Soon I was doctor shopping, there were no controls in place at that time and it was easy to visit different surgeries. I was soon conversant in benzodiazepine language, long acting, short acting, half lives, hypnotics, anxiolytics, sedatives, diazepam,ativan,nitrazepam, clonazepam, temazepam, oxazepam, librium, imovane. I had a shopping list.

I was taking pills to sleep, pills to wake up, pills to be a sociable person and to dance and pills to come down.

A while later I was introduced to my best friend Charlie. We developed a friendship that was incestuous almost. I was never very far from Charlie. He came to work with me as he helped me get through Boardroom presentations that I was always giving. When I had to travel with work he met me in Berlin, Paris and Vienna. Charlie was everywhere. Soon I was nicknamed Charlie's paddy as everybody knew where ever Paddy was Charlie was never far behind.

Then Charlie and I had a falling out and I felt rotten. I was devastated. I realised I couldnt get enough of charlie. I had fallen on hard times and money was short and I noticed that Charlie only seemed to like me when I was flush with money. He became elusive for a while. But soon enough God was good and normal financial services resumed. We picked up where we had left off. I noticed that Charlie seemed different this time. He was great to be around alright but he didnt seem to stay as long with me but was giving other people more attention. I wasnt getting the same vibe as I used to get around him. One New Years Eve a whole bunch of us went clubbing and Charlie came along with me. I had been saying to myself the previous couple of weeks that I had enough of Charlie and wanted to move on so I decided that this particular New Year's eve would be our last time and I would make it a night to remember a real blow out. So along we went with everybody and did our usual sacred pill taking. It was great and I danced and danced. But then E wore off and I said to Charlie to come along to the bathroom with me. I locked myself into a cubicle with Charlie and we got it together. Within minutes a voice loomed over my head, I looked up and a bouncer was looking larger than life down at me from the top of the door demanding that I come out. I looked about and there was Charlie spread all over the top of the cistern in his glorious white powder form, charlie had turned into my worst nightmare I was caught with Cocaine. Charlie is a street name for Cocaine.

I do not remember what ensued because I was so desperate in my addiction that before I opened the cubicle door I snorted what must have been almost a gram of the stuff.

Twelve hours later I was 35,000 feet up in the air, panicking, wondering what was going to face me and how much did my parents know. There is nothing more shameful to an addict than an addiction exposed. The air hostess look at me almost knowingly and asked me if I was alright. I winced and said I needed some sleep. We touched down in Dublin and it never looked so grey and I never looked so frightened. My parents greeted me, not really knowing what to say. I think they were as much in denial as I was. The family GP was on hand, a sage man who knew more about me than I knew about myself. I was shipped off to a rehab. Rehabs were very much in vogue at the time and I thought I had arrived, now I was in rehab Hollywood stick that in your eye! I came out 28 days later detoxed alright but resistant to my enemy NA. They said I had to put my trust in God, my so called higher power to be cured or so I reasoned. Why on earth would any higher power allow a person to become addicted to drugs. I went to one meeting and thought everybody was a freak at it. Their addiction and what they did to feed their addiction was every bit more worse than I ever was. There were heroin addicts and Meth addicts, who frigthened the life out of me and as far as I was concerend I wasnt one of them. I checked out of rehab and checked out of recovery.

The consequence of all this drug taking was a bipolar diagnosis. I had sailed right up the river nile angry and in denial alright. I embraced my diagnosis and found out as much about it as I could and realised that the poison I had put in my body was destablising my mood. I stopped the clubbing scene. I stopped the recreational drug scene. I did all the right things except I didnt stop my addiction. I was slowly realising than any mood altering substance was addictive to me. I knew what I had to do. I read and read and kept on telling myself tomorrow I will do something about it. I had a eureka moment when I realised that whether I was actively taking drugs or not I was an addict. I had disturbing dreams about taking drugs, I craved them night and day. I was in effect setting myself up for a fall. I had nothing to support me in my silence.

Then like many addicts I reached my nemisis - Ritalin. It even scares me to type the name of that drug. I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin. Like a good addict I researched everything about it and I found a site on the net that graded drugs for highs, and lo and behold ritalin was pretty much top of the list when you snorted it. But hey its a prescribed drug I said to myself so its ok.

Six months later illegaly buying online from the Phillipines to support my habit I crashed into a deep death defying depression. The deepest darkest abyss I had ever crawled into. I couldnt get out of it. I wanted to die but didnt know how. On a sunday evening alone in my apartment I googled rehabs in europe. I couldnt go back to Ireland because that would be admitting to my family that I had failed and I was full fo shame. I found a facility in southern europe that looked good, had good testimonials and did the twelve steps. So I phoned the emergency number and a beautiful soft voice answered and I knew I was safe. It was the best call I ever made and within two days I was there and on my first steps to recovery. It was tough, I found a lot out about myself that I didnt like I must admit but I felt safe and I was in the company of other addicts who knew where I was at. An addict cannot hide from another addict, we know what is going on. It was very supportive and I enjoyed the twelve step process, I realised that the Higher Power so often spoke about could be anything of my choosing so long as it gave spiritual hope and healing. When I graduated, as they say, from the treatment centre my first port of call when I got home to where I live was to attend a meeting. I suppose in a way it is true that one can also become addicted to NA , but hey some years clean later its better to be addicted to NA than addicted to a chemical substance.

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