Dying to Survive (2 page)

_____

When I opened my eyes the next morning I found myself looking into the faces of my mother and Neil.

Nobody knew about my escape from the garda station, apart from my auntie Jacqueline, my mother’s sister. Although she was forty to my twenty-seven, Jacqueline was more like a sister to me and we shared a flat. It was she who had met up with me the night before to give me a lend of some money. Jacqueline knew the extent of my drug use and had witnessed it first hand. She was devastated by my behaviour, but she couldn’t bear to see me going through withdrawals, so she had reluctantly handed me fifty euro, kissed me on the cheek and told me to be careful.

That night, I arrived home to an empty flat, not knowing or caring where Neil was. I just wanted the pain to go away and for my head to stop racing. But it never did. No matter how many drugs I used, or how much I ran, I couldn’t escape from my own conscience, my own self-built prison. After fourteen years of drug abuse, I couldn’t live with drugs and I couldn’t live without them. Most of the veins in my arms had collapsed or had thrombosis, along with those in my neck and my groin, from constant drug use. This made using heroin an impossible task, but even this didn’t stop me. After many hours of trying to inject into open wounds, I finally got some sort of relief for myself, knowing too well that I would have to do it all over again the next day.

My poor mother sat beside me now, looking bewildered, as I told her and Neil what had happened. ‘If you were left on the moon, ye would still find a way to get off; we can’t leave you anywhere, woman,’ Neil said, trying to lighten the mood, as he always did. But my mother’s face told a different story. She looked as though she had aged ten years and at any given moment she would explode. She was angry at me for doing a runner, but she was even angrier at the gardaí for not giving me the right treatment. After many years of trying to understand my addiction, my mother had finally come to the realisation that it wasn’t because I was morally desolate or incompetent. I had an illness. One that was affecting and rippling through my whole family and needing to be treated immediately. The trouble was, I couldn’t get the treatment I needed. All of the treatment centres had lengthy waiting lists—at least six weeks—and the one thing I didn’t have was time. I knew that if I didn’t get the treatment I needed soon, I would die. Every day I was becoming more and more sick: my weight had plummeted to just under seven stone. I was a regular patient at the Mater Hospital, either because of my increasing number of overdoses, or because my arms were at risk of being amputated. Even going to my methadone clinic was becoming too much of an ordeal.

‘Rachael, do you remember I was telling you about that journalist who was interested in seeing the way your arms are?’ my mother interrupted my thoughts. ‘Well, he said that he would do an article about the lack of treatment and the way you can’t get help anywhere. Do you want me to take photographs of your arms and I’ll show them to him? All we can do is try. He might be able to help you,’ my mother suggested.

‘Are you for real? Why would I want to put myself out there to be judged and criticised? I do that enough myself.’ Going to the papers with my story was the last thing I wanted to do. Nobody wants to be exposed as a drug addict, especially one with a history like mine. I could barely understand the nature of my own addiction and I certainly didn’t expect others to understand. With such stigma and shame attached to drug use, people just didn’t want to know. Junkies like me were pushed to the side and marginalised as though we had leprosy. Like some sort of forgotten race.

But, although the thoughts of going to the papers frightened the living daylights out of me, after months of trying to get into different treatment centres and being constantly met with red tape, I knew it was my only and final resort. People’s judgments and opinions didn’t really matter any more. After all, nobody could hurt me as much as I was hurting myself and I was getting top marks for that. ‘Yeah, ok then, I’ll do it. I have nothing to lose,’ I assured my mother. There and then she went and got the camera, took the photographs and off she went up to the
Irish Independent
.

_____

I hadn’t moved out of the armchair in my flat since I’d escaped from Pearse Street the previous day. My mother, Jacqueline and Neil kept coming and going in and out of the flat as though they were on some sort of secret mission, whispering amongst themselves and every so often trying to have conversations with me. But I had no idea what they were talking about. I was stoned out of my head on Dalmane sleeping tablets—God knows where I got them from.

My mother came into the room now. ‘Rachael, look, you’re in the paper,’ she said as she placed a copy of the
Irish Independent
on my lap. There I was in black and white, arms held out to the nation, looking like something from a horror movie. It was too surreal for me to take in. The girl on the page didn’t look like me. I knew I looked a little bit broken, but I never realised it was this bad.

Over the next few days my flat became like a circus, with a whirlwind of curious journalists and photographers asking personal questions and wanting to take photographs of my arms. I faced a barrage of questions:

‘How did your arms get so bad?’

‘Is that just from using drugs?’

‘What age were you when you started using drugs?’

‘How are you feeding your habit?’

I wanted my voice to be heard but I also knew that I had to be very careful how I answered these questions. I was extremely sceptical of a lot of these journalists and I didn’t want to be exploited in any way. All that I wanted was to get into a treatment centre and get clean.

I was twenty-seven years of age and I had been in and out of treatment centres since I was thirteen. I had tried everything: religious retreats, locking myself into my bedroom and going through cold turkey, holistic therapy. I had been to Cuba, Texas and Italy in search of a cure for my addiction, but even travelling around the world didn’t work. I now know that it was because I had never got clean for the right reasons. It was either for my family’s sake, or because I had burned so many bridges and had run out of people to fool and manipulate. I had been given so many chances without having to work for a thing. Every excuse under the sun had been exhausted by me to enable my drug use. People eventually grew tired of my lies and false promises and it was only a matter of time before I was left on my own. Between 2004 and now, 2006, I had been more or less left to my own devices: people got on with their lives and I was the one who was left in the gutter. It was the loneliest time of my life.

But, as difficult as this was for myself and my family, being left on my own was my saving grace. It helped me to realise that, by taking drugs, I was fooling nobody but myself. I could no longer point my finger and blame others for my addiction. I couldn’t blame my mother and her decision to leave when I was just seven; I could no longer blame my father and his own drug addiction and the fact that he had never been a father to me in any way; I couldn’t blame my grandfather John and the tension his unpredictability caused within the family. Now, I was on my own.

But this time, my family agreed to support me if I was willing to meet them half-way. If I wanted to get clean and stay clean I would have to face up to my own demons and take full responsibility for my own actions. However, in order for me to do this, I needed to come off the drugs first. Something drastic needed to happen—and it needed to happen very quickly.

I had given the gardaí at Pearse Street my grandmother’s address in Ballymun, so they had no idea where to find me. My mother was bombarded with calls from the gardaí, insisting that she get me to hand myself in. But my mother refused. She told them that unless they could promise her that I would receive proper medical treatment, she wouldn’t give me up. We knew that it wouldn’t be long before they found out where I was.

After two or three days of my story being highlighted in the papers, everything became strangely quiet. My mother’s phone stopped ringing. There didn’t seem to be any further interest in my plea for help. My fears, that nobody would want to know or even care, seemed to be confirmed. I sat on my own in my bedroom, incapable of seeing the wood for the trees, but I was certain of one thing: my next destination would be death, or worse, the Dóchas women’s prison. I cried like a baby and fell to my knees, begging God to give me one more chance, promising that I would do my best this time, that I would never hurt myself or those around me ever again.

Later on that night, my mother received a phone call. I could hear her talking and sounding very upset. ‘We don’t know what to do, Alison. Nothing seems to be working. She’s very sick and we really need to get her into a treatment centre as soon as possible...She’s with me now. Would you like to talk to her? Rachael, somebody wants to talk to you,’ my mother said, handing me the phone.

The voice at the other end sounded friendly. ‘Hiya, Rachael, my name is Alison O’Reilly. I’m a journalist at Sky News Ireland. I have been following your story and I was wondering if it would be possible to meet up with you? Your mother was just telling me that you really want to get into a detox centre and we think we might be able to help you. Would you be interested in doing an interview for Sky News? It would be broadcast in both England and Ireland and a lot of people will be watching. So you’ll have more of a chance of getting help.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. She had to be winding me up. How on earth could something as big as Sky News want someone like me—strung out to bits—to be on their show. It just wasn’t possible. Only the likes of Tony Blair and people of high status went onto Sky News. But even then, I knew Alison genuinely wanted to help me. For some reason I felt like I could really trust her. That night myself and Alison spoke to each other for hours and she promised me that she would come and see me the next day to do the interview.

_____

‘What are ye like, ye lucky little bitch, getting to go on Sky News. Sure we’ll have ye lookin’ like Christina Aguilera in no time,’ Neil said jokingly as he styled and transformed my hair into big tumbling curls.

‘Rachael, don’t be getting yourself all dolled up. You’re not going on the Rose of Tralee,’ my mother said, looking at myself and Neil as though we were deranged. God forbid that people might think I looked like a junkie. In my family, we have always prided ourselves on our looks and appearance. Looking good and wearing the right clothes can disguise a lot. And so my arms might be eaten away by heroin, but once my hair was groomed and my make-up perfect, I could pretend to myself that I was Ireland’s next top model.

Neil, who was a professional hairstylist, considered himself to be a high-class drug addict as well. He didn’t have a tooth in his head, but once he kept his mouth shut, his fingernails well hidden and moisturiser in his hair, he could pass for a normal civilian. As myself and Neil fought over the mirror, my mother rushed around our tiny one-bedroomed flat trying to make it look a little bit presentable and insisting that I stash my drug paraphernalia well out of sight.

Eventually Alison arrived, along with a cool-looking cameraman. She wasn’t what I expected, the killer journalist in search of a story. She had shoulder-length chestnut hair and a kind and friendly face. She hugged me as though we were old friends and handed me a Marks and Spencer bag full of posh chocolates and wine. ‘The chocolates are for you, because a little bird told me that you loved munchies, and the wine is for your mother,’ Alison said smoothly, sounding exactly like someone from Sky News. ‘This is Gavin. He’ll be filming the interview,’ she said, pointing to the cameraman, who looked as ordinary and down to earth as she did. Straight away I felt at ease and comfortable with these people. I didn’t feel as though they were looking down on me and judging me. I was ready to drop my pretence and open my heart to them and to anyone who cared to listen. My life was at stake and if I had to humiliate myself in front of the whole world to save it, then that’s what I would do.

‘Ok, Rachael, just relax, focus on me and pretend that the camera isn’t even here. I’m going to ask you a few questions, so just be yourself,’ Alison said, soothingly. I looked across the sitting-room at my mother who hovered nervously behind Gavin. She knew by my face that I wanted to do this on my own. ‘Right, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,’ she said reassuringly.

Alison proceeded to ask me some questions, similar to the ones I had answered before from other journalists. I didn’t feel nervous at first. But then she asked me to show her my arms. This was the part that I had been dreading. Nobody had seen my arms in the flesh except for my family, the doctors and a couple of friends. Even using in front of other drug addicts was shameful and embarrassing. On the rare occasions that I did, no comment would be made about my arms, but I could see them looking at me in horror and disgust.

I pulled up my sleeves, expecting Alison and Gavin to make a sprint for the door, but they didn’t flinch. ‘What is that on your arms?’ Alison asked.

‘Well, because I’ve been using drugs for so long, I literally have no veins left. I have been rooting around for veins and you could easily mistake capillaries for veins. The capillaries are so small that they can’t handle the heroin. What happens is, the heroin burns through the capillaries and now I literally have black necrosis all over both my arms.’

‘How does that make you feel? Does it make you feel frightened?’

‘It does, yeah. I’m terrified of losing my arms,’ I replied, as I felt my voice begin to wobble and my eyes well up with tears. Don’t cry, don’t cry, I told myself, and I attempted to force the tears back down. But it was too late. Once I had started, I couldn’t stop. I could no longer see Gavin or the camera in the room; I was no longer conscious that thousands of people would be watching me. It all faded away to nothing. All I could see was this woman who, I knew in my heart, was reaching out to help me.