Eventually I found myself using against my own will. I needed to use to function - I had to use to get to work, to tie my laces, to say hello. Tears falling on the tin foil that I was using the drug from became a strange pattern. Since then I have met other addicts who have told me they cried when using or drinking or gambling or doing the whatever habit that had become their daily grind. In the end, I felt owned a lot more than I got stoned. I could taste the drug in my tears too. I remember hating that SO MUCH. So I got some clarity from somewhere. It felt like it was coming from somewhere that wasn’t my fractured mind. I paid enough attention to it to at least try and leave my lover drug that had become my destroyer drug behind. There was another reason I wanted out: I had met a woman who actually made sense to me and I had fallen for her. She and I would talk sometimes about the possibility of me living something more than just a half life. She helped me to identify Coolmine Rehab as a possible escape route. I was in awe of her coming to see me every week without fail. I wanted to do it for her too, she seemed so dynamic and yet had never even played around with chemicals. She showed me life can can be a very multicoloured experience. I admired how she lived. In Coolmine, I began to learn that there was perhaps NOT SUCH A Mystery to stopping and staying stopped. I was given methods there that I could check out, practice and repeat. These tools were showing me that I could choose to use or choose to not use, but one thing was for sure, all my choices were on me. It was like maybe I could empower myself and rebuild my skewed views of myself, and my world. When I left Coolmine. I still felt a huge sense of grief for the drug. It was as if I could not imagine a world where I could function and enjoy life without it. Narcotics Anonymous was suggested to me as a means of finding a new community -people who were living and enjoying life without the use of drugs. A key concept of NA really spoke to me: Regardless of age, race, creed, sexual identity, religion or lack of religion everyone is welcome. Members openly shared their stories at meetings describing the circumstances of their lives in the active addiction phase and the moments of clarity that brought them to putting the drugs down. I was drawn to the momentum of their stories. “IS THIS THE GEAR TALKING OR IS IT THE REAL ME?” “
ONE ADDICT’S STORY By Kaz
It seemed that against all the odds, people were actually living drug free. LGBT recovery meetings were also on offer - it was a huge relief when I didn’t need to refer to my partner in code! The possibility of a social life looked like a desolate barren landscape ahead of me. Could I dance? Could I even make conversation without the familiar chemical prop? Before the COVID lockdowns this matter was resolving itself. I found running clubs, writing groups, volunteering options and cool DJ events that over time developed my interests. I also realised that the community centres we have in our Queer community are an ongoing social resource. In conclusion, every day there are millions of addicts the world over that are managing to battle addiction. A day clean from not using, not drinking, not cutting, not gambling, not shopping, not starving, from whatever one’s poison is, is a day won. This is particularly remarkable, as addiction is still often a misrepresented and misunderstood condition. In Ireland we are faced with archaic criminalisation laws, numbing methadone ‘maintenance’ programmes and a glaring lack of detox and recovery resources. Even in COVID the Twelve Step meetings have diversified and went online to offer another option. However, not every addict has a cool laptop or a smart phone, so of course we need to always be mindful of making assumptions that exclude any member of any minority group. Presently we are losing many addicts in the queer and the straight community. I was lost for a number of years to a ‘half- life‘ existence on Methadone. That medicine crushed my spirit. Many more are lost entirely. An Irish Examiner article outlining the fatal consequences of addiction in Munster and the epidemic scale of overdoses comes to mind: over three times more people died from drug related activity in Munster in 2013 than those who died as a result of road accidents. I found the statistic of 679 deaths to represent a chilling wake up call. Alienating an addict is the worst step that any society could take. In my recovery I am influenced strongly by the message of connection, not alienation offered by Johann Hari. He states clearly that on a political, social and personal level, “the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.” If there is a solution to the perplexing and lonely condition of Addiction, it most likely lies in the words and concepts of Dr. Gabor Mate who suggests that we need a radically new perspective: “The real question in addiction is not why the addiction? But why the pain?” His words are pertinent every day and as a Queer addict anticipating Cork Pride 2021, I would invite our community to bear this spirit of inclusion and compassion in mind when we march under that iconic rainbow flag as we celebrate our uniquely diverse and beautiful community.
“Leave when it stops raining” I told myself. Then I remember stopping and almost seeing myself from a birds eye view. I stopped and I asked myself the question: “Is this the gear talking or is it the real Me?” Part of me knew I would be going back to the Lion’s Den. So I stayed that day. That was me in Coolmine Rehab, Dublin - the ‘no nonsense’ behavioural Rehab centre, the Rehab that even the courts acknowledge as a ‘sentence’. I ended up doing nine months there. On days when it hurt like crazy I would stop and try to remind myself that perhaps this seems impossibly hard because there is something of huge value at stake here. I knew my life was on the line and I didn’t feel old enough to die. My name is Kaz, I am a queer recovering addict. As I am addressing a queer audience in “Cork Pride Magazine”, some inevitable questions are lurking: Am I an addict because I am queer? Personally I would say that the alienation of being a gay young person in the closet certainly contributed to my sense of isolation. Drugs soothed that feeling. There were other factors also: as an adopted person, I had a very fragmented sense of self. My addiction developed in parallel with other more positive aspects of my life. I graduated with an Honours degree from UCC at 19 years of age. I went to Glasgow and I discovered rave culture. Ecstasy taught me how to hug and “freed“ me up enough to becoming a fairly cool dancer. I was sold from the get go. I began to live for those raves, for the feeling of connection that ecstasy provided me with. It was a short- lived freedom. I found myself celebrating my 24th Birthday in a psychiatric ward in Cork City. Doctors stated clearly to my parents that their daughter had a “serious drug problem.” I stated clearly to the doctors that they were deluded and inquired if any of them had ever even used any drugs.
I pleaded to see a psychologist, not a psychiatrist; I was told
I was too unstable to see a psychologist. My father joked around as much as he could with me - any effort to keep me sane. He also
complained when one of the psychiatrists called me a junkie. That was an introduction to many labels foisted upon me and others in my predicament: “Junkie” “Druggie” “smackhead” “alco.” Most of us are familiar with these labels; as an addict, at some level, you feel the shame of them too. Lets face it, it wasn’t a life goal of mine to sell myself to any substance and all the behaviours that inevitably follow. Shame isn’t like a t-shirt you can throw off when you don’t like it anymore: shame sticks to you like an insidious layer of skin, invisible to the naked eye, but it does its job very well - it alienates you from yourself. Shame and addiction are the closest of friends. I was sent to a treatment centre to manage my addiction. Compassion was in short supply. It was typical to suggest to a young addict that they were confused if they needed to explore their sexuality. That centre was the first of a litany of treatment centres. I slipped and slid and found myself using again for any reason or no reason, a random Tuesday or a sunny Saturday, it didn’t matter. All I knew was the periods of abstinence were getting shorter and the drugs were getting harder. My father had lost his faith and eventually even my mother told me she didn’t know if she could keep praying for me. My sister, who did try to understand was understandably confounded. I was watching myself dismantle my family and I was the reluctant dark destroyer.
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