‘It’s everywhere. Cocaine is a drug that cuts across every age group, every gender, every area’

On a grass verge near the centre of Blanchardstown, Dublin, there is a circle of blue chairs beneath a big tree, lined up to match the arrangement of white stones on the ground. A chiminea sits in the middle, a vegetable patch is a few metres behind it.

In the evenings, these chairs are filled by residents of Coolmine Lodge, a male residential drug treatment centre. It is the trust circle. Here, those seeking treatment for addiction turn to their peers for support dealing with their emotions and problems.

“Pull your brother up before they pull you down,” it says on a piece of bark on the grass beside them. This, Bernard West says, is a motto held dearly by those seeking help.

West was 14 the first time he experimented with drugs. It was the late 1990s, and the prevalence of heroin was exploding in his community in south inner city Dublin. Curiosity and a lack of fear inspired the decision to try it. For West, that experimentation quickly progressed to addiction.

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“I became addicted to heroin at the age of 16. My father passed away so it was a coping mechanism around that loss,” he says, now aged 46.

His family begged him to seek treatment. Reluctantly, he agreed, presenting to Coolmine for the first time in 1997, aged 17.

“The experience of going to Coolmine was frightening. I came for the wrong reasons, it was for family. They pressured me because at the time they didn’t know what to do when they found out I was on drugs,” he explains of that time in his life.

“One weekend I got a visit from my partner and again I was missing home, I had homesickness, and was a lovesick puppy and a bit of insecurity thinking about what my partner was doing while I was in. So I left the next day.”

Addiction is a nuanced area. Drugs are now affecting every part of Ireland, with people from all cohorts of society falling into addiction. The Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use recently heard that more than one person dies every day in Ireland directly due to drugs.

During the work of the assembly to date, services have reported increasing demand for treatment, increased complexity of addiction, and a need for multidisciplinary and wraparound services to tackle not only the addiction, but also the reasons behind that dependence.

Paul Reid, chairman of the Citizens’ Assembly, says through the group’s sessions to date, they have learned recovery is not just a phase. “It’s a continued life-cycle. It’s for life,” he says. That complexity and need for wraparound support means recovery is not a linear journey.

West attests to this. His path has been a long and complicated one, but he has been drug-free for the past 5½ years.

After he left his first stint in treatment as a teenager, his mother organised a job for him in Dublin City Council. He worked there for 12 years, describing himself as a “functioning addict” during that period.

“At the time, I still had my appearance and how I carried myself. I would’ve been very skinny and would’ve been on and off methadone. It would have been hard to maintain, there would have been a lot of lying and deceiving, a lot of criminality,” he says.

“Any crime I committed would have been related to that addiction. Even though I had pay cheques coming in, I was still [committing crime] and my family would lend me money. I was being enabled.”

Throughout this time West began a cycle of moving in and out of treatment centres. This, he says now, was because there was a reward factor. Every time he completed treatment, his family would give him a gift. There was a holiday one time, a moped another.

But in 2009, things escalated further. He committed a crime that resulted in him being incarcerated in Mountjoy Prison. He was sentenced to two years in prison, with a further two years suspended.

According to Anita Harris, interim director of services at Coolmine, addiction in prisons is a much bigger issue than is currently acknowledged.

In 2022, there were 825 prisoners on a waiting list for addiction counselling in Irish prisons, with prisoners with serious drug problems waiting up to 12 weeks to access a treatment programme, according to recent figures from the Department of Justice.

Harris says at the moment there are 27 people in Dublin prisons who have been assessed, detoxed and are waiting for a bed in the Coolmine Lodge service. However, she believes these individuals are likely to be released from prison before a bed becomes available or will return to general population where they are likely to relapse.

“People from prison just cannot get into treatment,” she says. “There is no data around drug addiction in prisons. We know it’s a big problem. There is addiction counselling provided but that’s only one type [of treatment].”

[ ‘We were educated to be ashamed’: Dublin GAA player Philly McMahon tells Citizens’ Assembly about his late brother’s heroin addiction ]

For West, prison was almost like the treatment centres he previously attended. He used the routine and stability it provided to his advantage. He went from being on 80ml of methadone to 50ml, before being admitted to the medical detox unit.

Eventually, he applied for a bed in Coolmine Lodge. In hindsight, he says, it was a “quick exit out of the prison system”.

“The right reason was there, but the wrong reasons were there as well,” he adds.

Drug trends have changed in recent years. Cocaine has overtaken heroin and other opioids to become the most common problem drug, according to a recent report from the Health Research Board (HRB).

Last year, cocaine accounted for one in three of the 12,009 cases treated for problem drug use, the HRB report on drug treatment shows, ahead of opioids, cannabis and benzodiazepines.

I ended up being homeless, on the streets, injecting crack cocaine, I ended up with hepatitis C. My sister found me in a laneway

—  Bernard West

Coolmine’s Anita Harris says for women, however, alcohol, heroin and opiates remain the most common drugs for which they seek treatment.

Harris says the Covid-19 pandemic created a “monster” in terms of addiction. The pandemic is over, she says, but the consequences of it remain and are more prevalent than many realise.

“Many people during the pandemic stepped over from recreational drug use to problematic. The symptoms of Covid are now in communities. The ingredients of addiction were created for everybody, which is isolation, loneliness, no structure, people not being in work, justification for additional drug and alcohol use,” she says.

“Drug use is now everywhere. Cocaine, in particular, is a drug that has cut across every age group, every gender, every area.”

As a result, it is difficult for services to meet the demand and the needs of people seeking help. There are 92 men waiting, having already been assessed as needing support, for a bed in Coolmine Lodge. In Cork, there are 135 people waiting on an assessment.

Construction workers, in particular, are increasingly presenting to Coolmine’s services seeking help, Harris says. Many of them afterwards feel the need to leave the trade to remain in recovery, due to the availability of drugs and alcohol for those in the sector.

Trauma and mental health issues are often causes of addiction, staff in the sector say. The drugs are merely a consequence of a wider issue. “If you’re treating addiction in isolation, you might as well just be pouring money down the drain. It’s never about the actual substance,” Harris adds.

West has seen that himself. In 2014, he relapsed again. This time it was following the death of his mother. Drugs were a familiar coping mechanism; he turned to them seeking comfort. But it was so much more than just about the drugs, he says; it was also about the way he viewed himself.

“I ended up being homeless, on the streets, injecting crack cocaine, I ended up with hepatitis C. My sister found me in a laneway; I didn’t want to be found. I couldn’t [die by] suicide. I didn’t want to go home when my sister found me. I told her to go away and that I was a waste of people’s time. People tried to help me and I told them to leave me alone,” he explains.

I had to learn what friendship is. Because when I was in addiction, friendships didn’t exist. I was getting used and I was using people to get what I wanted

—  Bernard West

“She said - when I was ready - to give her a ring. I went over to my sister’s and went through stages of psychosis in my sister’s and then re-engaged with Coolmine.”

He could see a cycle emerging. A number of years previously, the mother of his children said if he relapsed again that would be the end of their relationship. After this relapse, his eldest daughter told him the same.

“When I had to tell my daughter I was going back into treatment, she said, ‘If you relapse again, it’s over. I don’t want to see you again.’ So I saw history repeating itself and I had to break that cycle,” he adds.

Despite that desire to recover, returning to Coolmine wasn’t easy. “It was very very hard coming back this time. Because of embarrassment, feeling I’d let people down, it was all internal stuff.”

[ Drug taskforces turning addicts away amid a 400% increase in crack cocaine use ]

As part of Coolmine’s treatment programme, individuals are encouraged to be self-sufficient and to be part of something bigger.

Vegetables are grown there, which are then used in the kitchen. There is a Shetland pony named Buttercup, goats and chickens. The chickens are housed in a coop made by the residents, who are also in the process of constructing an outhouse for the other animals.

Residents also make eco-friendly candles, wax melts and soap from the lavender and honey they grow and make at Coolmine Lodge, with the end product being sold in Aldi stores. The charity says the purpose of these activities is to help give the men a “place in the world”.

West enjoyed horticulture during his time in Coolmine Lodge. Tending and nurturing the tomato plants allowed him to work on his ability to take responsibility; caring for chickens helped him work on relationships, an area with which he was struggling.

Later, he worked in laundry and admin, teaching him to spend time with his thoughts and to fulfil responsibilities. He then took on a voluntary role as a hepatitis C peer support worker at Coolmine.

Now, more than five years in recovery, West has his life back. Leaving Coolmine after that last bout of treatment was terrifying. West was afraid of falling back into bad habits. He was, he says, “scared sh*tless”.

But his life changed for the better. He has mended relationships with family members, now works as a peer support worker in a Dublin hospital, to help those with hepatitis C, and is able to spend more time with his daughters.

[ Number of men admitted to treatment for cocaine addiction at rehab centre doubles ]

“I also have friendships. I never knew what a friendship was. I had to learn what friendship is. Because when I was in addiction, friendships didn’t exist. I was getting used and I was using people to get what I wanted,” he says.

The difference this time when he left Coolmine, he says, is he “wanted to stay alive”. He has gotten back all that he had lost. This is what motivates him to remain on that path of sobriety.

“Recovery is all about finding myself. It’s about finding my purpose. I’ve found that now.”