My story: ‘Cocaine and gambling are my biggest addictions’

Jimmy (29), Dublin: I started doing drugs when I was 19 years old. Cocaine and gambling are my biggest addictions. Drink comes into it too. I put myself under pressure with the gambling.

All my friends would have been doing cocaine from 14 or 15 but I didn’t start until I was 19 because I saw what drugs did to family members.

My mates could do it at weekends and go to work on Monday, but I’d be going to work and doing coke in work. I was working as a carpenter and I’d been hoovering the stuff out of it. I was doing hydrotherapy at one stage for an old injury I had and I’d be going into the treatment sessions out of my box; hallucinogenic drugs, headshop party pills and taking loads of cocaine for days on end.

“I started doing cocaine in the August of the year I was 19 and by the January the follow year, I was in treatment.

"I did Coolmine Therapeutic; came out of that after 10 months when I was 21. I came out on a Wednesday and I was back using by Saturday, thinking I'm grand. I kept using from 21 to about 27.

Relationship broke down

“The second time I went into rehab was two years ago after my relationship broke down over cocaine and I was isolated then. I was sharing a place with her, and when she left I kept it and I drank and did drugs every single day for about six months. “I was also gambling and getting drugs on slate off people I knew. I was off my trolley.

“I did 17 weeks the last time I was here two years ago. I got to 10½ months clean and then moved into a recovery building. But they turned it into a wet hostel and I was in there trying to recover. I had nowhere to go.

“I was the last man standing out of 24 people clean in the building who all relapsed. And in the end I started doing tablets for the first time and did heroin for the first and last time.

“I took tablets one Thursday and woke up in the police station on Sunday with no idea what happened. A copper told me they found me walking down a street in town with a hammer and a blade at 1am.

“But the court gave me the benefit of the doubt and I went back to my ma’s house then. I thought I’d rather be there with two or three people using than in a building with 20 people asking you all day if you wanted to buy drugs. I was still gambling and having a few drinks, but I met my partner and I was doing reasonably well. The gambling got me, I just couldn’t f*cking stop.

“My relationship broke down before I came in here. I started taking money on her so I could gamble. We were due to go away, to go travelling around for a while. But I took all the money, thousands. I had to come back in here, though she is sticking by me. I believe I have a great chance this time.”