" In my mid to late teens, that’s when I started dabbling with drugs".
Eric Galvin, 32, was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult having been battling addiction and suffering the consequences of “impulsive behaviour” for years.
“I was just putting myself in really difficult situations with debt and breaking relationships. Nobody could trust me”.
He is one of three adults who’ve spoken to the In The News podcast from The Irish Times about the links between ADHD and addiction.
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“We were told a lot when I was in rehab that we have to grieve for who we thought we were going to be rather than feel sorry for ourselves”.
“I grieve for a lot of broken relationships, bad decisions I made, other places I could have gone” Eric said.
Addiction services in Ireland report high numbers of people with ADHD coming to them for help, and studies from Trinity College suggest a fifth of people who use drugs and alcohol have symptoms of ADHD.
It estimates that a third of people who use benzodiazepines have symptoms of the condition.
In Dublin and Wicklow up to a quarter of teenagers who seek treatment for addiction have ADHD, according to the clinic lead for the programmes, Prof Bobby Smyth.
Oonagh Montague, 52, said when she reached menopause it compounded her ADHD symptoms and her smoking got out of control.
“Instead of having one or two, I would smoke like 17″ she said.
“The minute I get dysregulated, which is what happens when you have ADHD where you don’t just get upset”.
“You get upset and angry and stressed and everything all at the same time”.
Shane, a 22-year-old student at ATU, got a reckoning when he attended a lecture drunk, but it started long before that.
“I got into using weed” he said.
“And this was going on for years as a coping mechanism. I felt like I could use my brain properly when I was on it”.
“We kind of just turned to them for fun, for leisure or to cope.
One day I turned up absolutely hammered and I said I can’t be doing this. I absolutely can’t be doing this".
“What am I doing?”
It’s estimated about 170,000 people in Ireland have ADHD, according to Trinity College.
ADHD Ireland is calling for addiction services to be better equipped to deal with people who have ADHD, and for them to make screening services available.
Its CEO, Ken Kilbride, has spoken to Bernice Harrison for In The News.
Produced by Andrew McNair.
