Part 23
The next year or so was pretty much a write off, looking back now I struggle to comprehend how detached from life I became. The desire for the d**gs, and by this stage I was taking anything I could get my hands on, became all consuming. I missed events such as births of my first niece and nephew, despite the issues with my parents the invites to christenings and one of my brothers wediings went unanswered. But perhaps the most telling event on how self centred the d**gs make you was that I missed the trial that saw Noreen sent to prison for 4 years for her possessing d**gs. To this day it still hurts at how I abandoned Noreen at this time.
By this stage I had left the apartment Frank used to pay for as I could no longer afford it and I had hooked up with and was living with a fellow addict called Mikey. I suppose it was a relationship of convenience as the deal was I went out and worked and he provided the roof over our heads in the form of a council house that the council had not got round to evicting him since his mother died. We had no real love for each other and this was displayed with the ease he would move into the spare room whenever johnny and the skank came to visit. One of which visits lasted nearly a month.
Life working the streets was tough as you would imagine but it was made worse having to support Mikey's habit as most nights he would accompany me into town and wait till I had finished with my first client where he would appear take my money and skuttle off to buy d**gs, the issue being that there were a limited amount of punters around in a smallish city like Limerick so some nights I might only see one guy but invariably Mikey would have used all he had bought by the time I got home. This in turn led to me holding at times much to your mans annoyance and physical v******e on both sides was a regular occurrence. v******e was also a regular thing on the street and it is funny that no matter how many times it happened it was still a shock to me whenever a man hit me. I was also ****d on more than one occasion and with each event I slipped deeper into a dark hole which in turn led to me using more and more.
Eventually something had to give and for me it was in the form of an overdose. Due to our constant lack of gear I had taken to letting Mike inject me from time to time where I could get the same hit for less money. I hated doing this and could never bring myself to do it on my own but it did work when he did it for me. It worked until I had a real busy couple of nights which I think might have been down to there being a big Munster rugby match on or something but whatever the reason I had made a fortune. Quite why I let him inject me that night I cannot tell but I did, next thing I remember was waking up the following day in hospital where apparently at one stage that evening I had actually died.
After that health system kicked into action and I was offered all sorts of rehab programs but despite the fright I had just received I was still not ready to take it but I did vow to take my own steps and over the next month or so I cut out all d**gs except for fags, weed and H. And gradually I decreased my use of Heroin though my blood nicotine and cannabis levels were probably sky high.
As I slowly recovered I suddenly started to realise how much I was missing out on and I made a promise to myself to try and change it. One of the first things I did was reach out to friends back home to find out about Noreen and I was stunned when I got word back that she was in prison in Limerick about 2 miles away from where I lived.
Right away I wrote to her and although it took her a bit of time I eventually got a visitor's slip from her.
I was as nervous as hell on the day I went to visit her and I think i t caused me to go way over the top in my apologies for letting her dwas, Noreen was never one for that kind of bullshit and she lost the head with me and told me to get a hold of myself.
I did and soon we slotted into our old me and Noreen mode. I have to say she looked absolutely great and that obviously prison life was good for her but I could see from her eyes that she didn't feel the same way about me.
Still it was great to catch up with her and I became a regular visitor to her over the next year or so.
By this stage I had left the apartment Frank used to pay for as I could no longer afford it and I had hooked up with and was living with a fellow addict called Mikey. I suppose it was a relationship of convenience as the deal was I went out and worked and he provided the roof over our heads in the form of a council house that the council had not got round to evicting him since his mother died. We had no real love for each other and this was displayed with the ease he would move into the spare room whenever johnny and the skank came to visit. One of which visits lasted nearly a month.
Life working the streets was tough as you would imagine but it was made worse having to support Mikey's habit as most nights he would accompany me into town and wait till I had finished with my first client where he would appear take my money and skuttle off to buy d**gs, the issue being that there were a limited amount of punters around in a smallish city like Limerick so some nights I might only see one guy but invariably Mikey would have used all he had bought by the time I got home. This in turn led to me holding at times much to your mans annoyance and physical v******e on both sides was a regular occurrence. v******e was also a regular thing on the street and it is funny that no matter how many times it happened it was still a shock to me whenever a man hit me. I was also ****d on more than one occasion and with each event I slipped deeper into a dark hole which in turn led to me using more and more.
Eventually something had to give and for me it was in the form of an overdose. Due to our constant lack of gear I had taken to letting Mike inject me from time to time where I could get the same hit for less money. I hated doing this and could never bring myself to do it on my own but it did work when he did it for me. It worked until I had a real busy couple of nights which I think might have been down to there being a big Munster rugby match on or something but whatever the reason I had made a fortune. Quite why I let him inject me that night I cannot tell but I did, next thing I remember was waking up the following day in hospital where apparently at one stage that evening I had actually died.
After that health system kicked into action and I was offered all sorts of rehab programs but despite the fright I had just received I was still not ready to take it but I did vow to take my own steps and over the next month or so I cut out all d**gs except for fags, weed and H. And gradually I decreased my use of Heroin though my blood nicotine and cannabis levels were probably sky high.
As I slowly recovered I suddenly started to realise how much I was missing out on and I made a promise to myself to try and change it. One of the first things I did was reach out to friends back home to find out about Noreen and I was stunned when I got word back that she was in prison in Limerick about 2 miles away from where I lived.
Right away I wrote to her and although it took her a bit of time I eventually got a visitor's slip from her.
I was as nervous as hell on the day I went to visit her and I think i t caused me to go way over the top in my apologies for letting her dwas, Noreen was never one for that kind of bullshit and she lost the head with me and told me to get a hold of myself.
I did and soon we slotted into our old me and Noreen mode. I have to say she looked absolutely great and that obviously prison life was good for her but I could see from her eyes that she didn't feel the same way about me.
Still it was great to catch up with her and I became a regular visitor to her over the next year or so.
8 years ago
