‘I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol when I was around 11. I wouldn’t have become addicted from that very moment, but there would’ve been a lot of experimentation,” Anthony Deegan explains.
omeone said to him, “here try this”, he recalls, adding that the first substances he used would have been solvents and aerosol cans. “From that very moment, I loved it. I did it every moment of every day.”
Looking back, Anthony, who is now a recovery advocate at Smarmore Castle, can see that he had a highly sensitive nature as a child. He says: “I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings. I didn’t know how to be in the world. I was always full of fear. My mind always told me that my father loved my big brother, and my mother loved my younger brother, because they were always together; my mother was looking after the baby. So I just felt left out.”
Anthony says now that he wants to steer clear of blaming his parents for the difficulties he experienced. “I blamed them for years, and what I’ve learned now in recovery is that it had nothing to do with my parents, they did the best they could and they were very good parents. We were a normal family.”
Growing up in Tallaght, school was a source of much stress for 41-year-old Anthony, who recently discovered that he is highly dyslexic. He adds: “I used to be terrified of school because every time I went in I used to get in trouble — not having work done or not knowing spellings.”
His parents had separated when Anthony was 10 and he moved between the two homes. By the age of 13, he was being regularly suspended from school, taking more drugs, including cannabis, and drinking. The guards were called due to his behaviour.
“My mother thought, to scare me and to get me a bit of help, she’d put me in the care of the state for a little while. She didn’t know signing me over that it wasn’t going to be easy to get me back.”
It was terrifying, Anthony recalls. “You had to present to a Garda station at 8pm and a night social worker would place you in a hostel for kids.
“I was living in Tallaght at the time. They’d do all the city centre first, and then work their way out, so it would be about 3am before I’d get a bed. I’d get something to eat and go to bed, and then you’re up at 8am. Then I had to go to a social worker’s office which was in Tallaght.”
This cycle went on for weeks. “It was pretty lonely, along with being devastated with having the thoughts that my parents and family just threw me away. But I was able to train myself to detach from any feelings or emotions.”
Anthony is also studying an introduction to psychology and counselling course
He spent some time in foster families, but experienced violence. This was followed time in hostels, before moving back to his mother’s house aged 16, in 1996.
By this point, he says his behaviour and using were “off the wall”. He had to leave his mother’s house and eventually ended up living on the streets for a time, at one point living on the steps of The Custom House for six months. It was around this point that he began using heroin. “When you’re full of heroin, the walls go up around you; it takes away all fear and pain. But it was definitely scary,” he says of being homeless.
Aged 23, Anthony tried a community detox methadone programme, but every time he ended up using again. He notes the lack of ancillary support; just a monthly appointment with a councillor.
There followed roughly 10 years on a maintenance methadone programme. Things would go well for a while and then fall apart again. Anthony tried numerous treatment approaches over the years.
“I wasn’t able to cope with life,” Anthony, who has three children, two with his partner Michelle, recalls.
“I knew my life was a mess, but I didn’t think it was just the drugs I was doing,” he says. “I thought I was just a total f**k up, that it was just the way I was.”
He can see now the impact of the trauma he had experienced over the years, leaving the family home and living on the streets. “I just didn’t want to live,” he adds, describing years where he would spend hours sitting in the bedroom of the home he shared with Michelle, and then when she came to bed, he would go downstairs and sleep on the couch.
“I was a very nasty person at that stage and I had just had enough of it.” His brother had died by suicide when Anthony was 22, in 2001. “I just thought, ‘that’s what I’ll do. It’ll be better for everyone else if I was gone.” He made a number of suicide attempts.
He would reach what he believed was the lowest point, but then go lower, explaining, “my rock bottoms have trap doors”. Looking back, Anthony can see that he had cut off as a form of self-protection.
“When I would start in treatment centres, and do my life story, there would be people in the room, and councillors, crying, like, ‘how could you go through all of that?’ I would be sitting there thinking, ‘what’s wrong with you? This is normal’. I was just completely disconnected from the chaos and trauma that my life was.”
In 2018, having attempted recovery numerous times, Anthony reached a definitive rock bottom. He attended Smarmore Castle, a residential clinic for the treatment of alcoholism, drug and behavioural addictions, including gambling, in Louth, and had six months of a somewhat good recovery — his longest ever.
He says: “But I tried to do things too quickly, college and stuff, and I slowly started to regress into my old behaviours, and started using again. My partner Michelle, we’d been together for 28 years, she was absolutely done. She said, ‘I don’t love you anymore’.”
Michelle told him to get into recovery, sort himself out, and leave the family home. “So this time I went for myself; I was just sick of the way I was living. I tried to go through all those treatments, I tried my best, but I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I didn’t fully understand addiction,” Anthony, who is what is known as a chronic relapser, reflects.
“I thought I’d be able to do it with my own little programme, picking and choosing, and I’d always fail. This time I went in and when they said, ‘what’s different this time?’ I just said, ‘look, I don’t know, I haven’t got a clue, you tell me what do I need to do’.”
At Smarmore Castle, Anthony was supported in making his way through the 12 Step Programme, and he is now a member of the CA fellowship (Cocaine Anonymous).
Since he was a child, Anthony describes how he was always trapped in his own head, full of fear, wondering if he was good enough. The anxiety got worse as he got older, and drugs were the only thing that would take it away, but only on a short-term basis, leaving him needing more and more. If he stopped using, everything got so much worse. The 12 Step Programme has enabled him to break this cycle.
“From where I’ve come from, it’s a totally different world altogether. From a person who couldn’t even walk into a shop and ask what the price of cigarettes was, having to get my partner to do that. I was just too uncomfortable to be able to do that. I wasn’t able to speak up for myself.”
He and his fiancée Michelle, who he met when they were 13, hope to get married next year. “She’s an absolute saint of a woman; there’s no other way of describing that.”
Anthony Deegan even went through heroin addiction
He also says being diagnosed with dyslexia made a difference. “Finding out that there actually was something up when I was a child, and I wasn’t a stupid person.” He is now studying an introduction to psychology and counselling course.
Anthony, who now lives in Portlaoise, has been sober for over three years and has worked hard at his recovery. After making his way through the 12 Step Programme, he attended after-care and nightly meetings. Recovery and the 12 Steps have helped him to cope with his feelings, but there is still a lot of deep inner work to be done, processing grief and trauma. He says: “It was suggested to me in early recovery to not go near that stuff; I needed to recover from addiction.”
He is now working as a recovery advocate at Smarmore Castle. He cried for two hours after receiving the call from the head therapist offering him the job, he says.
Anthony and his partner Michelle
“To think that I was one of the first people he thought of when he started developing the position. This is the very first paid position here where recovered addicts can help people who are in recovery. There’s nothing that can help another addict, like another addict who has recovered.
“I believe I can do anything that I want to do within reason, there’s nothing that can hold me back,” he says now of his own state of mind. Helping others and giving back, is an essential part of his recovery.
“Seeing the life come back in their eyes and their faces light up, getting more comfortable in themselves; it’s a phenomenal thing to witness. I’ll be putting the rest of my life into it.”
September is National Recovery Month. For more information on addiction, including spotting the signs and how to help someone with addiction, visit smarmore-rehab-clinic.com/help-advice. The detox and addiction treatment programme at Smarmore Castle costs from €3,830 per week – shared and private rooms are available. Smarmore is covered by VHI insurance, AXA Health, St Paul’s Garda Medical Aid, Prison Officers Medical Aid, ESB insurance, Medical Provident Fund, GPA and Tricare.
For the HSE drugs and alcohol helpline Freephone 1800 459 459 or email helpline@hse.ie
The Cocaine Anonymous Ireland helpline is 353 (0) 873174989/email help@caireland.info
Signs of alcohol and drug addiction
There are some additional signs exclusive to those suffering from alcohol addiction.
Prioritising drug and alcohol use: If the person’s life revolves around obtaining and consuming drugs and alcohol, and recovering from episodes of substance use, then this is a sign that they have an unhealthy relationship with substances.
Cravings: The person experiences strong, uncontrollable impulses to drink alcohol, or take drugs.
Secrecy: Refusing to disclose who they were with, or where they were.
Socialisation: Reduced contact with family, changes in their circle of friends, or places they spend time.
Changes in their appearance: Appearing more dishevelled, pale, or tired.
Experiencing financial difficulties: If someone is becoming more concerned about their spending, or frequently asking for money.
Unease: Appearing uncomfortable in social situations where they do not have access to alcohol or drugs.
Effort: For example, travelling a long distance to obtain drugs.
Drinking in the mornings or during the day: Drinking frequently by themselves, in greater quantities than is socially acceptable. For example, arriving at social functions already smelling of alcohol or appearing intoxicated.
Increased reports of blacking out after episodes of drinking, or drinking more than is socially acceptable at functions.
Marked changes in personality and behaviour such as depression, anxiety, lack of self-esteem, and isolating themselves from their usual social circle.