‘I’d been smoking heroin from around 10 onwards’

A WOMAN who spent over three decades of her life addicted to heroin has shared her story and voiced her frustration at the lack of support she experienced throughout her life.

Gillian O’Donnell, 48, who lives in Tallaght village, was born addicted to heroin with both of her parents being intravenous heroin users.

She spent three months in the hospital after she was born, going through withdrawals, before being brought home to the St Joseph’s Mansions flats in the inner city.

The area was decimated by deprivation and was in the grip of a heroin epidemic, which Gillian witnessed first hand as a young child.

“From the age of five, I was bringing heroin from one end of the flats to the other,” she told The Echo.

“My dad died of a heroin overdose when I was five-and-a-half, and then I was taken into care when I was six, where I was horrifically physically and mentally abused.”

After enduring years of abuse, Gillian left care at 16, having recently given birth to a daughter, and she was grappling with her own addiction that began when she was 10.

“I’d been smoking heroin from around 10 or 11 onwards,” she said.

Gillian’s addiction, which she said came about as a trauma response due to the long-standing abuse she had endured, continued and was punctuated by instances of criminality.

She went to court for a shoplifting charge in 2013, where the judge advised her that she could either go to prison or the drug treatment centre Coolmine – she chose the latter option.

“I had no education about addiction at that stage, so I was devious and conniving.

“I remember going into court and the judge said, ‘If you don’t want to go prison, go to Coolmine’.

“So I went to Coolmine, and I learned about addiction. It was a journey.”

In 2014, Gillian’s sister took in her three children after Gillian spent some time in prison, and she came out homeless but rebuilt her life and embarked on her education.

Coolmine was followed by Gillian earning qualifications in social studies in Liberties College, and she then embarked on a degree in Trinity College which she earned in 2019 before relapsing.

She again became involved in shoplifting to fund her addiction, and she received a four-month custodial sentence in 2019.

When she came out of prison, she then began using crack cocaine alongside heroin, as she felt a sense of hopelessness that she lost her home and her children.

“I went to prison for four months, for shoplifting, and when I got out of prison with no home and no kids, my addiction escalated,” said Gillian.

“I was an amazing mother, but I was denied that right to be a mother because of my addiction.

“I had always smoked heroin before, but when I came out of prison, I started injecting heroin and crack cocaine at the same time.

“I was homeless in the inner city, I’d internalised society’s perception of me, and my addiction was a form of self-harm.

“I’d be doing heroin and crying. I hated myself for doing it, but without the heroin I was in so much pain that I wanted to die.”

In late 2019, Gillian was admitted to hospital where it was discovered she had a blood clot in her leg, an abscess, and MRSA, and she spent three months in hospital.

“My desire, then, was to become drug free,” she explained. “But was it easy? No.

“When I left hospital I was on 120ml of methadone, I was on Valium, morphine, an anti-psychotic and tramadol.”

She wanted to get admitted to a treatment centre but couldn’t do so while she was taking such a large amount of methadone alongside the other prescribed drugs.

She then underwent a methadone and benzodiazepine detox side-by-side to get admitted to a treatment centre, only to be told they weren’t accepting new patients due to the pandemic.

“My children were so disappointed, they thought that I’d done something that messed it up,” Gillian recalled.

She again relapsed, but after being hit by a car on Gardiner Street in 2021 and being bedridden for three months due to a leg injury she sustained, Gillian confronted her addiction.

“I was literally taken off my feet, so I was bedridden for three months and that’s when I had to sit with myself,” she said.

“I hated who I was, but I couldn’t run, I couldn’t hide, I couldn’t escape from myself.”

This signified the turning point where Gillian got a hold of her addiction and entered treatment again, and she has been street drug free since that hospital stay, and methadone free for the last three years.

She also began volunteering for UISCE, the National Advocacy Service for People who use Drugs in Ireland, three years ago.

Earlier this year, she secured a full-time role with them working as a peer support worker with the aim of advocating for and reducing the stigma around people who use drugs.

She has since gone on to speak at the Oireachtas as an expert on drug addiction through lived experience, at the HSE’s Social Inclusion Symposium, and is on the board of the North Inner City Drug and Alcohol Task Force.

“When you use drugs, people look down on you,” said Gillian. “But how is anyone supposed to help themselves when they’re being discriminated against and talked down to?

“Let’s support and not punish people that use drugs – addiction is punishment enough, no one can punish you more than you punish yourself.

“Being in addiction is like killing yourself on a daily basis.

“A lot of people are being failed by the system…I think society as a whole needs to remember that these people are human beings, and they have the right to breathe and be heard.”