Dying to Survive

by Rachael Keogh

  After one week of being held in custody, I was given a sentence of three months’ imprisonment. My grandmother rang me every day and she would visit me twice every week, carrying along with her black bags full of my clothes, toiletries and new magazines. She would look like an angel, with her clear skin, her soft eyes and her curly auburn hair, never complaining and telling me over and over again that I would be grand. My mother didn’t want to know. The last place she wanted to visit was Mountjoy Prison, and she was the last person I wanted a visit from.

  I spent my days hanging around the cells with the other prisoners, getting tips on how to pull off a good stroke. Sometimes out of sheer boredom I would go to the prison school, just for the entertainment of watching the inmates slagging off the officers who were instructing us. Then in the evening time I would put on a tracksuit and I would go to aerobics classes. I tried my best to put on a brave face, but when the cell door closed at lock-up time and the lights were turned off, I would hide under my duvet covers and cry my heart out. How do I keep getting myself into these situations? I would ask myself in sheer frustration. Why can’t I stop using drugs and just have a normal life? But I had no idea of how to live a normal life without drugs. Drugs were my life. And without them I had no identity.

  I was released from Mountjoy Prison three days after my eighteenth birthday in October 1997 and I was taken on in a methadone clinic in Ballymun where I was given a maintenance to replace the heroin. In my mind, going on a methadone maintenance was a death sentence. At least with the heroin, if I ever really wanted to get clean it would only take a couple of weeks to go through the withdrawals. I had heard that the withdrawals from methadone were far worse. It was as though the methadone crept its way into your bones, making it nearly impossible to come off it. Most people I knew who were on maintenance had been for years and they didn’t seem much healthier than on heroin. Nonetheless, I convinced the doctors that I was willing to do a maintenance, telling myself that I would just take it until after Christmas.

  Myself and Derek prepared ourselves well for Christmas. We got a few bob from robbing an expensive gift shop in town. Derek had sussed the shop out well. He knew exactly what time the security guard went on his lunch break. We made sure to look the part, wearing our best suits, complete with false name tags, to make it look as if we were one of the staff. ‘Be brazen, Rachael,’ Derek told me as we entered the shop and walked straight over to the window display, clearing thousands of pounds worth of Waterford crystal and Lladro ornaments into our bags.

  We bought enough drugs to do us until St Stephen’s Day and we both decided that we would spend time with our own families. Christmas Day arrived and I dreaded having to spend time with my family in the absolute pretence that things were just fine. I needed to get something into my body so that I could function around them. I knew that my mother and Philip would be visiting along with Jacqueline, Marion and Declan. So I hid behind my bed and had a turn-on. When I woke up I was lying on my bed and Laurence was holding me by the shoulders.

  ‘What are ye doing?’ I asked him, still in shock and feeling like I had been hit by a truck.

  ‘Ye fuckin’ overdosed, ye stupid bitch.’ He was sweating, his face was red and his eyes were beginning to well up. But I couldn’t remember a thing. I looked at myself in the mirror and I didn’t recognise the person that looked back at me. My face appeared gaunt and I was so thin that my head looked bigger than my body. By now it just wasn’t an option for me to use into my groin—I had mistakenly injected into my artery so many times that my groin felt as hard as a brick. I had resorted to injecting into my hands and I wondered how I would hide the damage that I had done to them from my family. I wanted to climb up into the attic and stay there until Christmas was over. But instead I had another turn-on. Once again, I overdosed. But this time my grandmother found me. She was screaming her head off. ‘One of these days, I’ll find you dead. Get dressed and come downstairs.’ I did as she said.

  Downstairs smelt of cinnamon with a hint of alcohol and Laurence was already half drunk. It wasn’t long before the rest of my family arrived. My mother was also half drunk and I knew that she had been crying. As soon as she saw me, she put her arms around me. ‘My darling daughter, I’m so sorry,’ she said, holding my face in her hands.

  ‘Sorry for what?’ I was so out of it, I didn’t know how to respond.

  ‘I’m just so sorry,’ she said as she began to cry.

  ‘Now, Lynda, don’t start,’ my grandmother interrupted, but my mother continued, ‘Oh my God, look at your hands. What have you done to yourself. I’m so sorry,’ she said taking me into her arms.

  ‘C’mon now, Lynda, you’re talking rubbish,’ Nanny insisted.

  ‘I’m not talking rubbish, Mam. I’m grand.’ My mother sat beside me holding my hand in hers and I wished that she could be this affectionate with me when she was sober. Was she really as sorry as she said she was, or was it just the drink talking?

  We all had Christmas dinner together except for Laurence. He sat in the sitting-room with my uncle Declan, as far away as possible from me. My grandmother watched me like a hawk, making sure that I didn’t sneak off to use heroin. I knew that I would get my chance when Laurence’s friends came over later on that night. They were having a party and I would have to wait patiently until everybody was too drunk to even notice that I was gone. Eventually my time came and I was left alone. Everyone was in the sitting-room but it wouldn’t be long before my grandmother came back into the kitchen. So as quickly as I could I got my heroin into my needle and I tried to inject it into my hand. But I couldn’t get a vein. I badly needed to get a hit so I stood in front of the mirror and, holding my nose and keeping my mouth shut, I blew as hard as I could until I saw a vein appear in the front of my neck. I got the vein straight away and within seconds I could feel a warm overwhelming rush travel from my toes up into my head. I knew that I was going to overdose so I tried to get outside to get some air. But before I made it to the door, I collapsed.

  When I opened my eyes I was faced with two ambulance men. ‘Don’t get up. Just stay where you are,’ one of them warned me. Then I saw my family and Laurence’s friends. They were just staring at me as I lay on the floor. Then I realised what had happened and the first thing I thought of was my supply of heroin. ‘Me gear, where’s me gear?’ I screamed, starting to panic.

  ‘Don’t move, Rachael,’ said the ambulance man as he held me down by the arm.

  ‘No. Stop! I’m ok. I need to find my gear.’

  ‘We need to bring you into the hospital to make sure that you’re ok.’

  ‘No, I’m not going to the hospital. Look I’m alright,’ I told them as I struggled to stand up. I was still seeing double but I pretended that I was fine.

  The ambulance men stayed with me until I was well enough to walk around on my own. As soon as they were gone, I searched everywhere for my heroin. ‘I have to find my gear. One of you took it, didn’t you? You’d better give it back to me. I need it,’ I shouted at my family, as I ran around the house like a mad woman. Then I put my hand into my pocket and there was my bag of heroin. ‘Oh, look, I found it. It was in my pocket,’ I told my family and everyone else that was in the house. They just turned their faces in disgust. But in that moment I didn’t care what anyone thought. Once I had my heroin everything would be ok.

  _____

  It had been the worst Christmas ever and I couldn’t bear to be near my family, so myself and Derek found a flat that we could squat in on the south side of Dublin. We spent months in the flat, locked into our own world of numbness and squalor and the only time we had contact with the outside world was when we had to go off robbing, or we needed to score some heroin.

  When we were asked to sell heroin for a big-time drug-dealer we willingly agreed—we knew that we could get somebody else to sell it for us and that way we could keep our heads down and keep our habits going at the same time. Every couple of days the dealer would drop the heroin in through our win
dow. We would bag it up and a friend of ours would sell it for us. Any profit that was made, we injected into our bodies. But it wasn’t long before we became our own best customers and began to build up a debt to the drug dealer. AJ was his name. He looked like an elegant businessman, who wore immaculate designer suits and had a manicure done almost every week. But I knew by him that he would be very capable of cutting either one of us up in a split second. AJ was a control freak who got great pleasure out of playing games with myself and Derek. When we told him that we hadn’t got his money, he wasn’t pleased and he asked us to meet up with him.

  AJ arrived at the meeting place wearing a knee-length Versace coat with his hair combed perfectly to the side. He invited us both into his car and he asked Derek to drive. We told him that we would make it up to him and we would get his money as soon as possible. AJ was wired to the moon on cocaine and my heart skipped a beat when he pulled out a knife. He put his finger up to his mouth signalling for me to be quiet. Then he put the knife to the nape of Derek’s neck. ‘Don’t turn around, Derek. D’you realise I could knife you right now and you wouldn’t be able to do a thing.’

  For a moment everything went silent. Then suddenly AJ burst out laughing. ‘I’m only buzzing off you, you mad thing,’ he said. ‘But ye better get me that money.’ AJ left us on the side of the road and drove off, still laughing to himself. It was the first time that I had ever seen Derek bow down or be afraid of someone. Within a couple of days we had managed to get AJ’s money, and we decided to give him a wide berth from then on. But we still needed drugs, so we had no choice but to go back to robbing.

  My body now felt as though it was giving in. I couldn’t cope any more with my life being so unpredictable. I couldn’t cope with the withdrawals that I felt every morning from using heroin, the aching pains in my legs and my stomach and butchering myself until I got a vein. Things had got so bad that Derek couldn’t get out of the bed to use the toilet, so he would urinate into a bottle instead. We lived like animals and I wondered when it would all end. We were both caught in a spiral, urging each other on to use, completely dependent on each other to keep the vicious cycle going, neither of us able to break it.

  At this time, one of Derek’s friends, Paul, had been released from prison. He had nowhere to stay so Derek told him that he could come and stay with us. I had no say in the matter. An addict himself, Paul needed to make some quick money and, after myself and Derek had sussed out a factory to rob, I let Paul do it on condition that he sort me out with some heroin. So they both went off robbing and when they came back they had enough money and heroin to do us for a few days. They got down to business straight away, putting their heroin out on the spoons. ‘Will I give ye some gear now, Rachael?’ asked Paul.

  ‘No, don’t give her anything,’ Derek shouted.

  ‘Don’t mind him, Paul, you know the deal,’ I said.

  Then Derek picked up a bowl and he flung it across the room. ‘You’re not getting any ’cos you’re only a fuckin’ slut.’

  ‘Ah, here we go again. What are you talking about now?’ I said.

  ‘I heard that you were with someone out in Ballymun that had the virus.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ I screamed, ‘how could I be with someone else when I’m with you twenty-four hours a day?’ Derek had been becoming increasingly paranoid about me and other men and had been keeping a very close eye on me.

  Sensing that the situation was about to turn ugly, Paul quickly had a turn-on and then told us that he was leaving. ‘No, don’t go, Paul. Don’t leave me on my own with him,’ I pleaded. But Paul went anyway. Alone with a paranoid Derek, I began to cry hysterically.

  ‘Shut up fuckin’ cryin’,’ Derek demanded. He came over to me and helped me onto the chair. ‘Just stop cryin’, will ye?’ he said. He disappeared for a moment and when he came back he had planks of wood and a hammer in his hands. I watched him in disbelief as he proceeded to nail the planks of wood onto the door, humming a tune to himself as he did so. I sat with my knees to my chest, hyperventilating and crippled with fear. ‘Now you won’t be going anywhere, will you?’ he said. I assumed that he had lost the plot altogether.

  I needed to get out of the flat, and quick, but Derek had taken my phone so that I couldn’t make contact with anybody. But the next day when he wasn’t looking I managed to get my hands on my phone. I sent my grandmother a message telling her to send Laurence to the flat as quickly as she could. Within a couple of hours I could hear my grandmother’s voice outside the door. She was with my mother and they banged on the door until Derek had no choice but to let them inside. As soon as Derek saw my mother, his demeanour completely changed. He rapidly went from being a monster to being a little mouse.

  My mother went berserk when she saw what he had done. ‘You won’t get away with this, you fuckin’ pig,’ she screamed at him as they took me out of the flat. My grandmother brought me back to her house so that she could look after me. I had no methadone or heroin and I felt battered, bruised and spiritually broken. Not only from Derek, but also from the drugs. I was never so grateful to be back in my own bed. I could breathe freely without worrying about what was going to happen next. Laurence and my grandfather knew that I had been through a tough time, so for once they kept their mouths closed and left me alone.

  For five days I went through my withdrawals, feeling as though I had worms in my legs that were aggressively eating away at my bones. But the worst part was my mind. It was twisting and turning, trying to make sense of my life. I didn’t have the capacity to see past my own hand. I had no mental defence for my addiction, or any knowledge of how to escape from it. People had told me that I would stop using drugs when I had hit rock bottom. If this wasn’t rock bottom, then I didn’t know what was. Things couldn’t possibly get any worse. I was so desperate that suicide seemed the only way out.

  Later on that morning the gardaí came to my grandparents’ house and arrested me on outstanding warrants for theft. Once again I was sent to Mountjoy and in a strange way I was relieved. Even after all that had happened, I wasn’t sure if I would have the strength to stay away from Derek and the gear. I had a feeling that going to Mountjoy would be a blessing in disguise.

  Chapter 11

  ANSWERED PRAYERS

  They say that things have to get worse before they get better and that was certainly the case for me. I had reached a new low in my addiction and was facing another stint in Mountjoy, after which I would be released and the whole cycle would begin again. I needed help, but didn’t know where to look for it. I’ve never been a spiritual person and it never occurred to me to seek help from that direction. But that is exactly the place from where help came, just when I most needed it.

  After one week in custody I was brought to court to face my warrants and I had no doubt in my mind that I would be given a hefty sentence. The Dublin District Court was full of activity, with solicitors and gardaí buzzing up and down from the courtroom to the holding cells. The holding cells were bursting at the seams with prisoners awaiting sentences.

  After being informed by my solicitor that I could get a sentence of anything up to two years for each charge, as I had previous convictions, I resigned myself to the fact that I was getting locked up. Then I heard somebody mention my name. I looked outside of the holding cell and I saw a priest. ‘Here I am,’ I shouted to him, confused as to why the priest was looking for me and feeling like I was seeing an apparition.

  ‘Hi, Rachael, my name is Father Adrian,’ the priest said gently. ‘I know we’ve never met before, but a nurse in Beaumont Hospital gave me your mother’s number. She said that you were very sick and that you needed help to overcome your addiction.’

  Father Adrian was exactly what I expected a priest to be like. He was a beacon of light and full of humility and I felt immediately reassured by his presence. ‘I got in touch with your mother and she brought me here to see you,’ he continued. I still couldn’t comprehend what was going on and I was conscious of the other prisoner
s sitting behind me, trying to hear what Father Adrian was saying.

  ‘Now, have you ever heard of a place called Community Cenacolo?’ I shook my head. ‘It’s a community in Italy run by a nun called Sister Elvira. She is an amazing woman and she has helped thousands of people to get clean. Would you be interested in going over?’

  ‘Emm, I really don’t think I’ll be going anywhere today, Father,’ I replied. ‘I have a load of charges and I’m just about to get sentenced.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll do my best and I’ll try to sort something out.’

  ‘I’ll go to Italy with ye, Father,’ shouted one of the girls sitting beside me. Father Adrian just smiled and he was gone. I began to wonder if I had dreamed him up.

  _____

  Just before my name was called to stand in front of the judge, my old friend Garda PJ Walsh from Ballymun came marching over to me. ‘Who’s this priest?’ he said.

  ‘He’s a friend of the family,’ I told him.

  ‘Right, are you willing to go to Italy?’

  ‘Yeah, if the judge gives me bail.’

  ‘But you’re already serving a sentence.’

  ‘I know. I’ll put in for temporary release.’

  ‘This is what I’ll do then,’ said PJ. ‘I won’t object to bail and I won’t say anything about you serving a sentence, but I’m fuckin’ warning you, if you fuck up one more time I’ll personally give you a good hidin’ myself. D’you understand?’ said PJ as he jokingly showed me his fist. But I knew that he was deadly serious about me messing up.