Drogheda's drug problem is on the rise. Hubert Murphy meets a mother, who talks about life with two drug addicted sons and the nightmare she lives with every day.
Rose knows heartbreak, despair, the feeling of having noone to turn to, no-one that will listen or assist.
But her story is one that many face day to day in this region, and a story that others will have to encounter in today's modern world when drugs, of all kinds, take hold.
Her son, Johnny, began a life of addiction at nine years of age. He started sniffing spray cans and then went on to magic mushrooms.
By the time he was 12 he was hooked on the ' buzz' and would sniff a cylinder of gas 'day and night'.
He used to take one across the fields and when that became too hard, brought one into his room and locked the door.
Sniffing petrol was another element and when smoking began it escalated quickly to hard drugs, hash and finally heroin.
In an effort to battle the heroin, he went on methadone and became addicted to that too.
And on top of everything, one of the greatest scourges now enveloping the area, addiction to prescription drugs, saw him became dependent on Xanax. He gets 60 to 100 at a time.
' The buzz is terrible. He falls over and becomes very violent, he thinks someone is stealing his stuff and when it's all over he doesn't even realise what happened,' his mother states.
Over 20 years have passed since the boy began this life. He now lives in a house with nothing, every chair, TV, wall has been smashed.
His brother, Ruairi, is older and began taking drugs when he was 17. There was a drugs house down the road and he could get a steady supply. He quickly slipped into a pattern of abuse.
He buys methodone off the street and is also on prescription medication.
'People are getting methadone and watering it down,' Rose revealed.
Ruairi developed a mental illness due to drugs and realised he couldn't cope. He spent time in prison and then one day he walked into St Brigid's Hospital in Ardee and refused to leave.
' They said he had to be refered, but he didn't listen. He waited there and spent eight weeks getting proper medication.'
Source: Hubert Murphy, Drogheda independent, 15/08/12
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