‘I am going to be one of the ones who makes it. I am a very determined person and there is too much to lose if I don’t.” Simone is nearing the end of a six-month residential programme in Ashleigh House, Ireland’s only mother and child drug rehabilitation facility.
In seven weeks’ time, she will leave to settle into a new home with her three children. Her youngest, six-month-old baby Ella, is looking angelic despite being awake most of the night with an angry tooth.
Simone is tired but clearly smitten with her daughter and glad to be able to keep her close while she recovers from drug addiction. “It can be stressful because she is up at night teething but I think it is essential that she is here. It is not only good for me, it’s good for her as well. There are so many women out there who are pregnant or have kids and need places like this.”
Simone had just started at a methadone clinic in Hartstown when she found out that she was pregnant. She was shocked but Ella was born healthy, if “a bit small” in August last year. Ashleigh House has given her a fresh start.
Source: Carol Ryan, Irish Times, 27/03/2012
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