It started with a prescription. The benzodiazepine tablets Dermot was given to cope with a bereavement allowed him to escape into sleep, a sensation he got hooked on quickly. When a second prescription expired, Dermot spent the next 18 months using forgeries to wrangle more from pharmacies, escalating to near-lethal doses before finally he confided in his GP.
“He didn’t understand,” says Dermot – not his real name – who is in his early 30s and from the west of Ireland. “It was the old-fashioned west of Ireland attitude of ‘cop on, you’re fine.’ There was no talk of getting help.” Turning to an addiction counsellor only frustrated him further. “He just listened, so I didn’t feel like I was getting anything out of it.”
Dermot says the only option left was to enter residential rehab. But the one he chose said he’d need to detoxify from the medication two weeks before admission.
“I couldn’t understand,” he says, his voice strained. “If I could get off it for two weeks I wouldn’t need to go!”
Ireland has relatively few addiction-treatment programmes, and most require patients to be free of all substances when they arrive.
This policy stems from the 12-step model of recovery, the most prevalent basis for addiction treatment, and can extend to prescription medications such as anti-depressants and anti-psychotics.
Source: Cian Traynor, Irish Times, 18/05/2013
Safer Student Nights
eBulletin
Poll
