While Ireland tops the polls for cocaine-related deaths in Europe, there is still a public stigma over drug use. All too frequently it is in those closest to us that we fail to recognise the signs, writes Julia Molony.
It's almost impossible to be dispassionate about cocaine. Even the word itself seems to drop into speech like a semantic bomb, setting off explosive reactions. As a society, we entertain a jolly little double standard about it – drowning in drugs in our social lives, while colluding in the perpetuation of a public stigma that means that, for example, a cocaine associated death is something that cannot be acknowledged in the public domain.
Melanie Verwoerd is adamant that she didn't know that her long-term partner, the man she loved and believed she knew so intimately, was using cocaine at the time of his death in 2010. As the daughter of an alcoholic she insists that there was no way he could have hid a cocaine habit from her.
"As a child of an addict, you don't miss the signs," she said, laying out her case in her book When We Dance, "You know the mood swings, the erratic behaviour, the broken promises, the lies, the highs; you can spot it a mile away." However, it appears that Melanie Verwoerd didn't know Gerry Ryan quite as well as she thought she did. This would not be that unusual in a romantic partnership – especially between couples who do not cohabit.
You usually have to live with someone before the full picture of their frailties becomes clear. And whatever those who loved Gerry Ryan believed to be true about him, the irrefutable fact remains that he was using cocaine at the time of his death.
Source: Julia Molony, Irish Independent, 11/05/14
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