Julian Madigan
THE weekend diet of Ecstasy, acid, speed and dope gradually eroded Julian Madigan's healthy, athletic body to a waifish figure with dark sunken eyes and cropped bleached hair. He says he looked a "right case", a druggie in a worn jacket and ripped jeans who stole from family and friends to keep his supply flowing.
"It is fun going out to all the clubs, it is fun doing drugs and hanging out with these people who you love and love you but in a false sense. It is fun to get high and go tripping but the more you get into it and think, this is the business, the worse you are getting and the more you are changing," says Julian (20) who has written The Agony of Ecstasy, a book depicting the life of south Dublin teenagers involved in the drug scene.
He first took Ecstasy when he was 15, and with a few friends at a Dublin rave club. Everybody was warm, loving and friendly. He liked the atmosphere and the feeling of belonging. By 18, the "habit" was an average of 10 Ecstasy tablets between Friday evening and Monday morning at rave clubs around the city. The E buzz was topped with hits of acid and speed and he used hash to help him come down from the highs at a gradual, comfortable pace.
Julian was living with his grandmother in Monaloe, Blackrock, when he first became involved in drugs "out of curiosity". He had been with her since the age of four when his parents split up and sold their Portmarnock house. Both his parents formed other relationships.
"I did not want anybody to find out I was doing drugs and in a sense it was easier for me to get away with the hash and the acid because grandmothers are not really clued into it. There was no change in my behaviour at first and I always made sure I arrived home when I was coming down. I did not want to arrive in and see my grandmother with three heads and three sets of eyes and wondering which head I should talk to. I always organised it so that I arrived when she had gone to bed," says Julian. His grandmother died when he was 17.
"As the first shovel of earth was thrown on top of the casket, I had to be literally dragged from the graveside. This really was the end. It was as if my blood had been sucked from my veins. My spirit had left me, because that's what Heidi was . . . my life and soul, my rescuer. I felt so lonely, so cheated by life," he writes.
He moved in with his father's second family.
"My family were just people who lived in the house and I just had to tolerate them until the weekend. I never missed a weekend with my friends, even if I wasn't actually doing drugs I was still there with them. I was going out; getting stoned, getting tripped out of my head and coming home and not want to talk to my family," he says.
Most of his drug friends' had parents who had separated or were living with other people. Many of them were wealthy and left "free houses" at the weekend where they continued their raves.
"There were a few girls. You went off and got high together and slept with each other and that was it. It usually happened at somebody's free house when the parents were away and sometimes at my own house," he says.
"I was doing E all the time. I needed more cash. When I started on E, one tablet at a time was enough for a good buzz. But now I needed three or four a night. The tablets cost about £15 each, plus the cost of hash and speed, plus bus fares, taxis and admissions to clubs. It was all very expensive.
He moved with three different groups all of whom came from affluent areas like Stillorgan, Foxrock, Deansgrange, Blackrock and Cabinteely. "Money wasn't a problem to them. But it was a problem to the rest of us. We began to talk about dealing again as a way of feeding the habit," writes Julian.
He began selling acid, speed and Ecstasy around the clubs. A couple of deals went awry. He owed money. He went to friends like Father Desmond, a curate at his old school, and told him he owed £300 to a "dodgey character". The priest gave him the money. He told an uncle that a friend's bicycle had been stolen while in his care. His uncle wrote him a cheque for £180. He stole more than £250 from his father and sold his clothes, boots and records to buy drugs. The average weekend cost between £170 and £250.
His father lectured him, called friends' parents and asked him whether he was involved in drugs. Julian ignored him. But in December 1994, a dealer jumped on Julian in Grafton Street and beat him around the head for failing to pay £400 for Ecstasy given in advance. He suffered a slight fracture of the cheekbone. Julian said he was stuck in the whole thing and I did not know how to get out of it". But his father blew the whistle and called all the parents of his drug friends. Julian went into cold turkey.
"I didn't have to deal with the physically addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin. But the social addiction of Ecstasy and hash is an incredibly strong force. People think that it's the drugs which are addictive, but in fact it's the culture. The friends, the atmosphere, the clubs and the parties. Those were the things that I was addicted to," he says.
After three months of sitting around watching videos and eating, he returned to sports which had absorbed his earlier years. He trained feverishly and is now expected to qualify for the 100 metres sprint in the national championships. He intends competing in the 2000 Olympics and expects to win a sports scholarship to an American university.
He thinks he is the lucky one. Two people he knew suffered nervous breakdowns and were treated in St John of God Hospital. He was on the brink and clamoured back.
"I could have been like that kid last year who was found dead in his bath after the dealers came and attacked and kept his head under water until he drowned. That could halve been me," says Julian.
Gerry Madigan
FOR two years, Gerry Madigan lay awake in bed each night waiting for his son to come home. He checked his room at three and four in the morning but the bed was empty. His son usually turned up on Monday morning with a knapsack of sweat soaked clothes.
"I couldn't understand what he was doing with this haversack. He always left with it filled with clothes and Vick's vapo rub. He said it helped their breathing when they were dancing. He said the clothes were saturated because they were dancing all night. He was always very fit and I just thought he was very energetic.
"I never really suspected anything. I suppose I was very naive and I trusted him. I knew he smoked and drank but I do not believe in telling children you can't do this or that and thought it was something he just had to find out for himself.
"I did not know the tell tale signs or what to look for. I thought I was familiar with hash and acid - they were around in the 1960s - but I really knew nothing about E. I really should have made myself alert to all the facts. In retrospect I should have taken more precautions," says Gerry (49), who works as a management consultant and lectures at the Dublin Institute of Technology.
He says there was little communication with Julian but they did talk about drugs and his son told him where he was going and with whom he was staying.
"But they (he and his friends) were all collaborating. I would ring and their mothers would say yes, he was staying here. But he might stay there for part of the night and end up somewhere else, or very often the friends would have a sister who would answer the phone and pretend to be the mother," he says.
Julian lived with Gerry's mother who was unhappy at her son's decision to marry for a second time. According to Gerry, she worried at the effect it would have on Julian as Gerry's second wife already had three young children from her first marriage. He says Julian was suffering a split loyalty. This was exacerbated by Gerry's request that Julian should be best man at the wedding. After consultation with his uncle, Julian accepted the offer but declined to make speeches.
"The fear of becoming part of another family and living with Marina's children was difficult for him. He did not want to build a relationship with them. It was a childish reaction but I can understand it.
"He felt very loved by his grandmother but at the same time he recognised that she was very soft on him. She thought I was hard on him and compensated by being soft on him. Maybe we do not tell our children often enough that we love them," says Gerry.
He first noticed a serious deterioration in Julian's physical appearance in autumn 1994. He was loosing weight, his skin was pallid.
"He began to look like a typical drug addict," says Gerry. He contacted the sporting coach who told Gerry he had not seen Julian for six months. Gerry presumed he was at training three times a week. He rang some parents and discovered one of Julian's friends was being treated for drug addiction at the Coolmine Clinic.
"She told me Julian was almost certainly involved as well. She said they were all at it. I nearly dropped the phone in shock," says Gerry.
He began taping Julian's phone calls on the answer machine. He could not believe his son's conversation - it was of drug deals and drug payments. He tried to find out what was happening but received lies as answers. He said he talked to Julian harshly and gently but nothing seemed to work.
"It was as if he was in the middle of a swimming pool and drowning and I was on the sidelines and could do nothing to help him. He had a tremendous level of fitness and discipline when he was young and I would never have expected someone like him could go so far off the rails. But he is tremendously tenacious and a perfectionist. When he goes into something, he goes all the way. I have no doubt that if he stayed where he was he would have ended up on heroin because he does not do things half way," says Gerry.
He contacted the Garda and a juvenile liaison officer called to the house with a search warrant to comb Julian's room. They found nothing - but terrified Julian. Gerry organised a counsellor for Julian and through her opened the channels of communication with his son. But it was when Julian returned home with a disfigured face in December 1994 that Gerry took direct action. He contacted all the parents, and told them who was dealing and taking drugs. He said many parents were very reluctant to face the reality of their children's activities. Julian's drug friends continued to phone but Gerry told them that his son had gone to Australia for six months.
"For three months after that Julian was pitiful to look at. He was wandering around the house like a zombie or someone from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I tried to get him up early and create a routine but it was only when he got back into sport that things began to change," says Gerry. Julian also joined Gerry's Mormon religion and is now among one of the youngest church leaders.
"I am very proud of him for what he has done because it has been a huge ordeal and a very maturing step because it is very hard to cut off all the contacts you had a lot of dealings with and the friends you had a lot of fun with," adds Gerry.