A therapeutic centre in Dublin is celebrating 30 years as a facility for peopleconfronting drug and alcohol abuse. Patrick Butler spoke to those currently recovering at Coolmine.
When you enter the main reception area in Coolmine Lodge, you are confronted with a thin wooden sign over a doorway that reads: "Remember where you came from."
Some of the residents in this therapeutic community, whose name has become synonymous with drug treatment in Co Dublin, have had experiences that are impossible to forget.
Take Alan, who has been in Coolmine for eight months. Once, while on drugs, he fell into a river and lost consciousness. By the time he was dragged out of the water, his heart had stopped beating and his body temperature was down to 2 degrees. When he woke up in hospital later, there were tubes coming out from all over him, and he didn't know where he was.
When the President, Mrs McAleese, visited the Coolmine community earlier this month she no doubt heard similar stories - or worse. She would have come face to face with "the dark side" of Ireland - that of alcohol abuse and drug addiction - to which she referred in her widely reported speech made in Virginia last month. Yet she would also have heard stories of hope, determination and recovery.
Coolmine Therapeutic Community has been running its residential treatment programme for 30 years. Since it began in 1973 thousands have gone through its doors, benefiting from its unique ethos.
Unlike others, the Coolmine programme is not just about getting people off drugs or alcohol. In fact, you already have to be "clean" before you enter the community. Rather, it's about giving them the skills to lead satisfactory and fulfilling lives.
"Staff are employed here just as facilitators. We go home at 5 o'clock. Residents organise everything," says one Coolmine counsellor, herself a former addict and resident.
The residential treatment programme is a mixture of therapy and self-help engendered through community living. It is divided into two phases. In the first, which lasts nine months, participants are resident in the Coolmine community: men in Coolmine Lodge, in Blanchardstown, women in Ashleigh House in Clonee, Co Meath. The second phase, which lasts four months, is a living-in-and-working-out phase: participants live in the Coolmine residence, but are allowed to look for work in the wider community.
It was during this second phase that 27-year-old Sharon went off the programme and became what residents call a "split". Now back in the Coolmine community, she is determined to stay the course this time.
However, with the weariness you would expect from someone who has been to prison, suffered overdoses and even tried to kill herself, she admits: "It's difficult to do."
It's not unusual for someone to go through the Coolmine programme more than once. On average, one person a week seeks to opt out of it. But this is all part of the process. "You can't measure the success rate because relapse is part of the recovery," says one counsellor.
Coolmine provides a structure and support system, which may not normally be available at home, to people who want to help themselves. "Nothing's handed to you on a plate. You do it all yourself," says Alan.
It's a cliché, but there is a genuine attempt to make residents feel that they are part of a family. There are even two pet dogs on the premises.
Many of the participants have come from dysfunctional family backgrounds, which undoubtedly contributed to their fall into addiction. Alan says his family "run from him" whenever they see him.
Amy (23), who has been on the programme for two months, says her parents are so out of touch with her that they don't even think she should be in Coolmine.
"Ma and Da think I shouldn't be down here. They didn't know I used to smoke heroin."
The Coolmine Therapeutic Community can be contacted at 6794822. Names of residents mentioned have been changed for reasons of confidentiality