peter
“I did a lot of acting when I was a kid. My mother was a drama teacher and she got me all sorts of roles. I did drama for years, was in Love Hate, Game of Thrones and Vikings. I was the youngest person talking in the Abbey Theatre, I did tennis and boxing…. all that! I always had a job. I used to install alarms, tills and security cameras. I also worked as a carpenter. Life was good until the day my best mate got shot dead. He was a drug dealer and he left me with too many drugs to handle. Bars of hash, keys of heroin, keys of coke and thousands of e-tablets. I was depressed and I started to smoke them… If I didn’t have my daughter I would be dead by now. I love her so much, she is my biggest motivator. I want to get clean for her. I tried to stop and went on methadone but that was the worst thing I’ve done. I was on that for two and a half years and I tried to commit suicide many times. I still get periods of depression from it. I’ve been on the streets for years now, but I don’t want to go home until I get clean… Being on drugs and living on the streets is a dangerous game. Last winter, one night, I was sleeping in my tent in the snow not too far from here and someone set fire to my tent. I was so high that I didn’t even wake up. The tent was about to collapse on me when two women pulled me out. They saved my life and I couldn’t even thank them… I don’t even get high anymore, I only take it to keep me going. Nobody wants to be on the streets. I want to go home… I want my daughter to be proud of me again.”
This post was highlighted by Ana Liffey Drug Project and the North East Inner City Programme Office.