'Shame trapped me in addiction for 30 years, destroying my life, family and relationships'
Michael Droney: 'Shame trapped me in addiction for 30 years, destroying my life, family and relationships.' Picture: Chani Anderson
A Cork publican who battled alcohol and drug addiction is launching an exhibition to cast light on that darkness and pain and on the redemption of recovery.
Michael Droney will launch his exhibition ‘Finding Beautiful’ in an alcohol-free section of one of his pubs, Aye on Anglesea Street in Cork City, this weekend.
“Shame trapped me in addiction for 30 years, destroying my life, family and relationships,” Mr Droney said.
“Finding Beautiful attempts to show loved ones why the hurt is caused and attempts to lessen the shame of those in addiction or early recovery”.
Mr Droney was a founder of some of Cork’s most popular venues, including The Sextant, Deep South, The Bowery, O’Sho, Crawford & Co, Aye, Gaia and Rosie Maddison.
But in private, he was self-medicating decades of unresolved trauma with alcohol and drugs, hiding his pain behind work and busy bars.
Abused age nine as an altar boy by clergy, Mr Droney said he turned to work and then to substances to block out the trauma of that abuse.
“I was a workaholic — an everything-aholic — to keep me going,” he said.
But when the pandemic struck and “everything stopped”, he “started going into his own thoughts” and the child abuse he suffered “all came back up”. He turned to alcohol and drugs, going into his pub in the morning and raiding the whisky stores.
He was drinking two bottles of whisky a day at the height of his addiction.
“I was in so much pain, I was drinking on the streets. I was kicked out of home,” he said.
He was told by a medic that his alcoholism was so acute that if he suddenly stopped drinking he could die.
And the reason he turned to substances to dull the pain was because he felt that he could not share his trauma of suffering child abuse with others.
But shame and stigma are what lure people into addiction and then trap them there, he said.
He hopes sharing his own struggles will let others know they are not alone.
“Finding Beautiful is about proving that even after the worst relapses, even after hurting the people who love you most, you can still get up and choose something different the next morning. If one person walks out feeling less alone, the whole thing was worth it,” Mr Droney said.
“I've learned that addiction is not about any substance or work, it's about what's going on [internally].” Mr Droney said he behaved very badly when mired in addiction.
And his bad behaviour compounded his self-loathing and low self-worth.
But when he understood his behaviour was not him, but a symptom of his pain, he began to rebuild his sense of self-worth, with the support of his partner Ciara, his family and friends.
“Now, I can look in the mirror and say ‘I like myself and I'm proud of myself',” he said.
“My poor little daughter didn't have a proper dad for the first 18 months of her life.
“If Ciara wasn’t there, or my sisters, I would have fallen through the cracks.”
And his second chance has compelled him to share his story in a bid to help others pull through too.
In March 2021, Mr Droney began the Instagram account @addicted_beautiful as a public diary of sobriety and relapse. That account became the foundation for his exhibition.
The exhibition also represents a solid punctuation point in his life, a way to “draw a line in the sand from identifying as an addict as my whole personality to not”.
“There is hope and resilience — there is no shame. The sooner people can see addiction for what it is, no shame, the easier mass recovery will be.
Mr Droney has worked to introduce wellness elements and non-alcohol related activities into his pubs.
Unless pubs can become community spaces again, they have no real future, he believes.
Rosie Madisons on Barracks Street was the first pub in Ireland to have its own sauna, he said.
The bar also held many craft workshops and wellness events before it closed last July.
O’Sho hosts pop-ups with Cork restaurateurs, including south Indian food from the chefs of Iyers southern Indian restaurant, a hugely popular restaurant on Pope’s Quay, which closed in recent years.
Tongue Tied — two young Cork men producing Italian food — now provide lunches in O’Sho too.
And his pubs have served specialist, locally produced herbal teas from Cork wellness expert Hayley Power.
“I grew up when pubs were a community space, the place for people to be and connect rather than to get drunk,” Mr Droney said.
“I think that’s coming back, people are living healthier lives now.”
Although Rosie Madison’s and its sauna have closed, frequent saunas and cold therapy have been an important part of Mr Droney’s recovery.
“I do them five, six days a week now. It’s for my mental health.
“I've never been stronger and I've never been more grounded.
“And I do put it down to giving myself that time every day and going in and sweating out toxins and going into the cold water.
“Making yourself do stuff that you don't want to do, I found that very beneficial, pushing myself into the cold water every day.
“It builds up mental fortitude, as well as the other health benefits.”
Mr Droney first showed the exhibition ‘Finding Beautiful’ during Culture Night last September, and people’s response to his work compelled him to run it again this month.
“One woman, her husband died of alcoholism, she said that he drank two bottles of whisky a day — similar to my own story. She said that he would never have been able to talk about what was going on internally. But through the exhibition, she said that she might have seen the chaos of his mind and there was some bit of understanding.
“Other people who came to support me said that they resonated with a lot of things in it too because addiction is not too far from a lot of people.
The multimedia exhibition includes original poetry, music, animation, illustration and Instagram reels to document his journey through childhood trauma, severe addiction, repeated relapse, and the “daily work of staying alive”. Each piece is accessed by scanning QR codes with a phone, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own headphones.
The exhibition has been described as “a punch in the chest and a hand reaching out at the same time”.
It will run in Aye, 9 Anglesea Street, Cork City for two weekends — January 9-11 and January 16-18.
Admission is free and the location is fully accessible.
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