'I thought I had the whole world fooled. I couldn't control it': Rural Ireland’s love affair with cocaine
Although most of the cocaine users being treated for addiction in Ireland are men, the number of women in treatment is increasing, and they are across every area and every social class.
“Cocaine will probably go down in history as the drug that broke the socio-economic demographic boundary that everybody perceived. Even though there is still a higher prevalence of drug abuse in areas of poorer education and higher unemployment, that is becoming progressively less pronounced because of the widespread use and availability of cocaine,” said Michael Guerin of addiction centre Cuan Mhuire.
“Cocaine dependence is absolutely no respecter of education, affluence, poverty, deprivation or any such social, economic or financial factor that we would have seen heretofore being a predictor for the prevalence of addiction.”
According to Mr Guerin, the growth in cocaine use in recent years shows too that the seeds for drug addiction are now being planted earlier in life.
He said: “Before, when we would get clients in, in their mid to late 20s with a drug dependence issue, they would relate to us in a lot of cases that their unhealthy relationship with substances began in early adolescence with either cannabis and/or alcohol.
“They could trace back the roots of their problem to risk-taking behaviour in early adolescence with alcohol and cannabis. It would appear, from what our latest clients are telling us, that cocaine has now become part of that risk-taking milieu of substances that young people are engaging in at a very young age — as young as 15.”
He said he was aware of one person who had a successful job and never touched a drug apart from alcohol until he was in his 40s and began to take cocaine recreationally.
“We have come across individuals who had never encountered a drug apart from alcohol, prior to using cocaine. They would have encountered cocaine in social, recreational settings and tried it and found very quickly then that they developed a cocaine dependence, even though they had no history of alcohol dependence.”
This highlights the addictive nature of cocaine as a stand-alone addiction, he said.
Although most of the cocaine users being treated for addiction in Ireland are men, the number of women in treatment is increasing, and they are across every area and every social class.
The proportion of women reporting cocaine as their main problem drug has risen from 17% in 2014 to 21% in 2021, according to the latest data from the 2014-2020 Drug Treatment Data published by the Health Research Board last year.
The report also noted that crack cocaine use was more common among women entering treatment for cocaine use (three in 10) than among men (one in 10).
However, powder cocaine is the most popular form of cocaine used by women, according to the report.
Michael Guerin said those statistics were borne out in his treatment centre.
“We are seeing plenty of females — we have seen nothing to suggest that there is a marked difference between the genders in terms of cocaine dependence. In every phone call we are getting now, cocaine is mentioned. Between people ringing us with a cocaine problem or concerned family members ringing up despairing about a relative who is abusing cocaine and is in complete denial that they have any issue whatsoever.”
Garda sources agree that women are taking cocaine but are rarely involved in dealing the drug.
One said: “You wouldn’t come across girls as much but they are using. I know of a few who are involved in transporting stuff but it is more male-orientated.”
There have been a number of cases in recent years where women were convicted of involvement in cocaine operations.
The source said: “They are not prevalent but they are in the background. It is more males doing the dealing but usage is across the board to be honest. It seems to be more males get caught.”
According to analysis of recorded crime statistics from 2020, males were identified as being responsible for just under 90% of drug offences.
The majority of controlled drug offences were carried out by people in the 18-29 year old age group, accounting for 57.8% of offenders, while 28.4% of such offences were carried out by people aged between 30 and 44 years old. And the number of those offences being recorded in rural areas is on the increase.
Analysis of Garda detections for controlled drug offences across the country between 2017 and 2020 shows an increase in many rural areas.
In West Cork, statistics from An Garda Síochána published by the Central Statistics Office show there were 75 such offences detected in the Bandon area in 2020 — up from 27 in 2017.
Similarly, Bantry has had an increase from 17 in 2017 to 41 in 2020.
Other rural areas across the country have experienced increases too in recent years, including Carlow town, which has increased from 229 incidents to 393 in the same four-year period.
Clonmel in Tipperary has risen from 220 recorded drug offences in 2017 to 257 in 2020.
Detections in the Cork town of Cobh have more than doubled, from 55 in 2017 to 118 in 2020, with the same situation in Mallow, where figures rose from 80 to 167 in the same four-year period.
In Kerry, there has also been an increase in Killarney (156 to 182), while Nenagh in Tipperary has also seen an increase from 67 to 88 incidents.
In Mayo, the number of offences has almost doubled in Castlebar, from 49 to 97.
Although figures in smaller towns and villages are much smaller, it can be seen from a sweep of statistics relating to each Garda station area across the country that drug use is a factor in every area of Ireland.
Small towns and villages including Ardfinnan in Tipperary, Aglish in Waterford and Bruff in Limerick have all had instances of detections for drug-related offences in the period from 2017 to 2020.
And while numbers are low, the example of Castletownbere highlights that drugs are more prevalent in rural Ireland than they used to be — with a trebling of detections in the fishing town from five in 2017 to 15 in 2020.
Chief Superintendent Derek Smart, head of the Tipperary Garda Division, said there have been 30 detections for drug dealing in his division already this year, including one seizure of more than €100,000 of cocaine in Toomevara.
And he said: “We also had a very significant seizure in Fethard, worth around €20,000.”
West Cork publican and county councillor Danny Collins owns the Boston Bar in Bantry.
He said cocaine use is now a major issue in rural Ireland, including in Bantry.
He stresses that he has a zero tolerance approach to drug use in his pub and says that his clientele are older people. But he says he is well aware that cocaine and all kinds of substances are an issue throughout west Cork.
He adds: “It does not have to be a big town now anymore for these kind of substances to be freely available.
“I have had parents come to me with concerns because their teenagers are using drugs. Once, a family came to me about a drugs debt, prior to Covid. But I believe cocaine use has risen during Covid because there have been a lot more house parties where there would have been no control.”
As Dara* took his first line of cocaine, he felt a rush of adrenaline unlike anything he had ever felt before. This was life as it should be, with the gift of the gab within his reach, along with a confidence he had never felt before.
At just 17-years-old, he had no way of knowing his split-second decision on a night out with friends in the West Cork town of Bandon would set him on a new path punctuated by brushes with the criminal justice system.
He vividly remembers the first night he took cocaine.
“When I was 17, we were all in the pub and one of my mates had tried it before. He was working and got it off one of his mates in Cork City and gave me a small bit for myself.
Now aged 36, Dara says cocaine and other drugs were readily available in Bandon without a problem 20 years ago — and in the surrounding towns and villages as well.
The same applies today, and he was using cocaine up until he entered treatment two and a half years ago.
He recalls: “The cocaine went out of control for me after about two or three years. I would be dabbling in it during the week and had to sell a bit to fund my addiction. I started getting in trouble with the gardaí and getting caught with drugs. I was caught with weed, cocaine.
"I was in jail from the age of 19 to probably the age of 33 — in and out all the time. That was my life.”
He was in prison at least eight times, with the longest stretch being 18 months.
And even though prison was meant to be a punishment, he reflects: “Sometimes going into prison, you would be delighted because it took me away from the drink and drugs. Prison was like a break really.”
Despite having been a hard worker on his family’s farm, Dara’s life became taken over by his addiction and he was caught by gardaí for crimes including drug possession, theft and fraud.
“I was signing cheques knowing there was nothing there to meet them.” His farm work was also suffering.
“At the start, it was OK because I was able to manage it but after about 12 months, it was a no-go. For a start, I wouldn’t come home because it could be a two- or three-day session.”
His parents and brother had to cover his work when he didn’t turn up.
“There would be lie on top of a lie. After about 12 months, when I got a bit heavier on it, they did know it [that he was using cocaine]. They knew there was strange behaviour and the lies, me not turning up for work. I was always a good worker, even when growing up and as a teenager. I would always have been out and about and stuck in machinery. Everything went — all my interests went. My family pulled me loads of times and asked what was going on.”
Later on, while he was in treatment, his parents told them of the pain they endured watching what his addiction was doing to him.
But he knows he was not in control of his cocaine use when he looks back on his years of addiction now.
“Everyone was using but there was a group of three or four of us that couldn’t control it. There were other people who were on it during the weekend and could stop then during the week whereas I couldn’t. If I had money, I was taking it.”
He was consumed by his addiction — either thinking of getting it or what would he have to do to get it.
Cocaine was not the first drug he used. Cannabis was. But he only used that for a short time a few months before doing his first line of cocaine.
He had a regular supplier in Cork City, who he had met during one of his stints in prison.
Paying for his habit was not always easy and he became involved in small level dealing to fund his own use.
He says: “I got into trouble with debt. I would use nearly all I had to sell and had no way of paying for it. I would have to borrow money off my parents, off my friends, to pay it back. Everyone got sick of me soon enough. They bailed me out once, and then I would be going to jails.
"My parents always stood by me but you could see they were broken. I had two brothers and two sisters. Nobody disowned me but they left me know they were not happy either. I was the only one of us who took drugs.”
Dara felt his life was always going to be a pattern of drug-taking and going in and out of prison.
“For years, I accepted my life and that this was how it was going to be. I was in jail one time and I was thinking it was not too bad. I thought this was me for life.
"But the drink took over at the end of my addiction and the drugs were not doing anymore for me. I burned myself out from the drink. It brought me to my knees. I kept vomiting, I couldn’t hold stuff down. I was getting sick maybe three or four times a day for the last two years of my addiction. It was horrible.”
For his family, it became harder and harder to stand by and watch him decline. His parents managed to persuade him to go for help and he tried for two months to access treatment.
He eventually secured a place in Cuan Mhuire and is doing his utmost to ensure he remains clean, and continue to work.
Although no longer in the drugs scene, he knows cocaine use is as prevalent now as it was before.
He believes most people who take drugs do so because they are not dealing with their emotions or are socially awkward, and urges them to seek help.
“It is not weak to ask for help and talk to somebody. It is a sign of strength. It is not an easy journey. It is tough work but it is worth it. When I have good days, they are really good. When I have tough days, I have the tools to get me through the tough days. They get not so tough after a while. It is a lot tougher being in addiction.”
His relationship with his family has changed utterly since he entered recovery.
Now that he is in recovery, Dara’s life has begun to brighten after having been “fairly black” in the last years of his drug use.
“It is all about getting by and keeping the head cool on a daily basis and getting through the day.” He works full-time in construction now, and says his life has a new structure which leaves him feeling in control. There is a consistency he never had during the 16 years of his addiction.
He adds: “I wasted 16 years of my life but I don’t regret a bit because I am on the journey I am on today because of it. I am two and a half years clean now. I am really concentrating on my recovery now. I don’t have time for a relationship to be splitting my weekends with someone else. I have two kids and they take up a lot of time too. I am trying to get back into civilisation and survive sober — something I have never done before. Between work, my kids and my family, I have loads on my plate.”
Mags*, a 31-year-old mother living in north Tipperary, has been off cocaine for the past four months. She was also a user of ecstasy, speed and cannabis in the past.
She started using cocaine at 17 years old and says she went from 0 to 100 with it.
She remembers: “I tried it once and within a week, I was sitting in a room in my nana’s house, using it on my own. It was all I wanted and that went on for a while and I went totally off the rails. I drove my poor family mad.”
She ended up in treatment in the UK at the age of 19, which she says was brilliant.
But after being clean for three years, she returned to drug use and blames a violent relationship for getting back into cocaine at the start of the first lockdown in March 2020.
She initially started using cocaine at weekends but the habit then became part of her weekly routine too, during the pandemic.
She says: “I was able to handle it for a while. It was a weekend thing.”
However, her habit evolved to such a degree that she used to take cocaine before going shopping or when making dinner — just part of her everyday routine.
She believes the isolation of the early days of the pandemic made her drug use much worse.
“There was nothing to get up for, there was nothing to go out for.” And she says there was nowhere to go for help from her violent relationship.
She says she had been taking cocaine during the relationship but her usage increased when the relationship ended — “to help me get through it”.
Waking up in the same environment when trying to leave addiction is like “groundhog day”, she says.
“It is very hard to see any bit of hope when everyone around is doing the same thing and you can’t see anyone else living any other life. I thought everyone was living the same way as I was living but it was only the people I was around.”
She even changed how she dressed in a bid to distance herself from the life she had before she stopped taking cocaine because “I just wanted to be a different person”.
She says drugs are everywhere now, especially cocaine, making it difficult for recovering addicts.
“I think it is becoming very socially acceptable to be in that lifestyle [drugs]. It is everywhere. It is in music, it is on telly.”
She also can not believe how open young people are about getting drugs for a night out, and while she knows many people can take cocaine recreationally, she says that is not the case for everyone.
“I can’t. When it is so socially acceptable, like drink, it is hard to admit that you have a problem and that you can’t do that.”
She says going to a pub or club now for her is impossible if she wants to remain clean from drugs.
“I don’t even want to go out — I can’t tempt myself with going out because it is everywhere. Everyone is doing it. I am shocked. Some of them are so young and it is just normal and it is all the time.
“It is everywhere when you step outside the door. Walking through town, dealers are just walking and driving past you all the time and I know them all. They would still ring me now telling me they have something.”
She is a mother to three children and she says her family now has “to start all over again”.
Mags describes as “torture” the moment she finally realised she needed help and phoned a helpline in the summer of 2020, as the pandemic continued.
“I was looking at it [cocaine], knowing I didn’t want to do it but I felt I just couldn’t stop. I rang that number that day.”
Members of her family tried their best to help her. But she admits: “There is only so much a family can do as well. They can’t stop you. The person has to get the support and help themselves to do it.
"I would have given anything to just stop and just not feel the way I was feeling. The only way has been just by talking about and saying how I feel and changing the people I was around, the environment, especially my living environment.”
She says drug addiction impacts the whole family.
“It is not until after you stop that you see the damage. It is only now I am beginning to realise the effect on my family. I was not there emotionally or mentally for them in the last couple of years and it is only now that I am starting to come back around and start spending proper time with them. They were constantly with me but emotionally I have not been there.
"I feel bad because they have had to go through all that with me and now I am trying to get better and get them better.
When Marian Keyes penned Rachel’s Holiday a quarter of a century ago, the main character was a fan favourite who has stood the test of time.
The New York glamour, the humour and the absolute absurdity of the life of Rachel Walsh was the perfect escape novel for Keyes’s legion of fans. It has led to a follow up book on Rachel’s life — — published in recent weeks to critical acclaim.
But today, the story of Rachel is no longer unusual. Instead, there are Rachels throughout the country who see themselves as recreational users of drugs like cocaine, and firmly believe they are in control of their lives — until they finally admit they have a problem that needs to be addressed through residential treatment.
And just like Rachel’s older sister, there are family members who are worried to distraction about what is ahead of their loved ones if they don’t kick the cocaine habit which they believe is recreational and a bit of fun.
Like Rachel, Jacqui* was totally caught up in her mad and exciting life with the man she thought was her ideal partner. She met him over a decade ago and fell for him hard and fast — for a number of reasons, including the lifestyle he gave her, and the fact he had status as a drug dealer.
Looking back now, from the comfort of a residential treatment centre in her native Kildare, she can see her life was not as glamorous or as fun as she thought it was when she was living through it.
The 33-year-old mother has been taking cocaine since the age of 17. From a small town in Kildare, she says she smoked cannabis and drank in small amounts before taking cocaine. She was introduced to it by a guy she wanted to impress.
She remembers:
Although she was unsuccessful in her bid to win him back, the life-path she found herself on was a roller coaster.
“I loved it. I couldn’t believe how cocaine took over. I was in control at the start — I wouldn’t have needed it like I did years later. I would have it at weekends and it didn’t bother me if I didn’t have it. That went on until I was about 22.”
In the interim period, she had met somebody else and the couple had a baby girl together when Jacqui was 20 years' old.
However, the couple did not stay together as they had different views on life. Jacqui was still involved in the drugs scene while the father of her child was not.
Eager to remain a good time girl, she threw herself back into the party scene.
She says: “When I was 22, I got in with a drug dealer for 10 years and was in a relationship with him for a number of things — for the lifestyle, the money, the holidays, the cocaine.”
She thought she had landed on her feet and was living the dream.
And for the first while, she did exactly that. But now, she can see her life was beginning to lose control, even in the early days of the relationship.
“For the first couple of months, it was OK but then it spiralled out. There were people coming to the house all the time, partying. I was always in competition with girls who were trying to go with my fella behind my back. It was chaos and it was toxic. Life was 100 miles an hour.”
And although life was chaotic, she stayed in the relationship for ten years. It finished a year and a half ago, when her partner left. Although he was a drug dealer, he did not approve of Jacqui’s spiraling cocaine habit and was more restrained himself in his using.
But there were other difficulties too in the relationship. She believed that if she had a child with him, it would please him because her first child was not his. Their daughter was born in 2017.
Jacqui recalls: “I thought I would have a good life when I had the child for him. I thought we would be secure but he turned into a demon then. He would go out all the time and leave me there with the children.”
She gave up taking cocaine while pregnant but continued with the lifestyle of partying.
Her partner worked full time as well as dealing in drugs. She says he would not give her drugs as her habit became more and more serious.
But it didn’t stop her sourcing it when she wanted it.
“When he would be gone to work, I would be ringing around looking for cocaine first thing in the morning. I worked in the same job for nearly 18 years so I had money.
“Cocaine is an expensive drug. I don’t know how I afforded it. I could have worked five or six days a week, but I handed every penny over to cocaine.
"I was still able to hold up a job. I was functioning and could drive the car and everything. I would never have drank and drove, but I did with cocaine. I was actually taking drugs when I was working as well — including before I went to work. And myself and another girl took it at work to get us through the day.”
She adds: “When Covid came, it got worse. I was stuck in the house a lot and nobody was able to call. He was gone away to work and I was still able to get the drugs. I had the children at home while taking it. The older one is 14 now."
Jacqui finds it hard to believe she took drugs while looking after her children. She says people never know what they are taking when they are taking cocaine.
“You don’t know if it is cocaine you are taking — you don’t know what is in it.” And she is also horrified by the damage she did to herself while on cocaine.
She moved back into her family home before going for treatment, where her family helped her through the big decision to get help for her habit.
She says she knew she had to go for treatment or else she would be dead.
“Cocaine destroyed my life. It gives you false courage.” She now cannot wait to get out of treatment to get home to her two girls in about a month’s time.
She is proud she went for help before her children were taken from her.
She says: “I am the luckiest girl ever.”
- If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please click here for a list of support services.
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