Tale of descent into alcoholism a sobering read

Brian O’Connell had hit rock bottom in late summer 2004. Alcohol had him locked in a vice-like grip and it seemed as if he couldn’t break free.

Five years after leaving secondary school, the then 28-year-old Ennis man had plummeted from the dizzy heights of being a scholarship student at University College Cork to stealing sausage rolls at the hot food counter in Tesco, just to save enough money for alcohol.
He had the tactic of stealing food down to a fine art. His usual trick was to head for Tesco, pick up a shopping basket, wander around the store filling up the basket and halfway through stopping off at the hot foot counter for a few chicken drumsticks, sausage rolls and potato wedges.
These were eaten on his way around the supermarket before depositing the basket with an employee and asking him or her to mind it before he went outside to withdraw more money.
He never returned with the money, managed to evade detection and this spiralled into a weekly and sometime sdaily occurrence.
That wasn’t the worst. In his new book, Wasted – A Sober Journey Through Drunken Ireland, Brian recalls the sheer depths of despair and the lows he experienced.
“I drank not being able to provide a proper home environment for my son, I drank out of loneliness. I drank because of insecurity, unfulfillment and arrogance. I drank out of frustration. I drank to feel normal. I drank and drank and drank.
“If I could get away without paying for anything that didn’t involve alcohol, I did, and most of the time, I owed money to someone or other. I surrounded myself with male and female companions in the same boat, hiding from some aspect of life,” he writes.
The realisation that the party had to stop eventually dawned following two episodes. The first was at the end of a two-day drink-and-drug bender in a friend’s house after closing time, where he witnessed the death of a person while waiting on a delivery of ecstasy to keep the party going.
A few months later, he gave a witness statement to gardaí and broke down, in a windowless room with a sergeant nearing retirement scribbling frantically. Only then did he realise his life had gone out of control.
The second moment was in October 2004 at a World Cup qualifying soccer match in Paris when he went on a “drunken free-for-all” on the ferry, during which he stole €100 from a friend for drink.
There were countless other incidents including getting barred from late-night clubs, abusing people verbally and not having any recollection the next morning and messing up relationships through serial infidelity.
The French weekend got under his skin because for a few days his friends were on the same level as him, out for a bit of boozy fun. When it was over, they continued with their lives, getting promoted, having children and buying houses.
After spending his week’s rent and child maintenance, he faced the next fortnight playing catch-up, ducking and diving to try and cover the excess.
In an interview with The Clare Champion, Brian admits he doesn’t recognise the man he had become during his drink-fuelled days.
Five years after plunging to his own personal nadir, he is now a homeowner, an award-winning feature writer with the Irish Times, has a great family, a beautiful son, a partner, enjoys conversation without alcohol and actually likes himself.
He credits his parents, with whom relations had been strained for several months because of non-contact, for helping him to turn his life around. They arranged to meet him at St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork with the rest of his siblings, where they expressed their concerns in the presence of a treatment counsellor.
Despite being the eldest in the family, his younger brother and sisters felt they didn’t know him anymore.
This prompted a month-long stint in rehabilitation at Tabor Lodge Treatment Centre in West Cork, which gave him the space and structure to help him pick up the shattered pieces of his life.
The book, which is a no-holds barred account of his battle, is dedicated to his late grandmother, Rose O’Connell from Kildysart, while his grandfather, John O’Connell, still lives on his farm in Kilmurry McMahon. Having spent many happy summers in West Clare, Brian regrets the time he lost contact with his grandparents and his immediate family.
Having caused a lot of pain and hurt to his family during the unsavoury period of his life, Brian didn’t want to add further fuel to the fire by writing the book and thought long and hard before offloading very private details in public.
He was very conscious of the impact it might have on his parents, Declan and Joan, who live in Ennis, having moved from Mountain View in the county town, and didn’t want to become labelled as a recovering problem drinker for the rest of his life.
His parents have been very supportive and never tried to persuade him to leave out some of the more embarrassing details.
In the book, Brian takes a much wider view by interviewing high-profile figures that had their own issues with alcohol – former Tipperary All-Star hurler, John Leahy, comedian Des Bishop, actor Niall Tobin, Ennis actor and writer Mark O’Halloran and singer Mary Coughlan.
More importantly, he also explores Ireland’s unending love-affair with drink, daytime drinking in Tipperary, how other European countries cope with their drinking cultures and the adequacy of the Irish Government’s response following a very revealing interview with Minister of State, Mary Wallace.
Brian hopes his book will help to change the mindset where drink is seen by some people as an unofficial national emblem abroad and kickstart a proper national debate on the promotion, marketing and ill effects of alcohol abuse.
He can’t understand why a photograph of United States Secretary of State Hilary Clinton drinking a glass of Guinness was seen as worthy of inclusion on the front page of Irish newspapers or why Fianna Fáil backbenchers chose the proposed reduction in the blood alcohol limit from 80 to 50 mgs for a revolt instead of more serious national issues such as the recapitalisation of the banks or NAMA.
“I don’t think Hilary Clinton would have posed for that photograph in any other country because it wouldn’t be seen as socially acceptable.
“I am not anti-drink. I have parties in my house and I have no problem with people drinking there. We need to take a serious look at the amount of resources we are investing in rehabilitation and treatment for alcohol abuse.
“There is only one residential treatment centre, the Aislinn Centre, Kilkenny, with just 14 beds for juveniles under the age of 21 who need rehabilitation from drugs, alcohol and eating disorders. When you take out beds for the health boards and prison service, you have four to six beds for the treatment of children in all of Ireland.
“Report after report has highlighted the problem of teenage binge drinking but very little action has been taken. I don’t think Ireland is ready to import the café culture from Europe, having recently read a report about residents opposing a youth café in Ennis.
“We need to have an open and frank discussion about the abuse of drink in this country. We need a lot more information about this issue and where help is available,” he says.
Brian’s drink of choice at weekends is now a sparkling water with a dash of lime. He doesn’t feel the need to drink any more to fit in socially and his tale of his own personal journey from drunken stupor to sobriety will surely help countless others who find themselves in the same position to seek help.