The phonecalls had become a regular occurrence. But this one was more eventful than usual. “He said ‘Da, I’m after being taken out of the Liffey, I jumped in’, and I said ‘well fuck, why didn’t you stay in there?’ I’d gotten to the point where I didn’t give a shit if he was dead, because I’d gone through so much that I wanted him to die.”

That was the lowest point in Sean Ronan’s fourteen-year struggle with his son Paul’s heroin addiction. One of six children, Paul’s drug taking had started when he was 21: although he was still living at home, his parents were initially unaware of his heroin habit. “He was an addict for two years and I didn’t even know,” says Sean. “It turns out he was shooting up at home when I wasn’t there and the younger children knew about it but they wouldn’t tell me. When I found out I just lost it with him completely.”
Paul ended up in serious debt to a number of local drug dealers. “He was either going to be killed or I’d have to pay it off,” says Sean. “So I paid it off. He’d been asking for 20 bags or whatever from the dealers and they’d say meet me here next week with the money. And the following week, he wouldn’t have the money but they’d give him 20 more. They didn’t give a shit, because at the end of the day they’re either going to waste you or get their money.”
Paul continued to get worse, however, moving from smoking to injecting heroin. Having shuffled the troubled young man between various institutions for years, Paul cut him loose when doctors eventually told him that the only hope Paul had of coming off heroin was if he truly wanted to do it himself.
“He lived on the streets for eight years,” recalls Sean. “He begged in the city centre and he was making between e150 and e200 a day. I saw him with his money once in a black plastic bag that was so heavy he couldn’t carry it. He used to lodge it into the bank, he had an account, and he just took it out when he wanted to score.
“Initially, he was paying e30 an hour to another guy for his spot on the bridge. But he got fed up paying that so he decided to take on one of the older fellas. He took him on, got the better of him but his friends jumped in and kicked the shit out of him. He broke his arm and three or four of his fingers, he was in bits. I had to go in and get him.”
The truth means nothing to heroin addicts.
“I would often be standing in the middle of O’Connell St. with him hanging out of me, roaring crying. He’d be telling me how sorry he was, that he loved me and he wouldn’t do this any more. He didn’t mean it – he wanted me to give him e50 so he could go and get a fix. It’s a hard thing for a parent to contemplate, but I got to a point where I decided that if he gets worse, then I don’t want to know. If he dies or overdoses, that’s what happens to him. It’s a horrible thing to say about your son, but you’re not dealing with your son, you’re dealing with a heroin addict.”

Having grappled with his frustration for years, Sean finally resolved to make something positive out of the experience. “I wrote a short play called Mr. Heroin, and it was the best thing I ever did,” he says. “It opens with a drug addict shooting up on stage, then I come on as the parent and tell my story. It was a great way for me to deal with it.” In addition to extensive work with the recovery community, Sean has been performing the play for addicts, their families and others on a regular basis for the past five years. “It’s only when people see it in front of them in a theatre that they realise what addicts do.”
In general, Sean believes the suffering of families has been under-reported to date. “The parent’s point of view is never highlighted. If you were to ask Paul about a particular situation three years ago, he wouldn’t be able to relate to it. It doesn’t even register with the drug user what they’ve put their parents and their brothers and sisters through.”
Paul is currently in the second year of a three-year methadone course in Dublin, which requires Sean to foot the bill for his accommodation. He’s not optimistic about the likelihood of success: “I can never see a day when Paul will be totally clean. He’s become so used to heroin that he actually doesn’t know how to live without it. He doesn’t have a problem doing it because he’s become so accustomed to it. The last thing I’ve done for him is renting the house, there’s another year to go and I’m not renting it again after that. If he hasn’t come round, and I don’t think he will, then that’s it, I just have to cut him off again because he’s affecting everybody’s life and he’s making no effort himself. I firmly believe he’s convinced that he can live on heroin. You can’t get around that and I’m getting too old to deal with it anymore.”
Based on his experiences, Sean has come to the conclusion that heroin should be legalised. “Methadone is every bit as addictive as heroin and that’s legalised. If heroin is legalised, it cuts out the dealers, takes the gangster element out. The kids are going to try it anyway. The situation now is totally out of control, so why not try something drastic? They can always go back on it.”
Sean and Paul’s story is a powerful illustration of the destructive effects heroin addiction is having on families around the country. Paul’s abuse of the drug made him a stranger to his own father and ruined forever his chances of living a normal, productive life. The only consolation Sean can feel as a father is that through making Paul’s story known, others may not make the same mistakes.