‘Denise’ (who wished to refrain from using her real name) is Waterford born and raised. She is the mother of two children. Her eldest, 19-year-old Jason, is a heroin addict, whose story is also detailed in a report in this week’s news section.
Denise, with the support of her family, including sister ‘Ann-Marie’ and father ‘Liam’, have done all they can for Jason since he first smoked heroin as a 15-year-old.
“He’s always been the addictive type,” said Ann-Marie. “When he was eight, I nearly lost my life when I found him sniffing petrol. So it’s hard not to think that it’s always been there inside him. And it found a way out, first with hash and now with heroin.”
Denise spoke of Jason’s recent two-night stay in Waterford Regional Hospital, which was, by any standards, a traumatic experience for all concerned.
“He was literally climbing the walls in there, but it was the only place for him there and then,” she said.
“There was nowhere else we could have brought him. Now he had to be brought there in the first place because of the overdose – he needed oxygen and he needed the drip, but we knew, knowing my child the way I do, that he had to stay there a second night.
