How I kicked the habit

People always ask me how I managed to get off drugs. Like many other drug users I found comfort and support in Narcotics Anonymous. It was at the daily meetings where I met others just like me or who had travelled the road before me, and who didn't judge me.

I also found a rehabilitation  centre where, in a gentle and non-judgemental environment, I learned to conquer my demons . I learned to find hope in small things, in the mundanity of everyday life, in the little routines I had shunned for so long. I came to realise it wasn't the drugs that were holding me back in a life I had come to hate - it was me, and only I could change things.

I used to wonder how on earth people could cope with life without drugs and now I know. Life has given me so much more since I stopped taking heroin. I stuck with the rehab and remained clean far longer than the six months which I had managed before. 

More later....

More publicity

Last week Sky News cameras followed me around Dublin as the book was launched. Its website has a page about me here

It also has a short news video with an interview here

There are some comments from Sky News viewers:

• ""I find this statement by Rachael Keogh rather perplexing..... My priority even now is still to stay clean." This MUST be her EVERY DAY priority, for the rest of her life!! ""

  Thats a very harsh thing 2 say , cuz that priority SURE BEATS wanting to find drugs as an every day priority, i truley respect and honor those who go clean cuz it dose take courige and a sharp mind...not to bad for an addict. cheers shorts.

  Posted By :salahREPORT THIS

• Completely pointless. She wouldn't have paid any attention to such a book when she was an addict.

  Posted By :MarkREPORT THIS

• Rachel is trying to open peoples minds to the actual horror of a drug addiction, hopefully this book will save the lives of some people that choose that path. Drugs are now available and accessable more then ever and no ones family or friends are untouchable.

  Well done rachel for getting clean, I am looking foward to Reading your book and I hope you have the strength to enjoy a healthy lifestyle with your child.

Sunday World

Big four-page spread in the Sunday World yesterday. It's great publicity for the book and the sort of exposure most new authors don't get.

It was, of course, the full tabloid treatment with big headlines, loads of pictures and as scandalising as they could make it. 

The headline spread across the first two pages read: "I could spend over 13 hours desperately trying to get the heroin into me. I sadistically found this ritual pleasurable."

The headline for pages three and four was: "My mum tore my cardigan off and swore at me... take a look at your f**king arms Rachael. Look at them."

Salvation of a smack addict

The book is out there, just waiting to read the first reviews. I hope they go gently on me!

There's another documentary available online, may after my son was born. You can watch it here.

Going public

The book launch, Gerry Ryan, all the other interviews that go with a book launch. Of course, this isn't the first time I've had to talk to the media.

Back in 2006 my mum took pictures of my rotting arms and sent them to a few journalists.

Alison O'Reilly from Sky made a documentary, this is what she wrote a year later in 2007:

She was dying from heroin addiction when I interviewed her in July 2006. The 27 year old from Ballymun in Dublin had been caught up in the grips of drug abuse for 14 years and she didn't have the strength to fight her demons anymore.

Rachael and her family knew it was only a matter of time before her body gave up. She told me she was better off dead.

Her arms were destroyed from injecting. The veins in her body had collapsed and she was now injecting into capillaries which weren't strong enough to handle the heroin, so the citric acid had burned huge holes in her arms.

Her mother Lynda released shocking pictures of the open wounds in the hope Rachael would be hospitalised.

We both got on from the start and I decided to investigate drug treatment facilities in Dublin and try to understand why Rachael wasn't getting the proper treatment she needed.

There are approximately 13,000 drug addicts in Dublin alone and only 20 detox beds. The first step when trying to get off drugs is a stabilisation or methadone programme.

Everyday Rachael works on a 12 step programme.

"Imagine feeling like you are wrapped up in cotton wool. You feel so safe, like no one can hurt you. That's what it's like when you take heroin, it's so overwhelming it's very hard to stop, it takes away all your cares".

Rachael put so much pressure on herself to get clean.  She never stopped trying going from the methadone clinic and then to see her counsellor.

She remained positive through sheer grit and determination but she often broke down when she found it difficult to cope.

Last month Judge Cormac Dunne acquitted Rachael on eight counts of shoplifting and said she was a "role model" for all acutely addicted persons.  She didn't receive probation or a conviction, and he congratulated Rachael on her efforts to rehabilitate herself.

The girl with the arms...

What a day!

It started with an hour-long interview on the Gerry Ryan show and finished with my book launch later in the evening. 

The interview with Gerry went really well. I don't suppose too many people get an hour of his show to promote their book, so hopefully that's an indication of the interest there is in Dying to Survive.

Gerry called me the 'girl with the arms', which, I suppose, is how a lot of people remember me from the Sky News documentaries. "It looks like you've been savaged by a wild animal" was his own way of putting things. I just explained that I would have to leave it another while before I got any work done on them, as the doctors said you have to be clean a few years before work can begin.

So, as I said, we spoke for an hour. Everything was covered, from starting out with drink and hash through acid and then heroin. Gerry couldn't believe I took acid every day for a year. "You're brain must have been fried!"

The official launch of the book took place in Hughes & Hughes in St Stephens Green Shopping Centre later that evening. There were loads of people there. Faces from my past and present. Fr Peter McVerry was the guest speaker and he said some lovely things. He mentioned he doesn't have much time to read books but he started reading mine Sunday night and couldn't put it down! He finished it the same night.

I said a few words also. I was a bit nervous but just spoke about why I wrote the book and what it means to me. As I've mentioned before, the journey from there to here is amazing. In my speech I said that three years ago I was hooked on drugs and getting barred from my local shopping centre. I nearly died.

Now I'm clean and a published author. It took me 16 months to write the book and I had to live like a hermit to get it finished but I wanted to show people there is hope. 

I finished by thanking all the people that have helped me, particularly my family, who never gave up hope either.

I should have a few pics from the launch up on the site soon. That's all for now. Make sure you watch out for a new documentary about me on Sky News over the Bank Holiday weekend.

And another thing.... Eason's have made Dying to Survive its Book of the Month for May. 

Can you believe it?