http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/features/article3045495.ece
By 18 Lisburn man Jackie Burke was a drug addict - and went on to lose all he loved. Now 54 and married with three children, he believes he was brought from the brink of death by 'a miracle' and has just published a book about his life. He tells Jane Bell his extraordinary story
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
I have no excuses. I didn't take drugs because my mammy didn't like me or my daddy beat me or my auntie fancied me. For a long time I took drugs because I liked it. It was only much later that I realised how much it had cost me and how close I came to death.
I was born in Lisburn, the youngest of three boys. My father, a civil servant, worked at Stormont under Terence O'Neill. He was a father ahead of his time, a hands-on father, you could have talked to him about anything that was troubling you. My mother showered us with love. We weren't rich and we weren't poor. My two big brothers were typical Northern Ireland brothers - they'd go out and fight your battles for you then come home and give you a clip around the ear. My upbringing was second to none.
I was 11 when I had my first cigarette - the first 'drug'. As I tell the kids I talk to at schools, 75% of young people who smoke cigarettes go on to alcohol, cannabis or other drugs.
I give them the facts but I try not to preach. Instead I give them my life story.
At 13 I got drunk for the first time - I wanted to try something that would make me the kind of guy I wanted to be. At 14 a lad at school gave me my first cannabis and taught me how to roll a joint. It made me feel giggly and relaxed but I thought 'I'll never be one of those junkies'. Needles frightened the life out of me - still do - I was sure I'd never do something like that.
At 15, again at school, I was given a couple of Black Bombers, a very toxic form of pharmaceutical speed. Again, I thought 'That's as far as I'll go.' But the following year I moved to England with two lads I'd been hanging around with for years. My parents were concerned but I was 'clever'. I'd had some connection with my local church and when the young curate moved to England I used him as a cover. I got a job right away, as an accounts clerk in an office in Surrey, I had friends, a flat.
But I wasn't as clever as I thought. I had my first LSD trip and it was so explosive in my mind I had to put it all down on paper. For no other reason than boastfulness I posted it to one of my brothers. My mother found the letter and was devastated. My father rang me from Stormont and told me to get on the next plane home.
Lying
I came home immediately and stayed for nine weeks, lying through my teeth: 'It was a one-off. It would never happen again.' Eventually they allowed me to go back to England. And, though they didn't know it, back to drugs.
We addicts are very good at transference of guilt and blame. But at 16, just like at 14, I made choices and those choices had consequences. At 18 I was registered with the Home Office as a drug addict with access to what one doctor described as a 'disgusting amount' of drugs on the NHS. And because I was getting these quality drugs, pharmaceutical speed and barbituates, I was able to swap the excess and that brought me into the realm of dealing in drugs. When I was selling drugs it really wasn't a profit-driven thing. I was stupid enough to believe that people couldn't have as good a life unless they dropped out, turned on and took drugs. It was almost like a mission. By 19 I couldn't have got through 24 hours without drugs.
Me and another lad sold cannabis, LSD and speed.We never sold any of the so-called 'hard' drugs. We thought we were only selling good time, recreational drugs. The police took a different view and I ended up in prison.
There were drugs in prison, of course, but the irony is that I never took anything in prison. My attitude was this is going to be hard enough to hack without taking drugs. I was well versed in cold turkey. My first time in prison I went to the hospital wing where they give you just enough drugs to take the edge off it, not enough to stop you having withdrawal. I made a choice never to do that again. It was easier to get through the sentence in mainstream prison.
Once in Pentonville it got out that my brother was sending me food parcels. One druggie offered to swap a bit of blow for a packet of Jacob's Fig Rolls. I'm not kidding you.
But most of the time it was no laughing matter. In Belfast's Crumlin Road, you went to the 'basement' for the first couple of days by yourself before being integrated into prison. You can have a small seizure, like an epileptic seizure, from withdrawal. I could have swallowed my tongue.
But the real hurt and pain I had from drugs wasn't physical. I had far bigger losses. In my 20s my drug-taking just got worse. There was no longer any enjoyment, it was just going to the chemist, sometimes on a daily basis, to get my fix. I wasn't dealing in the later years, just living on the goodwill of whatever the doctor would give me.
In about 1980 along came a girl, we got together and she got pregnant with twin daughters. One of the babies died at birth but the other, who I call 'Emma' in the book, lived. I decided 'That's it' and weaned myself off the drugs. I got a job working for an aristocrat as a gardener and chauffeur. We had a tied cottage in beautiful grounds. I had it all.
But something in my head was telling me 'You'll never be a father to this wee girl. Go back to the drink and drugs, go back to what you were made for'. When 'Emma' was just 18 months old I walked out. I came home to Northern Ireland in 1982 and left my daughter behind.
Then in 1986 my brother Tom died, aged 38. Tom worked hard, played hard and had a good drink at the weekend. He'd been on holiday at a caravan we used to go to together. As thanks for laying a carpet for me, I bought him a bottle of good brandy and 10 strong beers. I poured him a big one and he appeared to go to sleep and I went on to a party. By the next morning Tom had died of alcoholic poisoning. He'd been drinking on holiday but I had poured him his last one. I was just devastated. I felt I'd killed my brother. It was terribly hard to deal with.
Nineteen days before Tom's first anniversary my father died of a heart attack and nine months later my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I was in Crumlin Road prison feeling sorry for myself. Happily, she came through the other side of that, her faith still strong, but I came out drinking very heavily trying to drown out memories.
Then, despite my fear of needles, I ended up injecting - or getting a friend to do it for me while I looked away - so much so that within a year my veins started to collapse. I started running out of places in my body to inject into.
The laughable thing was that, when I would inject barbituates, I still had a sense of pride in the fact that I hadn't injected heroin. It was my way of easing my conscience. I was constantly paranoid. I was starting to suffer from amphetamine psychosis or 'speed madness', even when I wasn't on the drugs.
My mother, all her life, had believed that Christ was the answer. The best way I can describe her is as a prayer-warrior. She knew by now there was very little hope of me ever changing. She used to keep the door open for me - if I was in any reasonable state, I could stay at her house. If I wasn't, I needed to stay in my own flat.
Unknown to me for years she had been visiting different churches every week. One night she walked four miles in a pouring thunderstorm to get to one particular church. When she arrived, the gates were locked, so she stuck a note between the railings and walked the four miles back home again. That note simply read: 'Please pray for my son, Jackie, a drug addict. From a loving mother.'
My mother approached everybody and anybody. Desperation has no denomination. Her Catholic friends, her Protestant friends, all of whom were believers - they were the ones she asked directly. She would take little pieces of paper into the church, sit at the back, and write down her prayer. Then she would take a couple of coins out of her bag, wrap the notes around them, put the coins into a box or onto a plate - anywhere they might be found. She would even leave the little paper petitions behind on trains and buses. She was looking for prayers from as many as possible and that is, I believe, how God heard her cry.
Then mum went into hospital for a cataract operation. I was in a bad way, as usual, and made my way to her empty bungalow to slip quietly into the box room she kept for me about 8pm. At 4am I woke suddenly with a prayer pouring out of my mouth. 'Father, please forgive me. Don't let me die like this.' My legs buckled. I had barbituate poisoning. I can't explain it but I know there was a presence of Christ. He turned the pages of my memory. I knew I must be dying. I tried praying 'Lord just help me and I'll cut down on my drugs.'
But God doesn't do deals. There are no deals. The presence left, leaving only complete depession and emptiness and I knew I'd missed an opportunity that might never come again. For over an hour I wept. The phone rang and I literally crawled to it on my elbows. My mum was coming home. Would I be there to help her? It was my second chance. I stayed. Over the next four days I should have had grand mal seizures, I should have been in hospital. But I didn't even break sweat. I didn't even need an aspirin. When Christ heals you, you are healed.
When I tell my story to young people at schools and colleges - something I've been doing for nine years, addressing 25,000 teenagers last school year alone - I get them to guess my age. Then I tell them I'm 13 because my life started 13 years ago.
I made a classic mistake when I became a Christian. I threw away my jeans, put on a suit and bought the biggest Bible I could get as proof of my new found faith. Today, I still have the same joy and zest but I talk to people as people and not as objects needing salvation.
I met my wife, Hilary, and we have three children - Matthew, aged nine, Rachel (6) and a one-year-old baby, Jonathan.
When Matthew was born at the Lagan Valley Hospital - where I had been so often as a patient - I can't describe what it was like holding my firstborn son in my arms. There was a TV programme in the background playing 'Oh, what a perfect day'. I just wept over him.
I had to learn to be a good husband and I'm still learning. I'd to learn to be a father. But I'm the most grateful man I know. It's gratitude that keeps me from ever being tempted to go back to my old existence.
Regrets? Oh, yes. That at 14 I made a commitment to Christ but fell away from it. If I hadn't, I could have been having the life I'm having now from that young age. But my God is a God of second chances.
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