Hi folks!
This morning’s blog is on a subject that I know nothing about and yet a lot about its effects. No, it’s not about childbirth or winning the lottery, it’s about drugs!
As english is my first language I began learning irish when I started school at 5 years old! Ironically my first teacher is now a great prayer friend and I send her this blog!!
As we learnt irish we’d have to write essays such as ‘fadhbanna na drugaí do dhaoine óga in Éireann” (the problem of drugs for young people in Ireland).
For anyone who thinks the irish language is just english with a twist, now you know it’s not!
As I was good at languages I wrote good essays and got good marks. But in reality I knew nothing about drugs. I haven’t been an angel in life but I can truthfully say that I never touched a drug, not even weed which is hardly considered a drug anymore.
I certainly have my parents to thank for this. They didn’t either drink alchohol or smoke and so I grew up totally protected from the world in which I often find myself in the middle of now!
Despite Dublin being known for its drug problem, I managed to get through 3 years of university before seeing a drug!
However, year 4 would be a crash course as I was to share a flat with Simon!
Simon didn’t just take drugs. Simon took every drug on the planet! From the weed he got in amsterdam to the lines of coke with vodka and redbull to the ectasy to the magic mushrooms he went to pick on a Saturday morning!
I’m sure I must have been half high at times as I cooked my dinner in the fog…I call it ‘wog” from weed!
Drugs aside I got on well with Simon. I was always the type to talk to anyone if they were nice and not judge!
Now years later I am sharing an apartment with a recovered drug addict and am constantly in contact with people on drugs!
Just last night I met a guy who has spent €600 on cocaine over the last 3 days! Super nice guy, just lost!
A lot of guys I know smoke weed for anxiety. If you sit down and listen to their life stories, your heart would break!
A few months ago after a night of evangelisation I ended up at 7 in the morning at an afterparty where everybody was high as a kite!
Why the Holy Spirit brought me there I wondered. If the police came what would I say!
As the only person not on drugs it was weird. There were about 7 or 8 people, each in a little world of his own dansing like someone…on drugs!!
Most were too out of it to talk to me except one guy who was intrigued with my life and spirituality!
I got home the next day at 11. I was tired. I talked it over with Seamus who laughed at my innocense! He’s like a mentor to me when it comes to meeting peope from the world of drugs and homosexuality!
Yet, every person I meet, Jesus gives me a heart for and I only feel God’s love and mercy!
Recently I am bringing some of the people I meet to our local adoration chapel!
Some catholics get afraid. I guess they are not used to this world and I find myself like a referee at a soccer match!
This morning after mass a beautiful lady with an alcohol addiction hugged me and sang me a song after I gave her 20 kuna and a miraculous meddle!
Granted singing “baby blue eyes” in the middle of the church may not have been liturgically appropriate but the way another lady scolded her lacked any sensitivity and caused her to get worse! The lady was subsequently entertained by a rock song dedicated especially to her!
I exploded laughing at the lot of it! What can I do? Jesus loves both of them, just an utter breakdown of understanding!
And so whether the drug is alchohol or cocaine or weed or sex, we are called not to judge!
My advise to you is to invite these people for a coffee. They are desperately seeking love and acceptance!
Be humble, listen and pray! Don’t be like a custom’s officer in plain clothing or an under-cover detective with a rosary beads!
Pray that these people experience Jesus and that His love becomes their new drug and in the meantime thank God for your life, for your family and upbringing that allowed you to avoid falling into the terrible hole of addiction!
Bless you all!