Shannon Man On His 25-Year Battle With Addiction

0:00Next on the show we're hearing from a Shannon Manu's story is one of addiction survival and ultimately hope. Tara O'Locklin from Shannon's been 25 years struggling with substance addiction, beginning with solvent misuse as a teenager and later, progressing to heroin, a 3080 survived a major overdose and experience that could have ended his life, but after several attempts at recovery, Tara's eventually found a renewed sense of purpose through music work and reconnecting with his family and Tara joins us now. Tara, thanks so much for being with us on the show. No problem, Alan. Thank you very much for having me. I mean, to speak about and speak publicly about your experience of addiction and recovery, it takes a lot of strength and bravery. Tara, let's start with now. Where are you in your life today and how does it feel to be able to tell your story from a rear-view mirror perspective rather than still being in the midst of it? I'm just surprised that someone wanted to hear at the end of the day, you know? Find a shrouded all, a kind of a towered place and a lawn, there's a lot of adage too.

1:05You know, they don't think anyone's listening or they don't think anyone's paying attention, and a lot of the places I ended up for are dark and on the streets and places I'd done. Again, the soul laughs within yourselves, you don't look around and you don't think people understand it, but there's a key amount of people do come into your life to have an awful lot. A lot of them would support groups like Anelith, the Incyon, and places like that. You know, a big help for me. And you're talking about where I am right now, I'm working in the maximum, in my job within a minute, but I'm out in the breach of just to take the car. Well, we appreciate you taking the time to do that. I mentioned that you know, you're, you're, you're happened in your teenage years, I guess, your difficulties with substance, misuse and abuse. Was it one of those things where you're doing it, because all friends are doing it, and you see it as a bit of a fauna, a bit of a kind of escape, and then it just gets out of hand? That's a good act of yes. I mean, I can go back to a time where I would just

2:05begin school, and I would have been around that circle, and then I would educate myself on what that meant, and then I would have went down to Eris, I can't do things like that. For me to be at that age to be doing that was crazy, you know? Of course, I don't know what can I start to lose myself, and lose my grip on life, and reality when I start to do that, you know? I don't know what the damage that was doing to my brain, I thought in the early age, and I started to miss. I never really go up, you know? I never, I never flourished, I never blast them like I should, because I was in the depths of destroying my brain cells, and you know, I wasn't until I was on the street, and I've seen life for a while that was, and I was around so many good people, considering such a dark situation, I was in like death, I kind of was grateful to be able to survive, alter, and not come across any danger, you know? And when I was understanding things outside there, I kind of, when they gave me my parents, gave me the chance to come home, and try

3:05again, leaving after several times of them, let me in, me destroying the situation several times, they gave me an opportunity to come back home, and I had to ween off past cocaine and tablets, and I wasn't in much of a good state, I was probably about seven or eight stone, and I looked, I was a pulse of voice, I ditched you anyway at that stage, you know? But my mother bought me in, and my father, and they fed me, they loved me, they embraced me again, they gave me a chance to understand myself, and I wasn't until I got out to work, doing a little landscape of my own nature, and things that I kind of, the gratitude kind of came a lot more. Unfortunately, I was smoking a lot of weed still at the time, and I wasn't until I went to the opportunity to have this job that I gave it up, and I haven't went back since, the everyday is new for me, I don't even, I don't even get the urges, I don't reminisce about situations, I made a step back and look at them, but they were able to have what they are, and I leave them behind, you know? And can I ask you, you know, do you

4:06slip into things like cocaine, heroin, and other drugs? Is it almost naturally, it's not something you're thinking about? It just happens, others are doing it, and at what point did you realize this is no longer something you could control? Was it, you had to become an everyday thing? And that's the point where you say, I can't, I can't get on top of this. If that was every, every, every year, 25 years, I mean, just every, every Christmas was the same, I'd end up all in the Lord of the Morning, and I'd be back home, I know, I'd have caused problems in the house, I wasn't paying my ring. So every year was a problem for me, and I was always escaping myself, and it just went around in circles for 25 years, you know, and after a while, my parents just had enough for me, and I left the house, and I moved in with someone else, and there was problems arose from back down as well, and when I left that house, I ended up out in a hostel, and just when I started to become homeless, so I was in Venice. I started using heroin, that's why I offered those, that's why my friend and mine saved me, a couple of months after that, I'm even in a couple of weeks,

5:09I ended up in Prairie, and I think that was the defining moment for me, even though I did relapse again very heavily, but I found my way to live, and five months of sobriety was an amazing thing for me, and the friends that I gathered around that, so I still talk to today, I'll ask the, to ask the silver and health, you know, what every one of them has had a relapse, is that, and we're all back together again, you know, talking to each other, and we don't really meet up that much in the more, but we all connect, and then everyone helps each other so their day, you know. I mean, when you mentioned that major heroin overdose, that is not that long ago, we're talking maybe what four or five years ago, without going into anything, perhaps you maybe don't want to revisit what, what do you remember about that day?

6:21I walk up in a bed, decided to tally, and again, I was so inconsiderate with waiting for the old one for me, I'd given up so much that I just wanted to escape again, so I went back out in the streets and I knew it was for them, you know. And I guess that shows how in the throws of addiction, someone can be that you went through something where you could have died and went straight back to it. Yeah, it was reckless, it hasn't been, I always only had over the past three years, I've been kind of, being proud of myself enough to want to live a better life, you know. It's a dark place, no challenge of pace, and unfortunately into 2000s, we were all kind of technology, we was coming out, everyone could connect, so drugs were easy to get, and although every cyclophane I ever had, we were all doing the same thing, we were all using and we were all escaping something, I don't know, what you know what I mean, but we were all caught up in a grip of drugs and acting and socializing and things like that. But since I came home,

7:23I always thought everyone was at the same thing, but since I started, can reconnect with people like she everyone's moved on and everyone's doing a good thing, there's a few orders that are struggling as well, but that's that's the way things are, you know. You made several attempts at recovery, you know, 28A treatment program in your early 30s, you later managed nine months drug free, I guess it just shows that quite often when you come out the other side and decide to do something about addiction, there's no kind of quick fix for one of a better phrase, it takes it, but sometimes it can take a number of attempts before you can finally get on the right path. I was lucky, and off first during the two times, Alan, because under 28 days, I was just going through the motions to keep my motor almost just so happy. I was just in the toes of padlock addiction, and I was an absolute mess, and when I went in those 28 days, I struggled and I didn't want to be in one use, but I met some good people again, and again, it's all about the connections, because one person bought me

8:27a different pad and he gave me an advantage, but I made mistakes then as well, and I went back on cocaine, as soon as I went back on cocaine, I was gifted from house to house, and I was lost again, you know. I've heard music plays a big part in your life, I know you played guitar, a treatment centers, and a lanyl iffy, was music something that was always a part of your life, Dara, but during addiction maybe it got pushed into the background, and it's kind of been a bit of a a life saver now. The music for me was so much, and hand would be, you know, music was kind of my silas in things, whenever I couldn't understand myself, or whenever I was questioning my existence, and where I wanted to be or if I deserved to have a life, and I was in prison for several years, unfortunately, for a mistake that I made, and I had written a song in there, and it went down very well, it went down with the prison population, and went down with the teachers and all that stuff as well, and I still hold on back to that song as well. Today, I still write a few here and there,

9:30I'm still trying to connect with it as much as I can now, you know, I do, I'm still a lot of insecurities there when it comes to my music, I kind of, it's enclosed doors at the minute, and I have an opportunity to play at a, a small little thing that's on in a coffee shop and chanon car sauce, I knocked over and I lose the wine big man, no, Ray Fiend, as you would know him, he set it up with a day in New York, who does copper TV, so it's a big step for me, and I'm kind of that's the poses in the goal that I want to, want to achieve, and so I don't want to rush everything, you know, for everything, all these advantages are coming to me now, and every day seems to be a different day, I don't even look at months or years anymore, I keep it in today, but I've kept it in the day for two years, that it's that part now, everything's coming together, and I feel like I deserve this now, you know? Definitely, and you know, as you mentioned, you're speaking to us from your landscape and job, I mean, how important of the ordinary things, you know, having getting up in the morning, having a job, playing music, and you know, maybe most importantly,

10:34reconnecting with family and seeing family, how important of all those ordinary things being in rebuilding your life, Tara? Yeah, when I started to love myself, I then took a long time, I started to love the people around me, you know, I was very bitter, I didn't care, I was very hollow, man, but as the years of progress now, things have gotten very well at home, my recovery is bouncing off everyone else, you know, because I was the center of the attention when I came to the problems that will happen in the house, and because I'm better now, everyone else seems to be better, you know? Well, glad to hear us, and so glad that you've come out the other side of along and draw the period of your life and continued success with the career and the music, and reconnecting with family, and thanks for taking time out from the job, Tara, with us. And I just say one thing, look, I just just get out the people, that are struggling, and because it's a lonely road, it is for an addict, you know, you might

11:37surround yourself around people that you think understand you, but the end of the day, it sounds you, and just believing in yourself that there's a place for you, you know, and it is a big struggle, but never known, really, I get here, and I didn't think I'd ever get here, so just believe in the health of that day. Brilliant, Tara, thank you so, so much, Tara Olochland there from Shannon, chatting with us on morning focus on this Thursday, yeah.