“My heart is beating, the blood is pumping round my body, but I feel dead!” – the words of a heartbroken mother who has lost her only child to an alcohol and drug addiction.
Missing: Andrew Quigley.
Collette Quigley, the mother of missing Galliagh teenager Andrew Quigley, revealed the heartache at a rally held at Derry’s Peace Bridge on Saturday in support of Foyle Search and Rescue and HURT.
Nineteen-year-old Andrew has not been seen since leaving a friend’s birthday party in the early hours of Saturday week last.
Some of his personal items were found on Foyle Bridge at 7.40am later that day and since then his family, friends, Foyle Search and Rescue, police divers and members of the public continue to brave atrocious weather conditions in the hope of finding him.
At Saturday’s rally, Collette revealed she and Andrew had sought help for his four-year long addictions but had the “door shut in his face” and told he would not he helped unless he quit his habits.
Many – men and women, young and old – wept openly as Collette wrongly blamed herself for Andrew’s disappearance and how she was “so naive” to think “my love alone” could have pulled him through.
“I am just so sorry, Andrew, I am so sorry that I let you slip through my fingers I should have beat in doors!” she said.
The rally heard claims Derry was “in crisis” with the amount of drugs available and how young people in the city believe getting them is easier than buying a bar of chocolate.
Collette Quigley is numb, her family are hurting and are desperate to find her “wain” – but they are also angry – outraged that their nephew went looking for help only to have “the door shut in his face.”
Collette Quigley speaking at Saturday’s rally.
Sadly, Collette and her family are not alone – Andrew is not the first person who went seeking help for an addiction only to be told to “go away” and “don’t come back until you stop drinking alcohol and taking drugs.”
On a Facebook page set up in support of establishing a “detox centre” in the North West, loved ones are posting how their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles – the list, sadly goes on – who are no longer with them because they did not get the help they desperately sought.
In a post on “Setting up a detox unit in Derry,” one woman reveals her two brothers – aged 21 and 24 – took their own lives because there was “no help there for them.”
“The amount of nights my mother spent walking the floors with them when they were suffering the turmoil.. left on her own to fix it herself which is impossible!”
She adds: “To all our loved ones gone…. u will never be forgotten, and we will continue to fight for wat wasnt available to u in ur memory. x”
Another woman, who admits to being a “codependent” for many years, reveals her “soul mate” is in a “vicious circle” due to his 20 year heroin addiction.
She says: “He asks for help only to be told he has to be clean before he can receive any form of counselling ,which is so ridiculous – the reason why he takes the drugs is because of issues that need to be dealt with (blocking them out with drugs). Surely, if the counselling came before the attempt to get clean this would help many on the road to recovery.”
A section of the crowd at Saturday’s rally.
Another post says: “I lost me mammy through drink just 4 years ago and my older sister 3 years ago from drugs. This town is in desperate need of the help n funding from the government who will spend money to get people to come to Derry but wont help their own ppl.”
Another reveals her brother died of a drug overdose three weeks after seeking help that was not there and how he “may be alive today” if it had been.
Collette told Saturday’s rally what happened to her family could happen to anyone while her brother, Andrew’s uncle Dermot, said: “Drugs don’t care, they don’t care who you are, they don’t care if you are upper class, middle class, working class, Catholic or Protestant.”
What has happened to the Quigley family has happened to other families in Derry – but, worryingly, the number is growing.
Drug and alcohol related suicides grab the headlines – but there is another statistic that is just as concerning – the number of people – of all ages and gender – appearing in court charged with drug and alcohol related offences.
Dermot Quigley is organising a public meeting to generate support for the setting up a `’detox centre`’ here. He has no date, time or venue yet – but when he does, he needs our support for, as Collette said – “if it could happen to me… it could happen to you!”
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