The Leader Interview..with Sean Hickey, counsellor
IT sounds like a very ambitious plan indeed, but it was probably never more badly needed than it is now, in a world that is driving more and more people to addiction.
Sean Hickey, former dairy farmer and now a trained counsellor is planning to build the first private residential addiction treatment centre, complete with a state-of-the-art detox unit right in the heart of the lush countryside between Murroe and Cappamore - a kind of a Betty Ford clinic in rural East Limerick.
A daunting prospect, maybe. But not for Sean Hickey, who has in his own life faced, and overcome, far more daunting challenges. His plan to transform his imposing home and grounds at Eyon House, Murroe, to provide a much needed service to treat victims of addiction, a disease which plagued his own life for several years, is based on raw personal experience, and is fully researched and costed. The ground work has been done, down to the landscaping of the lovely surroundings, planted over the past five years with thousands of bulbs and shrubs and offering stunning views of the ever changing face of the Slieve Felims hills - a haven if ever there was one.
"This is an ideal place for such a centre. I am confident of getting a partner to join with us in the venture. But it is going to happen, one way or the other, even if we have to scale down from the original plan."
The centre is the brainchild of Sean and his wife Geraldine, a nurse who works in a medical clinic in Limerick city. Both of them have travelled extensively in the US, looking at treatment centres there and at how the problem of addiction is tackled, and they have already qualified through the Mental Health Commission to provide a detox centre suitable for licensing. They hope that when the centre is built and accredited for health insurance cover, it will help to put victims of alcohol, drugs and other addictions on the road to recovery.
The centre piece is the detox unit. "This de-tox centre will be the first of its kind outside of Dublin. It is a service that is badly needed. There is no place in Munster at present where patients can get this kind of treatment. They have to go to Dublin," he pointed out.
There isn't a family in the country that hasn't been touched at some time or in some way by the problem of addiction, he says.
And the problem is known to increase in times of economic hardship, as people seek solace in alcohol, drugs and gambling. Already, Sean is providing a private counselling service in a small clinic he has set up close to his home in Eyon. He's a qualified member of the Irish Association of Addiction Counsellors (IAAC) as well as holding a qualification in general counselling. He has clients coming from a 50 mile radius to see him.
He wasn't always convinced of the existence of an "addiction gene". Now he's not so sure. "Nobody in my family drank. My parents didn't drink, and neither did any of my brothers or sisters." But he was at a re-union for one side of the family some time ago and learned to his surprise that there was a history of alcoholism among some members in a previous generation.
One thing about Sean Hickey is that he has the compassion and the humanity to be able to reach out to people. He keeps it simple - "the real secret is to connect with people, give them a warm handshake and allow them, in a safe environment, to open up and tell their own story. Everyone has a story. I listen to them and let them talk about things they usually can't talk about, areas of deep pain in their lives."
He lit a candle as we interviewed him in his clinic - a room in a bungalow on his land. "Some people like it, others don't want it. But it does help to create a calm atmosphere". It's a measure of his empathy that we found ourselves abandoning the interview at one stage and telling our story to him.
His own story is inspirational, even though he insists that it's not, and describes himself as "a flawed human being".
He was a progressive and intensive dairy farmer until 1996 when disaster struck the enterprise. "I was in dairying at a very high level and then we lost the entire dairy herd to BSE. But we recovered and we went into beef farming for a short time, and then I started drinking heavily. I walked the walk. It's not a very inspirational story, I'm afraid. I was a very flawed human being."
But he faced up to the problem and went for treatment for alcoholism in 1997 and it was through his recovery that he first thought of the concept of providing a centre for addiction treatment, a vision that is now well on the road to being realised - at a time when there is a growing demand for the provision of private health care.
"I saw, from speaking to people, that there was a need not just for an addiction treatment centre but for someplace that would deal with mild mental health issues associated with addiction, such as depression and anxiety. When we were in America, we travelled to over 20 centres from New York to California to see what was best practice and we saw that a dual diagnosis centre dealing with addiction counselling and mild mental health issues was the way to go."
He's a great advocate too of 'couple counselling" where a partner or spouse of an addiction sufferer is offered therapy. Geraldine was a tremendous support to him in his recovery, he said. "Such support is vital," he said. "But what we all need to get away from is the idea that if you need to get counselling then, somehow, you're a failure. Being able to ask for help shows anything but weakness. It shows strength."
But it calls for a lot of humility too, he says. "The day you think you know it all, that's the day you're in big trouble."
As a counsellor, he says, he has never met anyone who deliberately set out to be an alcoholic. "But it's not a question of what you drink or how much you drink. It's what it does to you. For some people there is a line which, if they cross it, it's hard to come back.
He was very lucky himself, he says, to have achieved recovery after his first period of treatment. "Others are not so lucky."
But even those who are as blessed as he was, need time, he says, to get "over the hump". "They need time before going back into the world. The world doesn't change while you're in treatment. You need time to adapt to it again." Because of this, his new centre will also provide a "step-down" care service.
Part of his current counselling service involves family intervention. It's a vital part of the service he offers. "When someone rings me up and tells me that they are having a problem with a family member, I will go to the family house and talk to the person concerned. This alleviates the situation for the family and empowers them. It also helps to resolve issues in a calmer environment. There is no shouting allowed and no anger is expressed. Everything is discussed quietly and calmly. "
If there is one other thing he'd like to see changed, it's the stigma that is still attached to addiction and to mental health problems in general. Although nearly everyone knows or is close to someone who has suffered or is suffering an addiction, the stigma persists. It's something, he says, that forces people into denial and prevents them from seeking help.
But the bottom line is that people in the end have to learn to take responsibility for their own lives. So it's full steam ahead now with the provision of the very comprehensive centre which will involve major extensions to the family home - Eyon House. The house itself will remain the central part of the new centre according to the plans that hang on the walls of his current clinic, beside his diplomas in counselling.
And despite what he has been through himself, and what he has seen in his work, his faith in human nature remains unshaken. "Ninety nine per cent of people are not bad," he says. "Behaviour can at times go beyond what is acceptable. But it's the behaviour that's bad, not the person."
"That's my motto anyway," he says.
Personal File
Family: wife Geraldine and seven grown up children
Educated: Eyon National School and St Flannan's College, Ennis.
Favourite TV programme: anything on National Geographic
Favourite author: John B Keane
Favourite food: bacon and cabbage.
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