Product Description

Julie O'Toole grew up in an inner city neighbourhood where she was exposed to crime and drugs from a young age. She started using heroin when she was 16, and by the time she was 18 she was a chronic addict. Heroin details how she spent years living on the streets of Dublin, dealing drugs and stealing to feed her habit. It happened in Dublin but it could have happened anywhere in the world. Her life was saved by a chance encounter with a drugs counsellor who brought her first to London and then to America, where she detoxed and slowly began to rebuild her life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46167 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-13
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'A shocking account of inner city life and drug addiction' --The Star

Review
'Julie O'Toole's book should be taught in schools.'

Review
'Brilliant...an incredibly compelling read.'

Customer Reviews

Heroin - Stay Away from it
This book shows how heroin is back with a vengeance. Not alone is the drug still sold in Dublin but it has now spread to provincial towns and villages across Ireland. It is like a virus that has infected the bloodstream of our country and is slowly beginning to turn a new generation of people into addicts.
Little has changed since Julie O'Toole was an addict. The book shows how Ireland faced an upsurge in heroin use in the 1970s, '80s and '90s and single-handedly caused a crime wave of muggings, robberies and house break-ins as desperate addicts tried to get money for their next 'fix'.
This turned the author's community into a no man's land. But the real tragedy was that many of her school friends died from diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis, caused by sharing needles.
More than anything else, she says she doesn't want to see any community suffer what happened to hers in Dublin's inner city.
The book is a gritty and hard read.
Her experiences as a heroin addict have enabled her to help others in a way she could only have imagined when she was a teenager trapped in addiction.
Hundreds of people have spoken to me about this book since it was published. Many spoke of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters who were addicts and desperately in need of help.
The book's message is simple. It says there is hope for everyone. No one is beyond saving. Heroin addiction can be overcome given time and resources, and love.
Sometimes those who need help more than anyone just need to know their families are there for them and care about them. Given time, they will come around and look for help.
Never forget that drug addicts are victims. They are people who simply made a mistake by taking drugs and only realised their error when it was too late. It could happen to anyone.
This book will help you to understand heroin addiction and how it changes people for the worse. But it's important that everyone remembers that addicts are victims and they can change for the better.

A Story of Survival in her Own Words
Julie O'Toole writes a candid account of her experience with addiction to heroin, and her abuse of prescription medicine to treat cancer. Like Barry McCormac's 'Stoner to Loner', this book is set in Dublin, Ireland. At the peak of her addiction, parts of the city were impoverished, and HIV was common among intravenous drug users. Luckily, Julie has lived to tell her tale, and in her own words she tells of the desperation and of the numbness of heroin use. A "must read".

An interesting reading
I strongly recommend this book as an useful reading for teachers, educators and parents.
Story of Julie shows real situation of persons with addiction problems with no roundabout.