Product Description

Heroin is a story of hope; a story of a young woman's
emergence from the depths of drug addiction and despair.
Julie O'Toole started using heroin in her mid-teens. A bright young girl,
she quickly developed a chronic addiction and her life spiralled out of
control. Enslaved to the drug, Julie began shoplifting to feed her habit
before offering to work as a drug dealer for notorious gangsters.

Julie was eventually saved by the care and support of a drugs counsellor,
and by her own strength to endure.

Heroin is a tale of how a young girl became a victim of circumstances.
Julie's story takes us from Dublin's inner city to London and America, and
gives an insight into how anyone can become a victim of circumstances.

With honesty and insight, Julie tells of the Horror and degradation that
came with life as a drug addict, and reveals the extraordinary strength of
will that enabled her to conquer heroin addiction and to help others to do
the same.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30218 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 195 pages

Gerry Ryan, 2FM
'It's an incredibly compelling read... wonderfully easy to read. It's a great story.'

Sunday World
'Explosive... Heroin is the most shocking book of the year.'

Gerry Ryan, 2FM
'It's an incredibly compelling read... wonderfully easy to read.
It's a great story.'

Customer Reviews

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.

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".