A Cork publican who battled alcohol and drug addiction has launched an exhibition to cast light on that darkness and pain and on the redemption of recovery.<\/p>\n
Michael Droney’s exhibition \u2018Finding Beautiful\u2019 in an alcohol-free section of one of his pubs, Aye on Angelsea St in Cork city.<\/p>\n
\u201cShame trapped me in addiction for 30 years, destroying my life, family and relationships,\u201d Mr Droney said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinding Beautiful attempts to show loved ones why the hurt is caused and attempts to lessen the shame of those in addiction or early recovery.”<\/p>\n
Mr Droney was a founder of some of Cork\u2019s most popular venues, including The Sextant, Deep South, The Bowery, O\u2019Sho, Crawford & Co, Aye, Gaia and Rosie Maddison.<\/p>\n
But in private, he was self-medicating decades of unresolved trauma with alcohol and drugs, hiding his pain behind work and busy bars.<\/p>\n
Abused, aged nine, as an altar boy by clergy, Mr Droney said he turned to work and then to substances to block out the trauma of that abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a workaholic \u2013 an everything-aholic \u2013 to keep me going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But when the pandemic struck and \u201ceverything stopped\u201d, he \u201cstarted going into his own thoughts\u201d and the child abuse he suffered \u201call came back up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He turned to alcohol and drugs, going into his pub in the morning and raiding the whiskey stores.<\/p>\n
He was drinking two bottles a day at the height of his addiction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in so much pain, I was drinking on the streets. I was kicked out of home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He was told by a medic that his alcoholism was so acute that if he suddenly stopped drinking, he could die.<\/p>\n
And the reason he turned to substances to dull the pain was because he felt that he could not share his trauma of suffering child abuse with others.<\/p>\n
But shame and stigma are what lure people into addiction and then trap them there, he said.<\/p>\n
He hopes that sharing his own struggles will let others know that they are not alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinding Beautiful is about proving that even after the worst relapses, even after hurting the people who love you most, you can still get up and choose something different the next morning. If one person walks out feeling less alone, the whole thing was worth it,\u201d Mr Droney said.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI’ve learned that addiction is not about any substance or work, it’s about what’s going on [internally].\u201d My Droney said that he behaved very badly when mired in addiction.\n <\/p>\n
And his bad behaviour compounded his self-loathing and low self-worth.<\/p>\n
But when he understood that his behaviour was not him, but a symptom of his pain, he began to rebuild his sense of self-worth, with the support of his partner Ciara, his family and friends.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, I can look in the mirror and say \u2018I like myself and I’m proud of myself,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot many people get a second chance like I do – drinking two bottles of whiskey a day, loads of drugs and running businesses into the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy poor little daughter didn’t have a proper dad for the first 18 months of her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Ciara wasn\u2019t there, or my sisters, I would have fallen through the cracks.\u201d And his second chance has compelled him to share his story in a bid to help others pull through too.<\/p>\n
In March 2021 Mr Droney began the Instagram account @addicted_beautiful as a public diary of sobriety and relapse. That account became the foundation for his exhibition.<\/p>\n
The exhibition also represents a solid punctuation point in his life, a way to \u201cdraw a line in the sand from identifying as an addict as my whole personality to not\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is hope and resilience \u2014 there is no shame. The sooner people can see addiction for what it is, no shame, the easier mass recovery will be.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cShame is the killer, not the bottle. Shame usually comes from an action done unto us, then gets compounded by years of terrible behaviour and self-medicating.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Mr Droney has worked to introduce wellness elements and non-alcohol-related activities into his pubs.<\/p>\n
Unless pubs can become community spaces again, they have no real future, he believes.<\/p>\n
Rosie Madisons on Barracks St was the first pub in Ireland to have its own sauna, he said.<\/p>\n
The bar also held many craft workshops and wellness events before it closed last July.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sho hosts pop-ups with Cork restaurateurs, including south Indian food from the chefs of Iyers southern Indian restaurant, a hugely popular restaurant on Pope\u2019s Quay which closed in recent years.<\/p>\n
Tongue Tied \u2013 two young Cork men producing Italian food \u2013 now provide lunches in O\u2019Sho too.<\/p>\n
And his pubs have served specialist, locally produced herbal teas from Cork wellness expert Hayley Power.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up when pubs were a community space, the place for people to be and connect rather than to get drunk,\u201d Mr Droney said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s coming back. People are living healthier lives now.\u201d Although Rosie Madison\u2019s and its sauna have closed, frequent saunas and cold therapy have been an important part of Mr Droney\u2019s recovery.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI do them five, six days a week now. It\u2019s for my mental health.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve never been stronger, and I’ve never been more grounded.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I do put it down to giving myself that time every day and going in and sweating out toxins and going into the cold water.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking yourself do stuff that you don’t want to do, I found that very beneficial, pushing myself into the cold water every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt builds up mental fortitude, as well as the other health benefits.\u201d Mr Droney first showed the exhibition \u2018Finding Beautiful\u2019 during Culture Night, and people\u2019s response to his work compelled him to run it again this month.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cOne woman, her husband died of alcoholism, she said that he drank two bottles of whiskey a day \u2013 similar to my own story.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
“She said that he would never have been able to talk about what was going on internally. But through the exhibition, she said that she might have seen the chaos of his mind, and there was some bit of understanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther people who came to support me said that they resonated with a lot of things in it too, because addiction is not too far from a lot of people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe exhibition is for people who are struggling [with addiction]. But it\u2019s also for those people’s families.\u201d The multimedia exhibition includes original poetry, music, animation, illustration and Instagram reels to document his journey through childhood trauma, severe addiction, repeated relapse, and the \u201cdaily work of staying alive.\u201d Each piece is accessed by scanning QR codes with a phone, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own headphones.<\/p>\n
The exhibition has been described as \u201ca punch in the chest and a hand reaching out at the same time\u201d.<\/p>\n
It will run in Aye, 9 Anglesea Street, Cork city for two weekends \u2013 January 9\u201311 and January 16-18.<\/p>\n
Admission is free and the location is fully accessible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Cork publican who battled alcohol and drug addiction has launched an exhibition to cast light on that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[2736,781,140,18,117,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-280020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cork-business","9":"tag-cork-news","10":"tag-addiction","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115879084814065437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}