{"id":506492,"date":"2026-05-28T06:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/506492\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T06:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T06:50:11","slug":"neurodivergence-and-addiction-i-found-the-clinics-could-be-very-stigmatising-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/506492\/","title":{"rendered":"Neurodivergence and addiction: \u2018I found the clinics could be very stigmatising\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

From his first days in primary school Niall (50), from Clondalkin<\/a>, Dublin, was told he was \u201cbold, lazy, not trying hard enough\u201d. <\/p>\n

He had undiagnosed ADHD<\/a> (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). <\/p>\n

\u201cI was trying hard, but when you are told you are bad enough times as a child, you believe it. Then I was put in a special class,\u201d he says. \u201cI started smoking hash when I was nine to quieten my mind. For me drugs were survival to make me feel normal because when you are told you\u2019re bad, you\u2019re useless \u2013 you feel just shame and stigma.\u201d<\/p>\n

Niall left school at 15, having passed his Junior Certificate exams, and ended up on heroin, \u201cthe strong stuff\u201d, when he was about 17. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was smoking and then injecting. I had to stop that because my veins got thrombosis, and was smoking again,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

He accessed drug treatment centres along the way, but these, too, could be unwelcoming because of his ADHD and Niall was deemed to have \u201cbehaved badly\u201d under their rules. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was late for appointments, late for phone calls, late for groups. I had problems with eye contact and I was full of anxiety, and then I was medicating the anxiety,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cI found the clinics could be very stigmatising and judgmental.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experiences like Niall\u2019s are not uncommon in addiction services. More than one in five (21 per cent) of those accessing these services have ADHD, autism, dyslexia or other neurodivergences, research from Trinity College Dublin<\/a>\u2019s school of nursing and midwifery has found.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0What happens when your therapist or GP asks: \u2018Have you ever wondered if you might be neurodivergent?\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

From Thursday the school is offering a ground-breaking course in response to this finding. Titled Substance Use and Neurodiversity, the six-hour course is free and will be available online.<\/p>\n

Catherine Comiskey, professor of healthcare modelling, global addiction and transformation at the school, led the original research at the request of Citywide Drugs Crisis Campaign, a national network of community drugs projects and activists. <\/p>\n

She was struck by how many women in treatment for benzodiazepines were neurodivergent (up to one in three) and that neurodivergent men in addiction services were more likely to use alcohol and heroin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we spoke to staff [in services] and they said some coming in were late for appointments, upset by noise in the building, getting anxious and even stressed making a phone calls … There is a lot going on in a busy clinic.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been no training on meeting the needs of neurodivergent service users \u201cso they were learning on the job by trial and error\u201d. <\/p>\n

There was a \u201ccrying need\u201d for the course, she said. \u201cThese are real people with real life challenges that can cause huge distress. Simple changes in the service can mean the difference between someone successfully accessing treatment or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0I\u2019m riddled with ADHD apparently, and medication has changed my lifeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Niall, now off heroin for eight years, still accesses services. <\/p>\n

He found acceptance and an end to the sense of stigma and shame through his involvement with Uisce, a representative organisation for people who use drugs. <\/p>\n

\u201cUisce showed me the way,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is no judgment and no stigma. I think if my ADHD had been seen when I was in school for what it was, I could have been a whole different person, definitely. There was a lot of trauma in my childhood. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s great neurodiversity is being seen now in schools, and that staff in services are realising they want to be more understanding of [neurodivergent] people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From his first days in primary school Niall (50), from Clondalkin, Dublin, was told he was \u201cbold, lazy,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[275],"tags":[16255,16470,18,135,475,474,19,17],"class_list":["post-506492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-adhd","tag-clondalkin","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116650877002627935","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506492","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=506492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}