Will we ever stop using the Troubles as an excuse for all our problems?

There is a new Vice Documentary about Benzo abuse in Belfast. Benzodiazepine is a class of drugs used mainly to treat anxiety; the most famous drug of this family is Valium, which was given out by the truckload during the troubles to soothe our jangled nerves. In simple terms, the drug magically takes away all your problems and makes you feel great – in the short term. Long-term, they are horrendously addictive and very hard to get off. You also quickly build up a tolerance to them, which is why some in the documentary take dozens a day just to get the same ‘hit’. Some people here have been on these things for over 50 years.

GPs shoulder a lot of the blame as they were swift to prescribe these drugs BUT they were under a lot of pressure from patients who wanted a quick fix for their problems. Anyhow, there has been a crackdown on prescribing these drugs, and these days, doctors are very reluctant to give them out. But in our global capitalist world, the free market has entered the void. Illegally imported Benzos are just a WhatsApp or Snapchat away and they can even deliver to your door – like Amazon Prime for drugs.

The documentary is equal parts depressing and bizarre. There is a clip of a house party where all the kids are wearing masks; it is like some Kneecap fan convention.

The bit of the doc that winds me up is them all going on about how they are taking drugs to cope with their PTSD from the Troubles. The fact that not one of them was even born during the troubles is neither here nor there, it seems.

But Brian, what about intergenerational trauma? What about epigenetics, the theory that trauma and stress can be passed down in the genes? Yes, I know all this stuff, but where does it end?

You may tell yourself a story that you are necking Benzos because your granny was caught up in a bomb attack in 1986 but is the truth the more prosaic – your life is sh*t, and you like getting off your head?

We see similar drug problems in other UK and Irish cities – none of which ever had the joy of a low-level civil war.

The common factors are poverty and lack of opportunity.

It annoys me that we keep playing the Troubles card for all our problems. We have an entire peace process™ industry. Every grant form ever submitted has a section about the Troubles. We are a post conflict society blah blah blah.

I grew up in inner-city Belfast during the 80s and 90s. It was pretty grim at times, I went through several hairy moments as I am sure many of you did as well. But we are now in a situation where our peace process™ is now going on longer than the actual Troubles. I am pretty sure it was not much craic growing up in the ‘Trainspotting’ heroin-blighted estates of Edinburgh either.

Why does it matter? For two reasons:

It detracts from the actual problems – poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunity, unemployment or unfulfilling work, poor living environments, dysfunctional family life, bad diets and lifestyles, lack of exercise etc. All the stuff that is universal in many parts of the UK and Ireland. The medical name for this is Sh*t life Syndrome – seriously, that’s what doctors call it. Being honest with people about their circumstances is more constructive than telling them a lie about the Troubles or the serotonin levels in their heads. If you are an unemployed single mother in a housing estate on the outskirts of Belfast, feeling terrible is a perfectly natural response to your situation.

The second reason is it removes people’s agency. If society tells them all your problems are due to the troubles, PTSD, intergenerational trauma etc you might just conclude that you are helpless to do anything. You are a victim of circumstance; necking drugs like Smarties is an understandable reaction to your situation. This, I think, is the most destructive thing in our society. Helplessness, apathy and hopelessness are utterly toxic.

When I look back at difficult times in my life, they were often accompanied by feelings of extreme self-pity. It is incredibly tempting to wallow in our own misery and blame other people or the world for our problems. I am thankful I had people telling me to wise up and snap out of it. And yes I know addiction is extremely complicated and telling people to wise up and snap out of it does not get you very far. However, taking personal responsibility for our actions is a key part of many rehabilitation processes, such as AA, so it needs to be part of the mix.

Yes, the Troubles were pretty terrible and messed us all up to some degree or another. Yes, we need to be understanding of addicts and addiction. Yes, we need more support services and help. But we also need to call out people when they are getting on like dicks, and people also need to understand they are not floating helplessly through life, but they have some control over their situation, no matter how limited.

Or we can do what we usually do. Ignore the actual problems and do absolutely nothing.

If you act like a victim, you are likely to be treated as one.
Paulo Coelho