REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE RUTLAND CENTRE 30TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE RUTLAND CENTRE 30TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATIONS SATURDAY 12 DECEMBER 2009
Dia dhíbh go léir a chairde. Is mór an onóir dom é a bheith anseo inniu ar ócáid ceiliúradh comóradh tríocha bliain an Rutland Centre. Míle bhuíochas díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a thug sibh dom. We meet here in celebration and in gratitude for the thirty years of service of the Rutland Centre. I would like to thank Maura Russell for inviting me to join with you in this celebration.
Today gives me an opportunity to say “thank you” to the many people, past and present, who for three decades have made it their vocation, their mission to working in the field of addiction, that blight of all blights in so many lives, homes and communities. It is not the easiest of vocations. The work is tough, frustrating, sometimes bitterly disappointing and sometimes heartening. When you help a person to break through the stranglehold of addiction to reshape their lives, you impact not just on that person but on the well-being of his or her family, workplace, community and on our country. You help to turn a person who is a problem into a problem-solver and every time you do it feels like a miracle, it raises our hearts and our hopes that addiction is an enemy that can be overcome.
Many of the men and women who contributed to the work of the Rutland Centre over the years are here to celebrate and mark this special occasion. We owe them such a debt of thanks for starting this work of care and sustaining it over these three decades. This year’s RTE documentary on the Centre opened many eyes to the amazing work that goes on here daily and quietly. We saw it in the raw and we saw the huge investment that it takes by the professionals and clients of Rutland to lead a person out of addiction and into a real, rooted recovery.
The Rutland centre looks at the whole person, not just the addiction, so it engages with the client as a person who has a family, neighbours, workmates and a community all of whom will have been diminished in some way and certainly challenged by the behavioural consequences of addiction. One child of a person addicted to alcohol told me “ I love my dad, but when he drinks it is like he has an evil twin.” No eight year old should have to figure that out but addiction visits those cruelties on many children and brings untold misery into relationships of all sorts. This place knows only too well the litany of loss, the trust that dies, the love that is tested and may break, the quality of life that is reduced and all the rest.
Whether the addiction is alcohol, drugs, gambling or food, you have pitched yourselves into that realm of mess with a determination that it can be cleaned up, it can be overcome. People can unlearn and they can learn anew. People who feel a level of self-loathing and who may feel the anger of family and friends, are treated here with compassion and dignity. As they work with the staff to build new coping skills, their families are also helped to make the changes that can facilitate the creation of a more normal, a more acceptable life.
Rutland has a proven track record in treating addiction successfully and it has made a very significant contribution to prevention through the education of our community especially our young people and parents. There are many predators, many pressures which make people vulnerable to addiction but there is no doubt that the earlier our children become conscious of their responsibility for their own behaviour, their own mental and physical health, their potential as problem solvers rather than problems in our world, then the better will be their chances for a good and happy, fulfilled life. You can count the number of people you have helped through this clinic and on its own that would be a story worth celebrating today but the positive, life-long impacts you have had on those whose lives were steered away from potential addiction while harder to quantify is very real nonetheless and also worthy of a celebration and thanks.
Sadly, even after thirty years, your work is far from over but you have changed the context radically for through your pioneering work, you have broken down the stigma and shame which once saw addictions being swept under the carpet, and which blocked many people from seeking treatment. Thanks to all those who founded the centre, to all those who worked here in whatever capacity these thirty years and a special thanks to all the addicts who came here to try to change for if they had not crossed the threshold the doors would have closed long ago and we would never have known the hope that comes from a life in which the battle against addiction has been won and keeps on being won day in and day out. It is the addicts whose commitment to their own care is the start of each success story here.
On their testing, tough journey to recovery and a renewed joy in life, they were accompanied by the professionals and experts here. The old Irish saying tells us ‘two shortens the road’ and the counsellors, nurses and staff of the Rutland Centre were the perfect companions on the road to reclaimed lives, to an end of waste and the beginning again of wonder.
I wish you a very enjoyable thirtieth anniversary celebration and wish you all well in continuing your valuable work in the years ahead. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.