Christmas is the time of year when you let the hair down, enjoy yourself and blow off a bit of steam. With office parties, New Year's celebrations and the like it's the time of general merriment and goodwill towards men, isn't it? Well for most it is but for a few it could be the start of a lifelong battle with drugs and alcohol addiction.

Take young Johnny for example, sixteen years old and his whole life ahead of him. He's in school, has a job that he works part-time and generally has his head screwed on. He goes out with a few from work for a few drinks from time to time but it doesn't really affect him.

He likes it, though, and he does it more and more until it becomes the most important thing in his life. He starts to live for the weekend. School and his attitude toward work and society start to change. They're not that important, going out getting drunk, going to parties and meeting girls are what life's all about.

He's also going out with an older crowd and at one of these parties he's offered cocaine. Oh man, does he like that! He starts to feel powerful, he can do anything he wants now, he's got the confidence to chat up the prettiest girl in the club. Not a bother, but the cocaine's expensive so he starts robbing from the job, not much, just here and there, enough for the weekend, a gram or two on Saturday night. It's all right, the job doesn't need the money and sure they don't pay him enough anyway, so he deserves the money. Doesn't he?

Then he's out again at a party and one of the lads has a bag of smack to come down off the coke and offers him some. Now, Johnny always swore he'd never touch the gear. It was a filthy drug and junkies were something to look down on, to despise. But, our Johnny is different than them: he's smart, he knows better than to get strung out. He'll just try this the once and see what it's like. Sure, like the coke he'll be able to leave it too whenever he wants it, whenever he likes.

But he likes it, oh boy he likes it! He has a couple of lines and gets sick but, this is the one he'd been waiting for, this is what he'd been looking for his whole life. The buzz is a thousand times better than any drink or other drugs he's ever done, he has to have more but remember, he's smart, he won't get strung out. So he waits a couple of days then goes scoring with his girlfriend. He's going to get her to share in the pleasure of this wonderful new drug.

Johnny keeps this up for a few weeks. Each time the gap between going scoring gets shorter. Still working, still going to school but school isn't making any money so he leaves and moves in with his girl. Now Johnny's only interested in money, because money equals gear.

He starts robbing from the job a lot more, bolder strokes this time, from his fellow workers as well, not really caring if he gets caught. People start commenting on his change in appearance, he isn't looking well, he's lost a lot of weight and his cheeks are sucked in. but Johnny's still not strung out, he's too smart for that, isn't he?

He wakes up one morning and he feels weak, eyes watering and the sniffles, he just wants to curl up and die. Must be the flu, his girlfriend has it too, must be a bug going around. Well he can't be worrying about that now, he has to get gear.

The gear takes away the flu symptoms, he's had this flu for a while now though and his girlfriend has too but he can't be strung out, he's been using every day but not long enough to be strung out surely? Then he's talking to one of the lads he scores with and he tells him the first time he realised he was strung out he thought the withdrawals were a bad case of the flu. Ha ha, how stupid was he!!

It dawns on Johnny, he's strung out. The gear's got him, it's got him where it wants him. Now Johnny throws himself headfirst into his new lifestyle, he's on the needle, he's shoplifting, he's robbing from cars and selling drugs here and there. He's been robbing so much from work he gets sacked, ah well, he'll make more money selling drugs won't he?

Well, the more money he makes, the more he uses, the more he needs. He starts snatching handbags, robbing people with knives and syringes, mainly old people and women 'cause they're easier, and robbing his family. All his morals are gone, his girlfriend goes out on the game, Johnny's life is a mess. He has no friends, his family don't want to know him because he's hurt them so much and each day revolves around getting money to buy gear.

Now it's ten years later, Johnny's out of prison for the third time, his girlfriend's left him for someone else, she has HIV, he's nowhere to go, he's on the crack. He's broken and it's Christmas, he's a shell of a man.

There's people rushing around enjoying themselves. Johnny looks up at them, watching them, eyes up, head lowered toward the ground in shame. He can see them smiling, carrying bags and bags of shopping, 'Toys 'r' us', 'Champion Sports', 'Arnotts' bags all rushing past. Fellas arm-in-arm with their girls, kids smiling, loud, all excited, Santa's coming.

Johnny's sitting at the bridge beside Tara Street station with a cup in his hand and he's never felt lower, more alone. He remembers back ten years ago. It seems like a lifetime. He was one of them, he was happy, he was buying clothes for Christmas, he was walking arm in arm with his girl, kissing, all excited. He'd never get strung out. Narcotics

Anonymous: www. na.ireland.org / 6728000. Alcoholics Anonymous: www.alcoholicsanonymous. ie / 8420700).