“For me, the writing should have been on the wall when, last month, I set my alarm every night for 2am to tune into radio coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions in the US”
Speaker's Corner Aíne Ryan
I WAS institutionalised recently. Just for a weekend. It was in a remote part of Wicklow. Behind locked gates and high walls. To be frank, I was in such a state, I didn’t realise until I was released and recuperating back in Mayo just how seriously ill I had been. Nor did I realise how efficiently the detox process had worked.
Being a serial junkie is common enough, I’m told. And it doesn’t need to be heroin, or crack cocaine or even Buckfast wine – the new trendy tipple for the recession – to become a chronic problem, that eventually dominates one’s every waking hour.
Over the years, I’ve been addicted to lentil and coriander soup, Bounty bars, boys, the Bunty comic, patchouli oil, and the Irish Times crossword. There have also been red lipsticks, Michael Collins biographies, patterned tights, men, the northern Ireland problem, the weather forecast and WB Yeats’s colourful love-life.
You would think – at my age – I’d have learned to see the signs; to notice the pattern that had surreptitiously established itself. But then again, it is commonly accepted that one needs to be hurtled outside one’s daily routine to recognise that great big rut one has fallen into, face-down.
That’s why it wasn’t until two weekends ago – while staying at my sister’s palatial pad in Wicklow – I was forced to face my latest demons. There was no television, broadband was down and the nearest shop was miles away.
HELLO! My name is Áine. And I am a News Junkie. I have been in denial for years. I’ve used my job in journalism as a crutch to feed my habit. I’ve even neglected my children so I could get my next fix.
For me, the writing should have been on the wall when, last month, I set my alarm every night for 2am to tune into radio coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions in the US. For me that banner headline should have been staring me in the face when I took to helping staff at the local convenience store to put the supplements into the Sunday papers.
Then there were the Google alerts, the text alerts, the on-the-hour internet surf for breaking news. Moreover, when the girls were home there was the sumo jostling, the verbal assaults, over the remote control.
“You’ve seen that episode of The Simpsons a thousand times.”
“No, I have not. And what if I have, how many times have you watched George Lee whinge on about the economy?”
“Don’t under-estimate the impact of the sub-prime mortgage collapse on your life, darling.”
“For goodness sake, The Simpsons expose the inherent flaws in American society far more graphically than RTÉ ever will, mother dear.”
Doh!
I know. I know. My timing stinks: with the possible elevation of the first black man to the most powerful position in the western world mere weeks away; with the bell tolling ominously for British Labour leader, Gordon Brown, despite that rousing speech; and with Mayo man Enda Kenny in a perfect position to do serious damage in next year’s local and European elections.
But before I break out in a rash, and at the risk of sounding evangelical: isn’t this my opportunity to regain balance? Indeed, isn’t it also a chance to indulge in some Zen moments. By tuning out of the frenetic global village, I can journey inwards and rediscover the serenity and silence that is my soul.
Rather than skydiving through the airwaves gathering megabytes of column inches filled with soft spin, political propaganda and celebrity drivel, I can breathe deeply on Bertra. I can watch the edge of the horizon from the summit of Croagh Patrick. Or, like The Saw Doctors, I can take the ferry out from Roonagh and wave all my cares goodbye.
Alleluia! Praise the lord. Peace, man! No more Newstalk. No more Newsnight. It’s Lyric FM for me forthwith. That, along with the poetic and reflective prose of John Banville’s Athena, The Sea.
Although, I’d better not re-read the Book of Evidence. That’s based on murderer Malcolm McArthur who has been incarcerated in an open prison in Wicklow for decades.
I was institutionalised recently. It was just for a weekend. In Wicklow. No TV, no shop nearby.
