20 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 7 February 2011
Profile |
Noreen Oliver
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
‘I
ended up in treatment by default, really,’ says Noreen Oliver. ‘I was
unaware that I was actually there. I was admitted to intensive care and
told I wasn’t going to make it – I had cirrhosis of the liver, calcification
of the pancreas, peripheral neuropathy, yellow jaundice. The priest came
to read me my last rites.’ That was 18 years ago, and she’d been holding
down a job in the medical sector despite the drinking. ‘I’d grown up in a
strict Irish Catholic background,’ she says. ‘My father was very strict, particularly
regarding the girls in the family, and I think my alcohol use was for confidence as well
as a way of rebelling. In those days I was quite shy and I questioned myself all the
time. I grew up with this sort of inferiority complex, I suppose.’
From hospital she was sent to a convent nursing home in Nottingham,
‘basically for my last days’, she says, but managed to pull through and was taken
to a treatment centre by ambulance. ‘I couldn’t walk – the medical director didn’t
want me there because he thought it was too much of a risk, but the chief exec
said “well, she has no other chance”. I was in their medical unit for six weeks
but I had no intention of staying – as soon as I could walk I was going.’ To carry
on drinking? ‘Oh yeah,’ she says. ‘Even when I came round in the convent I was
trying to persuade people to bring in drink.’
She eventually stayed in the centre’s six-week therapy programme for 15
weeks. ‘They put me into a room with a crack addict who worked the streets to
fund her habit, and I’d phone my parents and say “I shouldn’t be in here – I’m
not the same as everybody else”. But it finally dawned on me after working with
the counsellors that I couldn’t ever drink again, and I also decided that actually
I wasn’t any different to the girl who shared my room – just different
circumstances – and she’s still a really good friend today.’
Another ‘eye opener’ was how hard it was for people to get into rehab, she
says. ‘The place had 12 NHS beds but there was a massive waiting list, and
people were paying privately for the other 12. Parents were re-mortgaging their
homes and having to jump through hoops. I thought “this is not right” and
decided I wanted to open a rehab centre, one that was accessible for anybody.’
She hasn’t drunk since, and began working at the treatment centre she’d
been sent to, spending 18 months learning the ropes. ‘I worked in every single
part – on nights, alongside the clinical team, on assessments, getting approval
for referrals. Because of my background in pharmaceuticals and hospital
management I knew a lot of the GPs anyway, so I became head of outreach, going
to uni at night to do management and marketing.’
The clinic was eventually bought by a chain of private hospitals that only
wanted private patients, and when her refusal to sell private beds to GPs led to
threat of redundancy she took the organisation to court and won. A Staffordshire
GP had told her about the county’s chronic lack of provision, so she set up BAC
(Burton Addiction Centre) in two small rooms in 1998.
‘We had a huge problem getting funding because everyone went into statutory
services and everyone went out-of-county for rehab. I did research with a large
group of service users and offenders, going into prisons and asking if people
wanted community rehab or out-of-county. Something like 87 per cent opted for
in-county – they’d been estranged from their families and didn’t want them having
to travel a long way, and it also felt like they were being removed because they
were shameful.’
The probation service began sending its ‘most chaotic and difficult clients’,
with BAC working alongside social care. ‘Eventually a social care director came
to see me because of the results we were getting and said “let’s look at starting
BAC
FROMTHE BRINK
Noreen Oliver’s alcohol use very
nearly killed her, but she used the
experience to found the award-winning
BAC O’Connor centres. She talks to
David Gilliver about drinking,
divisiveness and determination.