BURIED, from page 7
out the other.”
Edwards, who was born to a middle-class
family in Dublin, set up Walking Free after
getting clean at age 36.
“I used to have a very serious problem
with drink and drugs,” he said. “In the early
1970s, my father had to section me. I’d been
my parents’ pride and joy, and it devastated
them.” (“Section” refers to being detained
under the UK Mental Health Act.)
He said he takes “full responsibility” for
the fact that he ended up with an addiction.
“I was 12 when I first stole a Valium
tablet from my mum’s handbag. Taking it
helped my terrible stammer and gave me
more courage. That was the start of it.
Twenty years later, I was taking up to 150
Valium a day. I progressed from Valium to
cannabis to LSD and eventually to
barbiturates, which are the drugs they use
in assisted suicides. We injected them into
our veins. I was totally addicted to them.”
Edwards beat cancer twice and had a liver
transplant.
Street Roots • Dec 8 -1 4 , 2 0 1 7
News
Page 12
“I never tried to commit suicide, but I
overdosed more than 20 times. I was in a
coma for four days, and I almost died.”
The day of his father’s funeral was his
rock bottom.
“My dad died, and my family didn’t want
me at the funeral, because I’d upset
everybody,” he said.
He knew that day that he had a choice:
suicide or life.
“I couldn’t go any lower, and I couldn’t
take any more.”
He went to rehab and stopped drinking,
smoking and taking drugs. That was 26
years ago.
“After that, I dedicated my life to helping
others,” he said.
“These days there’s a lot of hardship. We
might have prosperity, but there’s lots of
pressure. People live in darkness. Society
doesn’t teach people how to walk in
darkness; it doesn’t teach people how to see
in the dark. But after what I’ve been
through, I can tell where the light is at the
end of the tunnel. I’m not afraid to go into
people’s darkness, take them by the hand,
until they can see the light at the end of
their tunnel. There’s no such thing as a
hopeless case. By reaching out to people
and sharing your problems, there will always
be help there.”
Edwards’ biggest fear while in the coffin
was that a rat might jump down one of the
holes.
“I got a bit paranoid about that. I thought
I’d have to catch it and kill it. I couldn’t
share a coffin with a rat. I had a little stick
down there so I could knock a rodent out.”
During the three days and nights, he had
to keep himself very focused or risk flipping
out.
“Your mind tries to go to a place of
claustrophobia, of panic attacks,” he said. “I
learnt to not let my mind go there. It’s a
challenge, especially when you get very
tired.”
He said that as much as he laughs about
it, he’s not Superman. “It was a long time to
be underground.”
When he did sleep, he had strange
dreams about the world he’d left behind.
“One in particular I remember: I was at a
friend’s house and it was summer, and I was
in their back garden, and there was a
barbecue. I was laughing and enjoying
myself. Then I woke up, and I was in the
coffin. I thought, ‘Oh, my God.’ That freaked
me out a bit,” he said.
Edwards said the best part about
emerging into the world again were the
simple things.
“It was quite surreal to come out,” he
said. “I was a bit tearful. It was nice to give
my wife a cuddle. It was nice to go to the
toilet. I was very glad to be above ground
again.”
And how do people react when he tells
them what he’s done? “People think I’m off
my trolley, but for the sake of reaching out
to people, I wanted to do it.”
People also told him this couldn’t be
done. “You should see my risk assessment
and insurance,” he joked.
Did he ever question his sanity?
“People call me nuts,” he said, “but I say
I’m screwed to the right bolt. To be creative,
you have to be a bit on the edge.”
Courtesy of Big Issue North / INSP.ngo
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