Addiction continues to rob families of loved ones.
It comes in all shapes and forms, from alcohol abuse to gambling and drug use.
Speak to any charity dealing with the after–effects and they will all tell you that not enough is being done to help those in desperate need of that support.
No one should be left to battle their addictions on their own. The consequences have once again been brought to light with the death of a Belfast woman.
Chantelle Louise Mullan was well known for her social media presence and amassed over 14,600 followers on popular platforms Facebook and TikTok.
Otherwise known as ‘Chazzy Shankill’, those who followed her life on social media said “she made us laugh, made us cry, made us giggle”.
Behind it all, though, the 33-year-old mum-of-two was battling addiction.
Yesterday, her father Ricky said her situation wasn’t helped as she was surrounded by “toxic relationships”. He spoke of “the evilness of drugs, and the evilness of addiction”.
Addiction is a hard cycle to break free from especially without a little help from your friends.
Over the last few years, services from charities who do their best to aid those in crisis have come under increasing pressure — and at a time when those services are needed more than ever.
That those services were so stretched to begin with is the result of both a substantial rise in the number of addicts and the failure of government policies to deal with the issue.
This time last year it was reported that Northern Ireland has the second highest rate of drug-related deaths in the UK — 11.5 per 100,000 people, which is just behind Scotland. Not much has changed.
Dealers are even using our hospitals’ Accident and Emergency departments to peddle their wares.
Those involved in working to help those with drug addiction have consistently put forward ideas to help control the situation, but the process of making positive moves towards tackling what has become an epidemic has been far too slow to have any real impact.
In the end, it’s all costing the health system both financially and in personnel. Worse than that, it’s costing lives, which, with the right intervention, could be saved.
If the right people are asked, there are solutions available which could finally get the issue under control. And there wouldn’t be so many stories like that of Chantelle Louise Mullan.
The only thing Northern Ireland should become addicted to is the process of helping to end addiction.