Neuroscientist Dr Brian Pennie and his sister Anne spoke to Oliver Callan about the role of family and community in addiction and recovery; and the new documentary series 'Hooked' on the science of addiction from drugs to gambling and smartphones.

Brian Pennie was an addict for 15 years. He smoked heroin and abused a selection of other drugs. For some of that time, he held down a technical job in the pharma industry. While under the influence of drugs, he did his job – just about - with the help of colleagues who covered for him on the bad days. His parents, siblings and extended family were close and supportive; but they lacked the language to talk about what was happening. It lasted so long, Brian says, because of the depth of his denial:

"When someone's in addiction, they’re in a different world. You tell yourself this web of lies; this self-deception to keep the addiction alive. So, I think one of the reasons why it was so hard for people to challenge me was that I was always pretending that I was getting better."

Brian has been sober now for 12 years and life is good, he says. But the road to recovery has been long. It’s clear from the input of his sister Anne that he and his family were on very different pages during his recovery. Their joint interview with Oliver Callan gives a fascinating insight into the different perspectives people have on the same events; and how their understanding can eventually converge over time.

Anne Pennie says that her family suffered intense stress due to Brian’s addictions. They constantly feared for his life and his health and what would happen if he drove a car under the influence. She says that supporting Brian's recovery while juggling their own normal lives was very challenging for her and for her mother in particular.

Brian eventually ended up in rehab, but the euphoria that accompanied his recovery made him oblivious to what everyone else was going through. He even started handing out advice, Anne says:

"Brian started to send letters home, explaining that he knows how to fix my life and how to help me and what I’m doing wrong. So, there was a lot of anger. I wrote my own letter in reply – I never sent it."

Brian acknowledges all of this. He explains it in terms of his 15-year-long habit of suppressing negative feelings with drugs:

"While they were all feeling the intensity of it all, they were coming in and I was sort of still numbed to negative emotions. I was leaning towards positive emotions – That was grand - energized. But my Mam couldn’t speak. She was just trying to speak and she would cry. It was really difficult – but I wasn’t feeling it."

Brian says it was only much later, when he was writing his book Bonus Time (2020) that he finally connected with the experience of his family during his recovery and it stopped him in his tracks:

"There was a week where I had a deadline, but I just couldn’t write. I was really feeling the emotional impact of that. So, recovery takes a long, long time. It was nearly 5 years before I really start getting really in tune with my emotional world and allowing that sort of pain to come into my life."

Brian says he suffered serious trauma as a baby, as a result of undergoing invasive surgery without an anaesthetic; something which was normal at the time. He traces his substance abuse back to that experience:

"I didn’t really have a drug problem, per se, I had an anxiety, a panic attack problem from trauma and I was really medicating and self-soothing."

His addiction brought him to some very dark places, physically and mentally. Brian describes a near-death experience during recovery which was a turning point for him. He replaced his dependence on drugs with an obsession with the human mind, he says:

"You could say I nearly switched addictions – in a way – it's not really addiction; it’s more an obsession and a drive. Not in a very balanced way, but it really helped me in that moment."

Brian’s recovery, the support of his family and his expertise in neuroscience all feed into the new documentary series Hooked. The series covers addictions to smartphones, gaming and gambling as well as drug and alcohol dependency and the part played by families in an addict's recovery.

Brian and his sister Anne are now close, having fallen out over the years due to his addiction. Anne is studying to be a psychotherapist and the siblings occasionally work together. They both agree that there is always hope, no matter how dark things get. Human connection is also essential to recovery, Brian says:

"Life is about connection with other human beings. We are emotional and social beings and the family dynamic today in our family is just amazing."

You can see the first part of Hooked, the three-part documentary series presented by Brian Pennie on Wednesday April 2nd, 2025 at 9.35pm on RTÉ One.

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues that came up in Oliver’s chat with Brian and Anne, you can go here for information on helplines.