Kieran Cuddihy heard personal stories of addiction and recovery on Liveline from Chris Jenkins and Keith Treacy. He also spoke to addiction specialist Professor Colin O'Gara. Listen back to an extract above.
Porn, cocaine and alcohol are forming an increasingly common triangle of addiction in Ireland, with the smartphone emerging as both a gateway drug and a trigger to sabotage recovery.
That was the picture that emerged on Liveline, as Kieran Cuddihy spoke to fitness and recovery coach Chris Jenkins, former professional footballer Keith Treacy, and Professor Colin O’Gara, Consultant Psychiatrist and Head of Addiction Services at St John of God Hospital.
Kieran heard first from Jenkins, who, after trying cocaine at 16, ended up with both a substance addiction and a process addiction to pornography, where one compulsion fuelled the other in an endless cycle.
Chris says the porn-addiction, combined with drug use, brought him to a very dark place, isolating him from those close to him and undermining his sense of identity.
He says the constant coke-fuelled pursuit of ever-increasing sexual highs added to the shame of being an addict:
"You are confusing yourself. The more you are doing that, you are getting dopamine, but the consequence of that is loss of identity, you know what I mean? You're questioning yourself. That's why so many men don't reach out. There's shame, and there's guilt that comes with this as well. It's a stigma - nobody will speak about it."
Footballer turned analyst Treacy, now nine years sober, spoke candidly about the inner mechanics of addiction and how dishonesty keeps people trapped:
"The best thing you can do for yourself is just stop lying. Look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself the truth, and tell yourself you need that little bit of help. So often you’ve got to reach rock bottom… people will tell you they want help, but they don’t want it just yet."
For Treacy, recovery has never been about reaching a place of comfort, but about constant vigilance, he says:
"Tomorrow morning, I’d still wake up, and I’d still have the same problems that I would have had when I was one day sober. I am always only one point away from absolute disaster. The sharpness you’ve got to keep in your mind at all times."
That awareness shaped some radical decisions, particularly around technology. Treacy describes removing his smartphone entirely as an act of protection, not deprivation:
"I have no social media. This phone, I share with my wife… generally, I don’t have a phone. I don’t have any social media because it protects me. A lot of people would say, 'I need it for work’. Well, do you need it more than you want to help yourself?"
Psychiatrist and addiction specialist Professor Colin O’Gara places those choices in a clinical context, explaining how smartphones have fundamentally changed addiction patterns – especially pornography:
"Porn addiction has been around for decades, but it’s just the smartphone has put it into a completely different arena. People are accessing porn mainly on devices, and the phone access is a massive issue. It robs you of time, it robs you of normal relationships, and it hijacks dopamine systems."
O’Gara identified alcohol as the silent accelerant that links many relapses, even for those whose primary addiction is not drink:
"Alcohol is the trigger. Cannabis used to be the so-called gateway drug, but alcohol is the trigger point at which a lot of our patients fall foul if they’re in recovery from either porn or coke addiction. It’s the one drink or the two drinks that leads to carnage."
While the harms associated with porn use are often minimised, O’Gara warned that its impact extends far beyond the individual:
"For every one person who has a porn addiction, and I’ll take this from gambling, which is a similar process addiction, there are eight people directly affected. There’s a spouse affected, family members affected. It’s not just one individual – it ripples outward."
For O’Gara, the medical framing matters most: addiction is not a moral failing, but an illness that requires structural change, honesty and support – sometimes starting with something as simple, and as difficult, as putting the phone away.
Listen back to the full Liveline discussion on the RTÉ Radio app or on any podcast platform for a wider exploration of addiction, treatment and recovery.
If you've been affected by any issues that came up in this episode of Liveline and you'd like to chat to someone, you can find contact details for helplines here.