'Drug-taking is a sub-culture today. It is socially acceptable now to take drugs, the shock factor is gone and people are not looking at the long-term effects. I wanted to talk about the side the dealers don't talk about." James Reynolds is only 21 years of age. He lives in a small fishing community between Drogheda and Dundalk and speaks with deep regret that "the last seven years have been like a daze. It is all a blur".

He has twice been admitted to a psychiatric unit, has been told he suffers from manic depression and is taking (on prescription) Prozac and lithium.

The first drug he abused was alcohol. "I was turned away from a teenage disco when I was 14 because I was drunk, so the girls I was with showed me how to do solvents instead. You just spray it thorough a cloth and inhale it. That was my first high. I didn't look at it like drugs, just like a cheap buzz," he says.

The girls who showed him how to inhale solvents were the same age; they were all refused entry to the teenage disco. He started "doing" solvents every day, sometimes at home. "I would wake up on the floor with carpet burns on my chin from falling."

Towards the end of sixth year, he started smoking cannabis after seeing his peers having what he perceived as a good time. "I would see them smoking and having the best craic of their life, and I'd say to myself: 'I want some of that, I want to be part of that.' "

That was the start of Reynolds believing that drugs held the key to happiness. "It was the whole myth behind it, a secret society thing. Then when you get engrossed in it, it is normal and everyone else is a freak - that is the irony of it. You don't look at yourself as being f***ed up, but think everyone else is."

He was 17, had just left school and started work and was now coming home from work and spending the rest of the day getting high on cannabis. "There were times I wouldn't have any wages left; I would spend up to £200 a week on it. But I also think we were ripped off and could have got a better deal!"

When he was 18, Reynolds went to a popular nightclub with a friend and had his first ecstasy experience. "It was amazing. You can't describe it . . . It is like when you are young and waking up on Christmas morning and getting all the toys you wanted, only it is better than that. It is a high, but it is a trip as well."

When he first started, the real rush lasted two to three hours. The more he took, the more he needed to take to get the same high.

"You take two or three at a time and do that a couple of times during the night. It became a real problem for me because I started doing them during the week as well. I would be doing them Thursday to Monday, and when I was meant to be selling them I was taking them myself and ended up getting into debt."

Within three weeks, Reynolds was more than £1,000 in debt to one of the biggest drug suppliers in the region. He was still only 18. He is vague about the details, but says he was very, very lucky to get his debt cleared.

Before his first admittance to St Bridget's Psychiatric Hospital in Ardee, Reynolds had also tried speed, acid, magic mushrooms, prescription drugs and Rohypnol. He also took cocaine at parties.

He secured and lost an apprenticeship and numerous other jobs because he was missing Fridays and Mondays. He started drinking a bottle of spirits a night and getting into fights.

On millennium New Year's Eve he got into a fight and an assault charge was brought against him. It seems to have been a turning-point for him.

"I got really, really depressed and was strongly thinking of suicide. I told my sister and, on the advice of the family GP, was admitted to the psychiatric ward."

He was there three days, and the compassion and understanding he received from the staff started a process of realisation for him. "I had built up so many barriers. I was discharged, and I had a plan in my head to turn my life around - and it was all right for a while."

Unfortunately, things went pear-shaped because he substituted drink for drugs. Then, after attending a dance festival, he started taking drugs again.

This time he lost his job and his girlfriend and, eventually, after eating an ounce and a half of hash, he had a breakdown.

"Reality broke down completely. I was like a lunatic. I would look at signposts and the letters would spell out something else. Inanimate objects were speaking to me; I was talking crazy talk. It was drug-induced psychosis."

This time he was admitted, against his will, for three weeks. He has been told the drugs have poisoned his mind, meaning he must stay on medication used to treat manic depression.

In his bid to find support, he turned to God but, at 21 years of age, felt he hadn't taken the chance at life God had given him.

However, as he went through some of the hardest days after his second hospital admission, he started to write poetry.

Putting the good and bad days of drug addiction on to paper have helped him, and at a time when many say he should be concentrating on his own recovery, he wants to talk to secondary school students about his experiences - after all, he is part of the same generation. And he would also like to get his poems published. The one that most closely reflects his thoughts at the moment is High On Life (see below).