My mother was an alcoholic for many years until we as a family openly acknowledged that she had a serious drinking problem.
I still vividly remember the moment we broke our conspiracy of silence when I was about 13 years old. We were on holiday in South Africa, staying at this wonderful hotel in Plettenberg Bay, but my mother refused to leave the room and apparently preferred to stock it with a minibar. She is in more company than her own husband and three children.
In a characteristic attempt to keep the show on the road, my father suggested we play a few board games downstairs in the hope that my mother might eventually show up.
I think I blurted it out during Monopoly: “Mom’s an alcoholic, right, Dad?” Until that point, a combination of loyalty and shame had prevented us from confronting the devastating impact his uncontrollable addiction was having on our lives.
My parents eventually agreed to divorce a short time later, but even though I was “Daddy’s girl” and extremely close to my two older brothers, I moved in with my mother out of fear that she would drink herself to death if left to her own devices. My father and the children strongly objected, but at the same time they respected my sense of girlhood duty.
Having been responsible for the household from a very young age – regularly saving dinners from burning to a crisp and having to deal with unwashed school uniforms being found at the last minute – I was able to cope with the practical difficulties of living alone with my mother. But he paid a huge emotional price.
When you live with an alcoholic you never know who you’ll come home with; the sober parent you know and love, or the drunk stranger who took their place? My mother used to remind me that There was a little girl nursery rhyme: “When it was good it was really good, but when it was bad it was awful.”
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby recently wrote about his own childhood suffering from his parents’ alcoholism: “Children, like adolescents and adults, differ in the ways they deal with such things. However, those who grow up in families broken down by mental health problems or substance abuse often cause great harm to themselves later in their lives. Guilt compromises joy and paralyzes relationships. For many years I coped by closing myself off from the world around me. I retreated into the inner world of fantasy.
As Hilary Henriques, founder and executive director of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (Nacoa), of which I am a patron, explains: “There’s this magical notion around alcoholic kids that once you turn 18, the world opens up to you and legal independence sets you free. The truth is Most of the time it is nothing more than that.
“The sense of responsibility can become even more intense, especially when the parent’s health begins to deteriorate. Shame prevents you from talking even to those closest to you. The legacy of mistrust, neglect, and abuse lasts a lifetime in the form of poor mental health, relationship problems, and your own addictions.
Growing up with an alcoholic mother, I didn’t exactly shut down, but I chose to suffer in silence by not telling my friends or teachers what was really going on because school was my only escape. Unlike at home, life at school was not defined by whether or not you drank. Unlike my mother, the school was reliable; was consistent; There was routine and order. (This is why closing schools during lockdown has such a devastating effect on the children of alcoholics and neglectful parents.)
So I coped by adapting to where he rebelled. I studied hard, played sports, and performed in school plays, almost defying my mother. A little fire grew in my teenage belly: I would do anything in my power not to turn into him. I became self-reliant, resilient and adaptable (useful skills for later life as a journalist). I was a fixer and doer; I still am. But as a kid, it was pretty lonely having to be an adult all the time. I became a mother and he became a child. It was like living in a real life episode Absolutely gorgeousExcept the joke was on me.
Being too embarrassed to invite my friends left me feeling pretty lonely. My mother would occasionally ask people around, pre-fill their drinks, and pass out, leaving me to make excuses at the front door. The visits ended soon. I missed my siblings so much that I regularly cried myself to sleep at night. I lived in constant fear of something going terribly wrong, and this was clearly disturbing. Knowing that he was heavily drunk and driving, I would have to endure the school runs.
The holidays were equally challenging because I found myself in unfamiliar territory with an irresponsible adult. I remember naively trying to restrict his alcohol intake by watering down his duty-free gin during a trip to Dublin, only to end up collapsing on the street from alcohol withdrawal. As always, I protected him by telling lies to keep us from getting into trouble. That’s what you do in these situations as a child; To protect yourself, you protect the person who is supposed to protect you. My mother was a supposedly respectable middle-class woman, the ex-wife of a doctor, and for God’s sake, the last thing I wanted was social services knocking on the door.
When I turned 17, I decided to pass my driving test as quickly as possible to protect myself. One evening, while I was in the middle of doing my homework, he walked in and drunkenly hit me on the head for no reason. Enraged, I punched him hard in the face (the only time I’d ever hit anyone) and realized I couldn’t stay in that moment any longer because I was in real danger of hurting him. He was extremely sick and extremely vulnerable and I felt incredibly guilty for abandoning him.
I moved in with my father, who remarried a woman who became a second mother to me. I then successfully passed my A-levels and went on to study law at Leeds University; Meanwhile, my mother was so devastated by alcoholism that she repeatedly suffered massive internal bleeding and eventually ended up in intensive care. He died in 2001, a year after I graduated and had just started a job as a junior reporter at a local newspaper. He was only 54 years old.
It may seem strange to say this after what I’ve written, but I wouldn’t change anything about my mother or my childhood because they were both loving. Of course, I wish we could go back to when he started hiding whiskey bottles in wardrobes and drinking before noon for some kind of intervention. But deep down I know it won’t work. Her father had spent his entire marriage taking her to a series of psychiatrists, all of whom had confirmed her complete denial. He even had a spell in rehab, only to emerge a month later convinced he could still drink a spritzer. He would never stop.
What you have to remember is that she was the only mother I ever knew and I loved her with all my heart. She was a truly fascinating woman when she was sober. She was not only stunningly beautiful, but also had tremendous charm and a great sense of humor. She was well read, cultured and had impeccable taste. In many ways, She was the woman who had it all, which makes it even sadder that she threw it all away.
The truth is, I will be forever grateful to her for shaping me into the woman I am today.
Some of it was intentional. Even though she took the phrase “leisure woman” to new heights, she was constantly talking about the importance of having my own career and my own money.
But his alcoholism also had the unintended consequence of me becoming determined to be everything he was not. According to Nacoa, the 3 million children in the UK affected by their parents’ drinking are six times more likely to witness domestic violence, five times more likely to develop an eating problem, three times more likely to consider suicide, and two times more likely to experience suicide. they are twice as likely to have difficulty in school, twice as likely to get into trouble with the police, and twice as likely to develop alcoholism or addiction themselves.
There was a period in my 20s when I drank heavily and got into all kinds of trouble, largely to numb the pain of losing my mother. Because I spent my childhood always being in control, I longed to lose control after he died. But after giving birth to the first of my three children in 2008, I stopped drinking because I really couldn’t stand the idea of history repeating itself.
I consider myself lucky to have a loving husband, father, stepmother, brothers and friends who always support me. Some people don’t have that, which is why charities like Nacoa are so important. They offer children and adults the understanding that despite a rocky start, you can make healthy choices and live a happy and fulfilling life. Philip Larkin was right; They can destroy you, your mother and your father, but only if you let them. There were times when my mom was a great mother and there were times when she really wasn’t. I am not a perfect parent by any means, but I am a very stable and reliable presence in my children’s lives. Not only is this a result of what my mother got wrong, but the golden moments I will cherish forever are when she got it right.
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