Growing up with an alcoholic mother, I became a coper and a doer

Being too embarrassed to invite friends over resulted in me feeling quite isolated. Mum would occasionally ask people round, pre-load on drink and pass out, leaving me to make excuses at the front door. The visits soon dried up. I missed my brothers so badly I regularly cried myself to sleep at night. I constantly lived in fear of something going horribly wrong, which was obviously unsettling. I’d have to endure white knuckle school runs, knowing she was driving heavily under the influence. 

Holidays were similarly challenging because I’d find myself in unfamiliar territory with an irresponsible adult. I remember naively trying to restrict her alcohol intake during a trip to Dublin by watering down her duty free gin, only for her to end up collapsing in the street from alcohol withdrawal. As ever, I covered for her, telling lies to avoid us getting into any trouble. That’s what you do as a child in these situations – you protect the person who is supposed to be protecting you in order to protect yourself. Mum was a supposedly respectable middle-class woman, a doctor’s ex-wife, for heaven’s sake, the last thing I wanted was social services knocking at the door.  

When I turned 17, I resolved to pass my driving test as quickly as possible in the interests of self-preservation. I was in the middle of my homework one evening when she came in and drunkenly clouted me over the head for no reason. Enraged, I punched her squarely in the face (it is the one and only time I have ever hit anyone) and at that moment I realised I couldn’t stay any longer because I was in real danger of hurting her. She was desperately ill and extremely vulnerable and I felt incredibly guilty for leaving her. 

I moved in with my father, who had remarried a woman who would go onto become a second mother to me. Then I passed my A-levels with flying colours and went off to study law at Leeds University, by which time Mum had become so completely ravaged by alcoholism that she kept on having major internal bleeds and ended up in intensive care. She died in 2001, a year after I graduated and had just started as a cub reporter at a local newspaper. She was only 54. 

It might sound odd for me to say this after everything I have written but I wouldn’t have changed anything about Mum or my childhood because both were full of love. Of course I wish I could travel back in time to when she first started hiding whisky bottles in wardrobes and drinking before noon to stage some sort of intervention. But deep down, I know it wouldn’t have worked. Dad had spent their entire marriage taking her to a succession of psychiatrists who all confirmed that she was in complete denial. She even had a spell in rehab, but emerged after a month believing she could still drink spritzers. She wasn’t ever going to stop. 

The thing you have to remember is that she was the only mother I knew and I loved her with all my heart. When sober, she was a truly captivating woman. Not only was she stunningly beautiful but she had an enormous amount of charm and such a great sense of humour. She was well read, cultured and had impeccable taste. In many ways, she was the woman who had everything, which is what makes it even sadder that she threw it all away.

The truth is I will forever remain eternally grateful to her for making me the woman I am today. 

Some of it was intentional. She would constantly bang on about the importance of me having my own career – and my own money – even though she took the phrase “lady of leisure” to new heights. 

But her alcoholism also had the unintended consequence of making me determined to be everything she wasn’t. According to Nacoa, the three million children in the UK who are affected by a parents’ drinking are six times as likely to witness domestic violence, five times as likely to develop an eating problem, three times as likely to consider suicide, twice as likely to experience difficulties at school, twice as likely to be in trouble with the police and twice as likely to develop alcoholism or addiction themselves. 

I did have a period in my 20s when I drank too much – largely to numb the pain of losing Mum – and got into all kinds of scrapes. Having spent my childhood always having to be in control, I craved a loss of control after she died. But I stopped drinking after I had my first of three children in 2008 because I genuinely couldn’t bear the idea of history repeating itself. 

I count myself lucky that I have always had a loving husband, father, stepmother, brothers and friends to 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 tough start, you can make healthy choices and lead a happy and fulfilling life. Philip Larkin was right – they can f— you up, your Mum and Dad, but only if you let them. There were times when Mum was a fantastic mother – and times she really wasn’t. I’m by no means perfect, no parent is, but I’m a very stable, dependable presence in my children’s lives. That’s not just a result of what my Mum got wrong, but the golden moments I will forever cherish are when she got it right.