When I was six months old, my mother lost me after one of her many alcoholic
benders. Apparently I vanished into thin air. My father, a consultant
anaesthetist, ranted, angry with her more than distraught about my
disappearance. On his return from an overnight trip my mother told him that
she’d been helping my three brothers to prepare for a camping holiday with
the Scouts, had a few vodkas, probably a bottle, and everything after that
was a blank. When she awoke, I was gone.
My father phoned the Scoutmaster’s wife, who confirmed that her husband had
collected the boys from our back garden. He also said my mother had “looked
tired” – an Edinburgh-ism for being out of one’s face. My parents found me
in the garden, crying. I’d been out there all night.
My mother spent her days drunk or drugged, or both. This was our secret; the
secret everybody around us shared but refused to acknowledge. That time the
police came to the house, summoned by a vigilant neighbour. My father, for
whom the police were servants, not authority, explained that they were both
doctors, that everything was fine, and no, there was no need to involve
anyone else. We didn’t need social workers, for God’s sake. Some of our best
friends were social workers.
We lived in Murrayfield, one of Edinburgh’s leafier suburbs, in a three-storey
Georgian house with Jaguars at the front and sprinklers on the lawn. We kept
dogs, cats, rabbits, chinchillas and pigeons. Some of our immediate
neighbours were kind to the point of saintliness; others looked away in
undisguised horror as we children emerged, rowdy and unkempt, or my mother
staggered out, bag bulging with empties, only to return with a tin of soup
on top of six bottles of vodka.
I was born smelling of my mother’s drink and we grew up in a bubble, cut off
from the world by our own strangeness and unpredictability. We children
couldn’t, wouldn’t talk about her drinking, not even among ourselves. It was
as if we were immersed in a conspiracy of silence. We had white lace net
curtains, so filthy that nobody could see in. It wasn’t long before we
stopped trying to see out. We were too ashamed to tell anyone what was
happening. I soon learnt from my three older brothers that I had to grow up
quickly and, in our different ways, we hid the truth from each other as well
as from the world outside. We existed rather than lived, separately but
together, sneaking around, sniffing her breath for clues.
I remember once when my mother fell downstairs and lay at the front door for
hours. When I got home from school, I thought she was dead, but she was just
drunk. We lived like that for years, never knowing what would happen next. I
became adept at pouring vodka down the sink and replenishing the bottle with
water in the vain hope that she might not get too drunk.
To say that her drinking ruined my life would be a cop-out. Ruled my life is
more like it. I watched her drink from the bottle until, one day, the tables
turned and the bottle began to drink her; all of her. In her forties, she
changed from being a strikingly beautiful woman into a pickled old prune.
When she could no longer collect her stash herself, she ordered it from a
local shop and hid it wherever there was space: in the wardrobe, in drawers,
laundry baskets, behind the cistern, in boots and shoes. Her drinking was
snatched, furtive.
Yet, I loved my mother. I just wanted her to be normal like other mothers, to
bake scones, make us meals when we came home. I could never understand why
my father didn’t stop her drinking. It was only years later that I
understood that nobody stops anyone drinking.
We were well off, although the money was my mother’s, which rankled with my
father on bad days. My mother’s father had been a famous psychiatrist who
treated members of the Royal Family and had left her an inheritance as well
as a propensity for Valium.
My father drank too, but his drinking was the acceptable sort: a beer before
dinner, a few glasses of wine with his meal, a whisky afterwards.
God knows why my parents got together. They seemed to stumble into one another
while working as doctors at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. They resembled film
stars, she tall, slim, dark, floaty; he, silent, brooding, almost
Brando-esque. Their tragedy began in 1941, with a glamorous wedding at the
Brompton Oratory in Knightsbridge. Years later, my mother told me she’d had
several strong drinks to steel herself for the long walk down the aisle.
When my father went off to the war, she set about having a good time.
Together, they were never happy. He shouted and banged doors. She drank,
trembled and took pills, to calm her down and help her to sleep; horrible
concoctions of Sodium Amytal, Largactyl, Valium, Mogadon, and Melleril, all
of which she mixed with drink. She would lie on her bed, dressed in a shabby
tweed suit, covered in food stains from drunken raids on the fridge. The two
of them never spoke, other than at mealtimes, and then it was only to fight.
“Please, give me a glass of wine,” she’d beg my father, staring at the flagon
between them on the table.
“You’ve had enough,” he’d reply, in a tired voice. “Oh, I’m not allowed a
glass of wine, am I?” She’d jump up and storm out of the room, only to
return minutes later and start again. “Can I have a glass of wine?” she’d
say, already pissed from her own supply. “Nic, ask your father if I’m
allowed a glass of wine.” I would look at her, then at him, then back at
her.
“You look as if you’ve had enough already,” my father replied.
“For God’s sake, I haven’t touched the wine. Nic, have I had any wine this
evening? Anyway, I don’t need your permission,” she’d snarl. “I’ll just help
myself.” She’d stand up, stalk round the table, reach for the flagon, pour
herself a glass, then wait for him to start shouting.
If she did sit quietly at the table, she’d be so drunk that she could barely
lift a fork to her mouth. It seemed to hover there for an age, finally
clattering between her false teeth and coming to rest.
Miserable as it was, I hated it when our desperate edifice fell apart. We all
did. However, it was only when we ventured out into the world that we
realised how mad we really were. For most children, it is strangers in the
world outside who can represent danger. For us, the danger was right there
in the house, under our feet, waiting to trip us up.
I started drinking young, heading the same way as my mother; drinking simply
because there were so many things I couldn’t face. By 17 I couldn’t dry my
hair without a glass of something in my hand. Yet, in a sense, I was
privileged. For years I’d had the opportunity to watch as alcohol stripped
my mother of everything – her looks, friends, her self-respect, so I knew
that drink was a horrible way to live and an even more miserable way to die.
Nevertheless, I let it set about destroying me and ended up in a coma with
acute pancreatitis at 26. I was lucky, though. I stopped drinking. My mother
didn’t. She choked to death on her own vomit, hopeless and helpless. She was
63.
I believe the reason we didn’t get help was shame. Our relatives, my parents’
friends, the neighbours were ashamed of us, of her drinking. As a family, we
were buried, kept out of the way like lepers. Shame, I believe, is a far
bigger disease in today’s world than alcoholism.
— Mother’s Ruin, by Nicola Barry, Headline, £12.99
Do you have a family secret you want to share?
E-mail us at familysecrets@thetimes.co.uk
Or write to us at: Family Secrets, times2, The Times, 2 Pennington Street,
London, E98 1TT
I was 17 when my mother died. She was 44. Pneumonia took her but it was directly linked to her alcoholism. Her last big binge had ravaged her immune system and left her open to attack. For many years I hated her for it. A disease?? How can you possibly choose super strength lager and vermouth over your children? I remember the feeling of shame, of never wanting to invite friends over, of turning the key in the lock & just knowing she'd been on it. Very few of my friends knew how I lived at home. 8 months after my mum died, her sister also died- in the same way Nicola's mum. Drink has been an ever-present shadow in my family's life. I'm now 34, I'm a graduate, a professional and mother of 2. I've seen the insidious nature of that disease 1st hand so whilst I love the odd boozy night out, I never drink at home & I never drink on a bad mood. I loved my mum and still miss her. But sadly, as Dave says, she wasnt ready to stop even though she loved us. Addiction is a bitch.
Maria, Essex, England
I come from a whole family of alcoholics (mother, father, siblings, cousin), some of whom who live an extremely crazy and dangerous life, all of whom have abandoned any attempts at having a relationship with the non-alcoholic (me). The problem is, even though I don't drink alcoholically, by growing up in the craziness of an alcoholic home, I still have the same character defects that the alcoholic does (e.g. a compulsive need to keep the alcoholics from drinking, all the time thinking the alcoholic had a problem rather than me. The reality? We both do. The only way I knew how to relate to anyone was the way the alcoholics related to me - by fighting, yelling, controlling, etc.). I was lucky enough to find Al-Anon, a 12 step program for the friends and family of alcoholics, and my life has greatly transformed, and increasingly has the serenity I envied some of the members of AA for. Your alcoholic may never stop drinking, but you can still find the same serenity in your life.
m, boulder, USA
The probation officer needs to be aware that AA as not the ideal route for every one, I have regularly had clients say to me that it is too presciptive a route to sobriety and that it was " not for me ". There needs to be an appreciation of the fact that everyones route into alcoholism is different and that therefore their potential way out may be different. There needs to be an appreciation that some individuals will never give up.
Sally , Salford, uk
its not that he or she wasent happy and so got drunk every day.
it was just at first fun and then it latter became a part of life like the air we must have to live we must also have a drink to feel normal. evn tho we are blind to the fact that what we call normal everyone around us calls hell or hatefull. this coming from a life long drinker. the person who stated that people who are hooked on the drink are also hooked on drugs is wrong. yes matbe alot of them are but to say all of them are is not true. i started with drugs and traded them for the drink because it was leagle and was just as good. im 45 and iv drank since i was 16. traded drugs for drink when i was in the army and got busted for drugs. after spending 3 months in army jail hell. drugs were off my list of fun things to do.
aa is a joke as far as im concerned been there done that. it puts you on the right track but untill you come face to face with the problem and really really want to stop drinking nothing will work.
dave, sw, mo
then my world fell apart and i then thought about having to tell my 20 year old brother...
mum had been a drinker (very heavy) fr about 15 years, she loved my brother and i dearly but alcoholism consumed her and took her looks, her self repect and her pride away from her. she hated herself for it u could tell..but it was just to far gone for her to stop. i tried everything and i know she wanted to but couldnt. i ended up (me and my brother being her only relatives that kept in contact) clearing her flat (the council hadnt even cleaned the floor where she had lay for 3 weeks) and sorted her funeral. i wish to god that one day we will have a way of helping alcoholics and that alcoholics would be understood. i love my mum and miss her dreadfully. i wish that anyone suffering with a drink problem finds peace....and not the way mum found it...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
sarah mowat, aldershot,
Hey, i live in the UK. IM 24 years old. My mum died in March this year from alcoholism. I didntget to see her much as she lived about 2 hours away.... but she would always call me and even if some of the calls were with her being nasty or spiteful or drunk in hospital... i still love her with all my heart and soul. She was 57 when she died, it would have been her 58th bday on the 30th of this month. She hadnt called me in 3 weeks and this was normally usual as she didnt have a phone and therefore we could only write or she would call me from a phonebox... she didnt return my letter (a reply i mean) or call me and i had a weird feeling something wasnt right. On the 16thy march this year i called bristol police and asked them if they would mind going round to check on her ...they all knew her very well and so didht mind... she was a well known alholic..
then a policeman from my local town knocked on my door at 8pm exactly and said my mother had been found laying on the floor......
sarah mowat, aldershot,
Having been a Probation Officer for 25 years before retiring last year , I am acutely aware of the devastation that both alcohol and drugs can cause to the addict as well as their families. I am now working in a voluntary capacity with an agency that is closely linked to AA.. A little known fact is that if a person is addicted to alcohol then he or she is also addicted to every other sedative drug available whether obtained illegally or on prescription. Only by accepting that alcoholism is an illness which can only be resolved by total abstinence and treatment can there be a cure and a return to sobriety and sanity . Can this be done .? Yes and yes again if the addict admits his or her powerless and loss of control to alcohol and drugs and makes contact with their local AA office . I have seen so many successes with AA and their 12 Step programme and the joy and love that is shared between counsellors and clients is truly inspirational. Just summon up the courage and go.
Graham Jones , Swansea, West Glamorgan
For all of your drinkers out there - you only have to read Allen Carr's Easy Way to Control Alcohol to put it all behind you. It's the way out of the maze and the key to your cell door. It sets you free to be like you were before you ever drank ie when life was enjoyable, full of energy and excitement. You only have to open your mind to his message. Humans are the only animals that drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes. We are also the only creatures who can read, so get a copy and give it your best shot. I have bottles of wine and cans of beer around the house from my old days, but I never feel the slightest temptation - they are like old books I have read, but have absolutely no wish to read again.
Donald smith, London, UK
Thank you Nicola for writing this story and thanks everyone who has posted messages expressing the same feelings of shame, sadness, pity and love. I too grew up with an alcoholic parent who later died of his illness and my family also tried to hide things under the carpet: no-one spoke of what was happening and after he died it took me 5 years to pluck up the courage to even dare ask what he actually died of. There are no photos, no conversations and (sadly) no happy memories.
I will never know why he drank, why he couldn't get through the day without being comotose, why me, my Mum and my sister just weren't enough to make him happy. This makes me sad for him. I will also never know why he chose to have me and my sister if he couldn't even look after himself, why he was so horribly mean to my Mum, why he made it so obvious he didn't want this family that he had helped create. This makes me sad for myself.
Rachel, Leeds,
Both my parents were alcoholics and our teenage years (me and my older brother) were very sad (my little brother was very young & lived with this longer). Dad died very young at just 50 and mum from liver failure at just 59. It broke all of our hearts and I still find it hard to understand how alcohol was more important than us. You go through so many emotions : guilt, depression, shame, a deep pity for them and ourselves, hate and the love you feel because they are your parents. We were just grateful that my mum died in a clean bed (in hospital). After seeing what alcohol did to our parents none of us three have a problem with drink as we realise how much they lost out on (grandchildren,etc.) I still have days of bitterness (although they are becoming fewer as the years go by and I mostly feel sorry for what they lost). It is important to replace your feelings of biterness and sadness with love for them as after all they gave me my wonderful brother and sister.
Margaret, Girona, Spain
Lulu in Christchurch, I don't want to judge you because I don't know your story, but from what you've written, I'd say "yes, you have a problem, and you should be worried". Just saying " I pretty much always make it into work and I have nights off from drinking" tells me there's something not right there. If your drinking is stopping you from getting on with your regular day, i.e., work, shopping, etc., then it's a problem. If it really is "no problem", then it should be no problem to quit. Do yourself a favour. And remember, there's always hope, somewhere.
Sarah, Ottawa, Canada
Way to go, Allan...you and your wife have my respect and admiration.
I grew up with 2 alcoholic parents. 2 very different type of alcoholic parents. My mother would start drinking as soon as she came home from work (or on her days off, as soon as she woke up) until she would pass out. She would withdraw and just sit alone drinking in silence; never interacting with me.
My father would stay sober during the week but go out on weekends to drink at bars, coming home in the early hours of the morning angry and violent. He would usually come in and wake my mother so he could beat her.
It's horrible to be a child and to have to grow up in a home with so many shameful secrets.
If you drink and you have children...stop. You have no idea what you are doing to your them, even if your situation isn't as severe as any that are represented here.
Your life is not your own to selfishly do with as you please anymore. You chose to have children, they deserve more than that.
Denise, Pomona, CA - USA
I drink a lot but i'm not particularly worried. should i be? i don't feel a lot of hope, generally speaking, i guess. i mean, the wife in the story - WHY did she drink that much? Childhood sexual abuse? Gross parental neglect? Some reason like that? I pretty much always make it into work and I have nights off from drinking. No problem.
Lulu, Christchurch, New Zealand
My father has a big problem with alcohol but he doesn't know it and has a drink "to relax"....thing is, it's every single day and he always ends up drunk; during which time he criticises everyone he knows, including me and my brother.
The friendship that we used to have is gone. I am just about to get married and worried about how he is going to behave at the wedding! I have even tried to tell him about it but until he sees the problem, there is nothing I can do. I love him because he is my father but I do not like or respect him very much any more and that makes me very sad.
Nikki, Cardiff,
My wife and I both quit drinking 16 months ago.
We are both alcoholics.
We are surrounded by them in the US.
My wife's dad died of alcoholism.
33% of individuals in the US have a problem with alcohol>
Our jails are filled with drug and alchol addicts.
No more sweeping this under the rug..
Oh by the way not drinking is a gift....each day is a gift and
our children are blessed with sober parents...
Allan in Ventura..CA
Allan, ventura, ca
6 bottles of vodka? I don't think that's physically possible, (maybe a misprint)
jbland, mondeville, France
as a heavy drinker for many years i was very surprised to find myself decide one day to stop. just stop, and never drink again.i grew up in a house with a father who was a drunk,and for some reason i thought i was just like him.so my children had the burden of watching their mother drink all their childhood then stop when they had left home?strange isnt it?i wonder who i was punishing all those years.
debra quinn, penola 5277, australia
I really sympathise. It is very upsetting it is to see ones mother drunk, fallen over, unable to get up and yourself being locked out of the house due to the key left in the lock. Having to break in through a window or smash the back door down when you see her laying on the kitchen floor. No matter how much the family tries, it seems impossible to break the pattern and it does rule ones life, pressures families to the point of dreading the phone ringing. Stresses out the children and their own partners, children and even grandchildren. If only there was a cure for lonliness, often the cause of drink. It is only in the last 2 years that my brother, sister and I have faced the fact that our mother is alcohol dependant, Not easy when you're all middle aged yourself and a time when life should be getting easier for you.
Mark Harris, Swansea, Wales