I spent years trying to figure out why she suddenly became a completely different person in the evening. Photo / Getty Images
I spent years trying to figure out why she suddenly became a completely different person in the evening. Photo / Getty Images
My name is Camilla and my mother was an alcoholic. She died 17 years ago, but those words still feel like a betrayal, as if I am giving away my family's worst-kept secret.
Even though people must have known before it became impossible to hide, my two older brothers andI never really admitted it to each other growing up, let alone anyone else.
I remember my father once catching me trying to draw a line on a bottle of Gordon's so I could tell how much she was drinking.
I told him it was for my homework, but we both knew what I was up to. He wasn't the only one who had found empty bottles in the utility room cupboard.
When she had drunk too much, my mother had this habit of readjusting her glasses in an over-exaggerated way. We would mimic her behind her back and tell each other: "Mum's in a mood…"
I spent years trying to figure out why she suddenly became a completely different person in the evening. Was she pre-menstrual? Perhaps she had an undiagnosed brain tumour?
Matters came to a head when we went on holiday and Mum didn't emerge from the hotel room for days. My beloved dad, trying as ever to make the best of a bad situation, suggested we play a board game downstairs.
I think I just blurted it out: "Mum's drunk again." I can't have been more than 11 or 12. We all finally confided in each other properly and, although it was a release, I still didn't feel it was something I could discuss outside the family. If mum couldn't even admit it to herself, what gave me the right to tell anyone? My Dad was the local GP. The shame and stigma could have cost him his career.
When she was sober, she was one of the funniest, most engaging woman you could ever meet. She ended up unrecognisable. Photo / Getty Images
Mum had two stints in rehab, but emerged both times insisting she could "still drink spritzers". We were never offered family counselling, and I only found out later my Dad has taken her to a psychiatrist every week for two years to no avail. She remained in complete denial throughout her life and wouldn't stop drinking, not even for us, which is still hard to come to terms with.
When my parents' marriage finally broke down – despite huge efforts on my Catholic father's part to keep it together – I didn't question moving in with Mum while the boys went with Dad.
I loved her so much. When she was sober, she was one of the funniest, most engaging woman you could ever meet. I like remembering her as "Eighties Mum", beautiful and immaculately turned out. She ended up so unrecognisable that, when she was admitted to hospital for the final time, I had to point out to visitors which patient she was.
Study was my escape from her violence
When I was managing her alcoholism without my father as a "buffer", I threw myself into my studies. It was the only thing I could control. My A-levels became an escape from her violent mood swings and late-night rants.
When I went to university, it was the first time in my teens I hadn't had to look after someone else. I began to drink so heavily, I'd suffer from blackouts. I was just trying to forget.
The last time I saw Mum sober in her final months, she was curled up in bed like a little girl. She seemed so vulnerable, I thought: "If I had lost everything – my husband, my children, my looks – I'd probably hit the bottle, too." It was a relief when she passed away in 2001. She was 54. I was 23.
Writing this is difficult because my mum was much more than an alcoholic, but the drink ended up defining her as a woman, and that is hard for any daughter to accept.
Since having my own children, I long to travel back in time and ask her, mother to mother: "What made you start drinking before noon?"
I became teetotal when I became a mother because it was the only way to break the cycle. I never wanted to be drunk in front of my kids. At best, it's embarrassing and, at worst, it's more damaging than we will ever admit to ourselves. Heavy drinking is the elephant in the room of so many families.
In recent years, I have become involved in a UK charity called the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (Nacoa), which provides a confidential helpline for people to discuss a parental drinking problem. Counsellors have had children as young as five ring up to be read bedtime stories because their parents are too drunk to tuck them in at night.
