SUSAN MARTIN: I used to down mini bottles of wine on the best way to work and get so drunk I’d do one thing no mom ever ought to. My husband mentioned he’d depart me and take the kids if I did not get sober…

I can’t remember what made me start drinking on the bus to work in the mornings. It was probably because I felt so ill from the wine, sometimes as much as two bottles, that I’d drunk the night before. 

It’s a cliche, but drinking again was the only thing that made me feel better.

Ours was a thoroughly middle-class home in Orpington, Kent, and in every other respect we were a fully functioning family. 

I was an account handler for an insurance company and my husband Nick worked in IT for a law firm and, yet, here I was, in my late 30s, secretly dropping empty wine bottles in public bins on the way to school drop-off.

I’d leave my two boys, then aged five and six, at the classroom door and head straight to Sainsbury’s to pick up some miniature bottles of white wine that I’d drink on the walk to the bus stop or in a public loo. 

I did this for two years, convinced that no one else had cottoned on to my shameful secret. But of course, Nick knew – it was only when he threatened to leave me and take the children that I finally admitted this was not a normal way to live.

I had my first drink at 15. I grew up in a small seaside town called Gourock on the west coast of Scotland. All my friends drank cans of Lamot Pils. Drinking gave me a sense of belonging. I was never one of the popular kids at school, but when we were all drinking together, it helped mask that feeling of being less than everyone else.

My parents loved each other dearly but their relationship with alcohol wasn’t healthy. They both liked vodka and though they didn’t drink every night, there would be lots of arguing and fighting over small things when they did.

Bickering and arguing parents was the one thing I always said my own children would not have to live with. To my shame, I was wrong about that.

I moved to England when I was 22 and got a job in a pub in Orpington. One evening, Nick, then just 18, came in with some friends and over time we became close – he’d wait at the end of the bar for my shift to finish and then walk me home.

I suppose there were warning signs had I known to look for them. Like any dating couple in the 1990s, our social life always seemed to include alcohol – but I was the one who never wanted the evening to end. 

I’d be getting another round, suggesting we get some shots, overcompensating for a lack of confidence by being this exaggerated, sociable version of myself. Still, everyone seemed to be having fun back then.

In 2002, Nick and I got our own place together. We were both commuting to London – I was working for an insurance company – and loving the city’s nightlife. We were often out for drinks after work, then we’d pick up a bottle of wine on the way home.

Our first son, Euan, was born in May 2006. We married in September the same year, and then our second son, Nathan, was born in May 2007. Our daughter Tilly came along in October 2012.

I didn’t drink during my pregnancies, but in 2009 I was made redundant and started working at a local bank near home. The hours were child-friendly and it should have been the perfect set-up, but that’s when my drinking really began to escalate.

I was running the house, working part-time and caring for two and then three small children – sometimes, exhausted and overwhelmed, I’d have a glass of wine before Nick got home to decompress.

One glass would become two or three – and, of course, then there was no dinner ready and none of the chores done when he walked through the door.

I had no off switch. There was a shop across from our house that sold three bottles of wine for £10 and a couple of times a week I’d get some. It was rotten stuff, but that wasn’t the point. Before I knew it, I’d have polished off two bottles over the course of a day and evening. Sometimes all three.

Each line I crossed – drinking alone, drinking during the day, lying about how much – made it easier to cross the next one. 

Once Tilly turned one and was with a childminder, I was drinking every day, in the mornings, on the way to work, at lunchtimes and after work, too, before I picked the children up. There were times when I would appear at the school gates with glazed eyes and the focused concentration of someone trying hard not to slur their words. Thank God I did not drive.

I remember very little about one awful day in early 2014 when I got so drunk I passed out in the hallway at home and failed to collect the boys, who were then seven and eight, from school. (Tilly, who was two, was with her childminder.) Nick got a phone call at work at 4pm to say they hadn’t been picked up, and I later discovered missed calls on my phone too.

He told me later how he felt immediate panic. How his mind went through all the worst possible scenarios. That awful sense that he was still an hour away and couldn’t get there any quicker. 

One of our parents had to step in to collect the children and it was as they were arriving back at the house that Nick also appeared. I tried to convince them I’d simply fallen asleep, but I was so unsteady on my feet, it was obvious I’d been drinking.

Even so, I do remember the sadness on the children’s faces; Nick’s weariness; the realisation that they all knew how much I was in alcohol’s grip.

After that, I could no longer deny that my drinking was having a huge impact – but still I continued. Nick did a great job of hiding my drinking from all but very close family members. He kept everything going.

Sometimes he would change his hours so that he could be home for 3pm. If I’d been drinking, he would put me to bed, and then prepare dinner, make sure the kids had clean uniforms for the next day, take them to their clubs. For us, that situation became very normal.

Still there were rows. Nick told me to stop. My parents told me to stop. I thought I was suffering from depression and needed help, but when Nick went to see the GP about me, the doctor said, ‘She just needs to stop drinking’ and didn’t offer any other support. To be honest, I wouldn’t have engaged with it anyway.

In 2014, at the age of 41, I did attempt Alcoholics Anonymous meetings – but I was always the last to arrive and the first to leave. I’d even have a glass of wine or two in the pub on the way there. Deep down I didn’t know who I’d be without alcohol, because it felt like all I’d ever known.

Then came rock bottom. One evening in 2017, I was drunk again and couldn’t face another argument with Nick when he got home from work. Tilly, now five years old, was in bed and the boys, now ten and 11, were playing in the garden. I just wanted everything to be quiet, so I took a large dose of painkillers.

Nick came home and found me, and I was rushed to hospital. It was a cry for help, a drastic way of telling myself that I was out of options. I had to change.

Days later, I checked myself in to the private rehab clinic, Priory Hospital Hayes Grove, for a 28-day residential programme – their most intensive form of addiction support.

It cost around £20,000, which was fortunately covered by Nick’s private medical insurance.

To put my hands up and surrender, to admit that I was tired of all the lies – these were the best decisions I ever made in my life. Laughably I remember questioning how my family would cope without me while I was gone. Some of the therapists at the Priory were very tough-talking, and I needed to hear it.

I was told the only way to get better was to be totally honest, to open up about myself and face my fears.

After those four weeks, I emerged a completely different person. I could see with total clarity that if I didn’t stay sober I was going to lose everything – my marriage, my children, myself.

Indeed, today I now work at the Priory as a medical secretary, doing whatever I can to help others. I also attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings every week – without the trip to the pub beforehand.

There is so much my children should never have seen or heard while growing up around my drinking. When I was drunk, I could be both verbally and physically abusive to Nick.

I have to live with the knowledge that I failed my family as a mother when I passed out and left them alone. The only way I can make it up to them now is to stay sober every single day.

Looking back, the stigma of alcoholism was what kept me from admitting that I was in its grip. I should have been honest sooner: alcoholism can happen in any family. Today, life isn’t perfect but it’s happy – and I’m grateful every day to be free.

Nick says: ‘I remember feeling a huge sense of relief when Susan fell pregnant with Tilly because it meant she wouldn’t be able to drink. It felt like respite.

‘One of the earliest warning signs was when I started to notice small expenditures appearing on our bank statements, little visits to Sainsbury’s all the time.

‘Susan would lie and say she was just picking up a bit of lunch or that the kids needed something for school. I knew that she was drinking, and I just wasn’t accepting or dealing with it.

‘Her drinking felt very erratic. On some days, she was so drunk she would fall over at the school gates or forget to collect the children altogether. Then she would bounce back for a few days and even appear not to be drinking at all. Then I would question whether it was really a problem. Was I making this bigger than it was?

‘I’d speak to her on the phone from work, everything would seem OK, and she’d send me pictures of the house looking clean and tidy, saying “Look what I’ve done today.” I’d be relieved that it was a good day.

‘Then there would be stages where it was two to three days of her constantly drinking and being permanently incapacitated. I think she was drinking to levels that even I didn’t realise.

‘Selfishly, I didn’t want to admit Susan was an alcoholic. I remember thinking: if she is, then how will we cope? What will that mean for our lives? How will things have to change?

‘I was just trying to keep it all under control and portray some semblance of normality to the outside world.

‘But at the same time, I was saying to Susan, you’ve got to stop this. This is only going to end one way. I’m going to take the children; you are going to be left on your own drinking yourself to death in a little flat somewhere. I tried to offer her the worst scenario I could think of. I stayed because I wanted Susan and the life we’d had before.

‘When I saw the light back in her eyes after rehab, her positivity returning, I knew she was coming back to me and the children. I always believed she could do it.’

As told to JADE BEER

Five signs you need professional help for your drinking 

By Kanny Sanchez, lead therapist for Priory’s Flourish addiction treatment programme

1. You’re buying cheap alcohol in bulk

This indicates a strong likelihood of addiction but can be easily dismissed by addicts as logical behaviour to cut costs. You need to be honest with yourself. If you’re having a party and want to keep the cost down, that’s OK. 

If it’s for you and you’re justifying buying 1litre bottles of own-brand spirits as a useful bulk buy, then it’s a problem.

2. You hate the taste but drink it anyway

This is a clearer indication of addiction than not being able to stop drinking. There can be no excuses with this one, and if you’re doing it, you likely have a severe problem. 

You often see it in people who don’t feel they’re good enough or simply want to be drunk as quickly as possible.

3. You’re drinking alone

It starts as having a few drinks on your own at home before you go out and then appearing to drink normally when you’re with friends. It progresses to drinking alone at home and not going out, feeling isolated and disconnected.

I see it sometimes in women whose children have left home – they drink in a kind of grief for the loss of the life they had. Addiction is about isolation and recovery is about connection.

4. You’re lying about the amount you drink

This is about the guilt and shame that comes from doing something that’s not perceived as normal. It’s why people who drink a lot like to be with other people who drink a lot. Breaking promises to yourself – ‘I won’t drink tonight’ – is hugely significant. It’s when self-will goes out the window.

5. You have black outs

This is a big problem because the ethanol in alcohol is now impacting your brain. It might be that you can’t remember how you got home or whether you upset anyone the previous night. When it happens, it’s time to get medical help.

For help please visit priorygroup.com/addiction-treatment