Kaitlin Reeve, 39, from Surrey, got hooked on cocaine aged 16 while working in London – having started drinking and smoking weed while still at school
A mum who spent up to £200-a-day on her cocaine and cannabis addiction admits she “needed a line” to do housework.
Kaitlin Reeve, 39, got hooked on cocaine aged 16 while working in London – having started drinking and smoking weed while still at school. She continued to struggle with her addiction after becoming a mum to kids – an 18-year-old daughter, and sons 14 and five – and while holding down a career in real estate.
At the height of her 20-year addiction, Kaitlin was snorting between half a gram and three grams of cocaine a day, to the point where she “needed a line to do the cleaning”. She went to great lengths to hide her habit – which cost up to £200 a day – even hiding stashes of coke behind light fittings.
Katlin got clean after a “moment of clarity” while smoking a joint in her garden. The mum-of-three went to a recovery group and is now three years sober.
Kaitlin, a full-time mum living in Surrey, said: “Most days, I was getting the kids ready for school on very little or no sleep.
“I was going to work, picking them up from school, getting them to bed, then at night I would get back to what I was doing.
“I needed a line to do the cleaning. It was the only way I could muster up the energy to do it. It was as normal as a cup of tea. I did do it at work fairly often as well.
“When I look back at photos, I can see I still took them (the children) on days out and did arts and crafts with them but I wasn’t present.
“Other people would say ‘Kaitlin does this with her kids and she’s great at this’ – but inside I was dying. I was very depressed. I found day-to-day life very stressful. I was often lazy as a parent when I look back.”
Kaitlin said she had a rough childhood and “never felt like I belonged anywhere” as she was constantly “uprooted” from a young age.
She was introduced to alcohol in year five before she started smoking cigarettes aged 11 and cannabis followed at 15.
Kaitlin said: “Because I was a very unhappy young person, I think alcohol gave me a bit of relief from my life.
“I remember sneaking out of school to drink and sneaking alcohol into school.”
Kaitlin first tried cocaine while working as a club promoter in Kensington, London aged just 16. She became hooked on the “glamour” of early-noughties high society as the drug helped her “hold her own” among celebrities.
She said: “The first time I tried it was in a penthouse in Kensington and I felt really glamorous.
“When I started doing cocaine, I felt grown up.
“I went from being the underdog to hanging around with Hollywood stars and seeing these amazing places where there was loads of glamour and fashion.”
Kaitlin said she “couldn’t sit still” and would “go out by myself” instead of spending a night at home.
After falling pregnant with her baby girl aged 20, Kaitlin cut down her drinking and drug-taking.
But when a relationship ended three years later, she slipped back into the cycle.
“It all crept back in and it was time to go back out partying,” she said.
She went on to have two sons but the emotional toll of her addiction was growing.
She added: “When I had my second child, I had to hide it a lot more but I don’t think I was doing the best job.
“Towards 2013 and 2014, I was getting paranoid, hearing things, thinking people were watching me all the time.
“Eventually, I decided I wanted a better life for my children, so I moved away from London to get away from it all and I did but it crept back in.
“I found life quite depressing and scary and the only way I knew how to change that was through drink and drugs.”
The addiction cost her anywhere between £20 and £200 a day – and she suspects she could have bought a house with the money she spent on drugs over the years.
She continued: “I never lost my kids or my house or any of that stuff but I lost my sanity, my dignity, my self-worth. My health was really bad.
“I remember one time… looking in the mirror and my face had gone grey and my lips were blue from sniffing. I still went back and did another one.”
Kaitlin painstakingly held down jobs as an estate agent and barmaid throughout the darkest depths of her addiction.
“I used to think ‘why don’t people like me’ but then I was turning up hungover and on no sleep,” she said.
“Jobs would fizzle out but I always had a job. One would end and I would go for the next one.”
After so many years of constant drinking and drug-taking, plus many “rock bottom” moments, one “moment of clarity” in her garden three years ago drove Kaitlin to change.
She said: “One day, I was sitting in the garden smoking a joint and I literally can’t describe what happened. I was enlightened and I thought ‘you’re going to kill yourself and this is your opportunity to turn this around’. To be honest, I had wanted to stop for years but I was so scared that if I asked for help I’d lose my children.
“All I ever wanted to be was a good mum so the thought of losing my kids was awful for them just as much as me. I’m grateful I didn’t lose my children but I’m even more grateful they didn’t lose me.”
Walking into a recovery group meeting was a scary moment – but she has never looked back since.
She said: “A couple of days after that moment, I walked in all dressed up (to the meeting) because I wanted to look like I wasn’t that bad.
“And I said ‘I’m Kaitlin and I’m an addict’ and I surprised myself. I couldn’t believe that these people had done what I was doing and they were OK and they were happy.”
In the years since, she has shared her journey on social media, and started training to become a therapist and supports other recovering addicts through a 12-step fellowship.
“Recovery has given me freedom”, she said.
“I don’t have a big house or fancy cars but I have peace. I have a brilliant relationship with my children. If I can help another woman and her children not to go through what some other children have to go through, then me sharing my story is worth it.”
She added: “I used to look at my kids every day and break inside but they were the reason I kept going.”
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