My name is Jayne and I’m an Alcoholic. 
My story started back in the 1980’s when I got married and had 3 beautiful sons. In about 1987, I felt I’d missed out on my teenage years as my husband was 14yrs older than me and had had the party/ nightclub life, so I started going out with my friends to the pub. I didn’t really like alcohol but soon enjoyed the hazy feeling it gave me. I soon started having a bottle of wine in the evening if I didn’t go out and that’s when my life started to spiral out of control. In 1988, I packed my belongings once my husband had gone to work, my friend looked after my 2yr old and picked my slightly older two up from school. My poor husband came home to a note and three children under the age of 7yrs old to look after. I saw my boys at weekends but most of the time I was drunk and it still brings me sadness if I think about it too much because I missed out on so many beautiful years of them growing up. I always (just about) held down a job but every night was the same, straight from work to the pub till closing.

This carried on for so many years, two more failed marriages and many failed relationships all down to my drinking. I used to have blackouts regularly and woke up with many injuries. The pain and destruction I put my family through was awful. I’d tried stopping but had never admitted to myself I was an alcoholic and I always cut down my drinking to try and save a toxic relationship. Then my life changed, my kitchen ceiling flooded from upstairs just after I’d painted it….I went and bought so many bottles of drink I don’t remember anything of that day. I phoned work the day after still drunk to say I couldn’t come in as I was still drunk, they told me to go in the following day and I was already on a final written warning. I went in on the Friday said I was an alcoholic and needed help, this was the first time I’d admitted it to myself. They offered me alcohol counselling.

So on Saturday 6th March 2010, I woke up and didn’t take a drink. I have been sober now for 12 glorious years. I still have hard days where I want a drink but somehow I find strength within me not to have one. My children have finally had a mum for the past 12 years and have got to know the real me. My guilt for leaving them is always there but even they agree and I definitely know it was the best thing for them. I would have dragged them through the gutter or lost them. They had and still have the most wonderful father and me and him are the very best of friends. My story is never for praise even though I am proud of where I’ve got to, it’s always that there is hope…..hope that addiction can be beaten, hope that a family struggling with a sibling or child with an addiction realises that there is hope and help out there. I hope my story illustrates that there is light at the end of the tunnel and brings comfort to people… one day at a time I’m truly grateful for my life!