If you want to listen to the story – see below (by the way it is my voice)
I was born in Tunbridge Wells in a baby home and was up for adoption. My biological nan took me in after three months and took me to Dover in Kent, where I grew up.
There was alcoholism in the family, and I saw what alcoholism can do from a very early age. My mum would visit from London after she started her new life. There would be parties and singing; they would be happy, full of love for each other, and by the end of the evening, there would be fighting. I would be on the stairs listening to it all, and it would be about me, because I was the one being brought up by my nan, not my mum. I’m mixed race and a GI baby, and I was in a book called Britain’s Brown Babies; there is also gypsy blood in me from my nan.
There was a lot of sexual abuse; I experienced a lot of physical, mental and emotional abuse as a little girl. It was a traumatic childhood. It felt like I was being sold out. This didn’t make me an alcoholic, but at 14 years old, it did make me want to run away from myself.
I started drinking at the Mogul Inn, a pub in Dover. My first drinks were things like Double Diamond, Pernod, port and lemon. I would copy what my nan drank. My mum and nan liked their lagers. My drinking at 14 involved a lot of drugs, LSD and speed, and I smoked hashish at that time. At 16, I moved to London to live with my biological mum. I found out that the money I was giving my mum wasn’t for food but for her drinking. My drinking took a slower turn as I was trying to work and be responsible, and I was proud of bringing in a wage.
I went to the Hilton with a fella I had met. I got all done up in an evening gown, had my hair done, and this lady asked me if I wanted to do modelling for an evening-wear catalogue. I took her number, but the drink took more of a turn. I never called her. The more I got drunk, the more I showed people and myself up.
Around 1990 or 1991, in my twenties, I went to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting; it was on Lea Bridge Road. I thought if everyone in there had a good drink, it would kill them. I had such an attitude, but still low self-esteem. I stole the Serenity Prayer and walked up the road with it, and someone came and took it off me. I was calling them all the blue words you can imagine. I never came back to an AA meeting until my thirties.
Around that time, I got into park drinking and used to carry a chopper in my handbag. I had my first blackout under the OXO Tower on the embankment with my mum. I had a fight over a can of Stella with this woman, and they barred me from the park. I was always trying to keep my drinking to the weekends, but gradually it got worse and started happening during the week. When I was 35 years old, I found the morning drink.
I came back to AA for about three months, and as soon as it got a little bit painful, I didn’t want to talk about what had happened to me. I just wanted to talk about funny things and be the joker; I wanted to make people laugh. It got painful, so I was off. In the 90s, I went to WACS, and later when it was called 1NE; every time it got deep, I was gone, and I would throw a chair, which I did quite a lot. It was like my party act: throw a chair or a table and get barred from the pub. I walked out of WACS and went to a pub in Walthamstow and got drunk and thought this A.A., WACS and all that isn’t any good; I’m a problematic drinker…that’s what I am. If you had my problems, you’d drink.
I began going to the Woodford meetings for about 6 months, then something bad would happen, and I would go off again. I had no emotional sobriety at all. I didn’t want to do the steps. I wanted them all to do it my way, and it was getting darker and darker. My family were traumatised by my drinking, like I was by my mum and nan’s drinking.
I was a month away from my 51st birthday and thought I had to stop being funny or nasty, so I walked into the Woodford meeting. I was smoking weed for 31 years as well. I came in to give this one more go, and they would probably bar me anyway. They said, “Keep coming back; it works ifyou work it, so work it because you’re worth it.” Like the other times I came into AA, they mentioned getting a sponsor. At this stage, I’m 51 years old, and now I want to get a sponsor but don’t know how to ask.
At the Friday night meeting at Whipps Cross, I asked a lady; she said, “Let me have a think about it, and I’ll get back to you.” I said, “Thank you very much.” In my head, I thought, what a cheek, not telling me now…what a liberty… She called me on Sunday and said she would. She said we can go to the Stoke Newington meeting on Sunday. I said, “Yeah, I can go there, but does it have to be on a Sunday, as I do karaoke at the Albert pub in Chingford?” She said, “You either want it, or you don’t…do you want to go to any lengths or not?” I said, “All right, I will have to blow out the karaoke.” I’m so important, the grandeur of it all. She started to take me through the steps, but she had to move in the end, and it was hard to visit her. We had to part; we are still friends today.
The second sponsor helped me with some serious work, and we got quite far with the steps until something happened and she couldn’t help. Today, I’m still friends with those two ladies. My third sponsor, Christine, turns 40 years sober in October. The funny thing is, Christine came to my house to 12-step me when I lived in Leyton, about thirty years ago, after I called the helpline. She came to my house on her own, can you believe that? She asked if I wanted to go to a meeting; I said no. I said, “Come in, have a drink and a spliff and chill out and talk about AA.” She said, “Nah, it’s ok, I am gonna go to the meeting, and hopefully you will come another time.” I thanked her for coming…well, years later, she became my sponsor.
My sobriety date is 11th September 2007, and six years into recovery, I was doing the steps, doing service and meetings, losing a bit of my ego, and trying to get some self-respect. I was always running from myself, especially when it got deep and hurtful. A family member had a huge trial, and I didn’t think I would get through it, but with the help of my sponsor, the fellowship and all the crying, banging the table when I was angry, they kept loving me…no one told me to get out. Their love helps so much.
I have done a lot of 12-step work and sponsoring. A dear friend of mine came to my house after the trial and sentencing. I said to her, ” What do you want?” I was so angry: “I’m not going to AA, having people judge me”… She said, “No one is judging you; let’s go to the 4 pm meeting at the Hatch.” I didn’t want to go, but after a good cry and a cuddle, I went with her. I was close to drinking, and she was there for me. This woman I 12-stepped to the fellowship 17 years earlier.
I have a relationship with God, which began in 1991 when I got baptised and would backslide quite a lot. I got to points where I just wanted to die. I wrote letters to the family and told them not to go down the same road I went. Then I would wake the next day. I asked my Lord to help, as this is a lonely life. I surrendered in 2007. Getting sober is the only way I can live. I pray a lot; I read the Word; I listen to Bible stories each morning. I am part of a worship group and help with the toddler group, which is more God-focused.
In my first year, I wasn’t easy to deal with; I was a blagger who wore many masks and still acted like I was in the pub, yet I remember Helen taking me to a meeting on Christmas Day, and so many people helped. After a while, I settled down and became the mum I was meant to be. My kids started trusting me and not being frightened. I had agoraphobia in my twenties, as well as alcoholism and addiction to everything…The onion started to peel, and I realised deep down there was a lot of hurt, and I would hurt others, hurt people, hurt people, and realised there was a lot of shame I was carrying from all the abuse. I started going to another fellowship, ACA, which has helped a lot, getting to know my teenage self, which is aggressive, but my adult self is calming, and I don’t have to be a scapegoat. I was a child in an adult’s body with no voice.
A.A. has given me a life beyond my wildest dreams. I’m grateful for my life today; my girls are in university and happy. I’m nearly 19 years sober; I’m now a pensioner; I just had a heart operation and have to rest. I’m grateful for all the love I have been given. Yet, I know if my tank is empty, I can’t give…and I’m learning that No is a full sentence and is empowering. I’m not the gangster granny I used to think I was. Sometimes I have to let my family be. I have been a control freak all my life; I have controlled the narrative; I know I can rely on God, yet I know I need to get out of the way, and when I do, I can grow, and I have learned to love myself.
We did this over zoom September 2026