A mum became an alcoholic after liquid lunches at her “glamorous” job turned into her downing eight bottles of wine a day – with her first tipple at 5am. Sarah Day, 46, started drinking wine at the age of 15 and would go on three nights out with her friends each week.But when she turned 21, she began working as a personal trainer before becoming a PA – both jobs which involved “lots of social drinking”.
Rapidly, Sarah’s love for fun “liquid lunches” turned into an addiction – and she found herself needing to open a bottle of wine at 5am to start her day. After £30k spent on rehab, and numerous hospital trips to detox, Sarah was referred to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) for free in 2013, at the age of 35.She spent years struggling to attend sessions, but in 2019, decided to commit after a “particularly bad” detox.
Now, she’s six years sober and wants to show other female alcoholics recovery is possible. Mum-of-one Sarah, who is currently unemployed, from Croydon, said: “My jobs involved lots of socialising and liquid lunches – it turned into drinking at 5am to get up in the morning and stop the shakes.
“Because of my lifestyle, taking millionaires out for lunch, I could say: ‘Yeah, this is just what I do.’ “But I struggled to hold down relationships, I lost all my hobbies and interest in anything that wasn’t alcohol.”Despite her lifestyle “enabling” her drinking, Sarah believes alcoholism was always in her genetics.
Her dad, Bill, passed away in May 2011 at the age of 60, due to throat cancer. He’d split up with Sarah’s mum when Sarah was just 10 – and continued drinking ever since.Sarah says there wasn’t a single reason which caused her casual drinking to turn into an addiction – and believes it was always going to happen.
“Alcoholism is just in a person’s make-up, sometimes,” she said. I felt very loved as a child – although I was quite quiet, and never really comfortable in my own skin.In my teens, I started to become very disinterested in everything apart from drinking and boys.
“I started drinking when I was around 15 or 16 – and it was like: ‘Wow, I’ve got this confidence now, to be the person I’ve always wanted to be.’ It instantly had a hold on me.”
Although she says her academic scores suffered, Sarah finished school with nine GCSEs and two A-Levels – and went on to work as a personal trainer at the age of 21. Her drinking began to spill into her career – and Sarah says she often “went out partying” with clients.
Before long, she was employed as a PA for various CEOs, and quickly adjusted to the lifestyle of taking millionaires out for lunch. “I was a PA for CEOs, managing directors – all sorts,” she said.“These people lived such extravagant lives, they all had the same lifestyle.
“It would allow me to go under the radar, because they’d have one lunch each, and one opportunity to drink a lot. Whereas I’d attend multiple liquid lunches a day, thinking it was fine – it wasn’t.”
Sarah’s drinking got worse – her boozy lunches turned into nights out, seven nights a week. Eventually, she began drinking first thing in the morning – and by 30, she’d drink 80 units a day, just to stop “the tremors”.
After a binge, she’d detox in hospital – and says she also spent £30k on rehab stays, but nothing seemed to “stick”. In 2019, at a child’s birthday party thrown for a friend of her daughter’s, Sarah was spotted drinking and blacking out in the bathroom.
A parent phoned for an ambulance and Sarah was taken back to hospital to detox. “I wanted to get sober as quickly as possible – but only so I could get discharged and head to the off-license,” she said.“But the next day, I couldn’t walk properly and I was still shaking.
“My doctor told me: ‘If you can prove to me that you can walk to the bathroom, we’ll let you go.’ With determination, I did it – but when I looked in the mirror, I felt like I was seeing myself properly for the first time in 20 years.
“I was dangerously underweight, my skin was pale, and my eyes were glassy – just like my dad’s. I heard a voice in my head say: ‘This relationship is over’ – and I walked back to bed.”
From that moment, Sarah began to commit to sobriety – and has been attending AA sessions ever since. She has learnt to cope with negative emotions, like anger, sadness and confrontation – and has been able to get back to her hobbies.“Everything’s starting to fall back into place again – I’m free,” Sarah said.
“I’ve got my identity back – I know what I like to do, which colours I like, which music I like. I have so much to live for.”