Beneath The Bottle

Tag: recovery

  • Finding My Spark Again

    Finding My Spark Again

    I was told I’d lost my spark.

    The words sat there between us, heavy and undeniable. And the truth is, they were right. I have lost my spark.

    Not in the obvious way, perhaps. I am not outwardly miserable. I am not the person people would necessarily point to and say she is falling apart. I can still smile. I can still laugh. I can still hold a conversation and make myself appear intact. But inside me, there is turmoil running through every vein. A constant unrest. A heaviness that rarely loosens its grip.

    I keep most of it in.

    It spills out here instead, into my writing, because this is the safest place I know to be honest. I can pour my worst fears onto a page, lay my pain down in words, and for a little while it leaves me. Or at least becomes quiet enough for me to breathe.

    If you met me, you would see that I do have a personality. Even writing that feels uncomfortable because I have no real ego to cushion me. Speaking well of myself feels awkward, almost embarrassing. But it is still true. I can laugh. I can care. I can sit with someone for hours if they need comfort. I can help an elderly lady reach the top shelf in a shop, balancing on my tiptoes as if I am far taller than I really am. I can help a flustered woman at a petrol station open the petrol cap when she has borrowed her husband’s car and cannot work it out. I can carry the weight of eight children’s needs, emotions, chaos and endless mess, and still somehow keep everything moving.

    If I see someone struggling, I stop.

    If someone needs kindness, I give it.

    I can play video games to a decent standard for a 45 year old mam. I can snipe on Call of Duty. I can edit montages on Premiere Pro. I am down to earth. I can crack a joke. I can make my kids cringe at my humour, and although they would never willingly admit it, my jokes are funny. I enjoy a bit of harmless sarcasm. My empathy floods me more than it should sometimes, but I would still rather be too soft than too hard.

    But trust is gone.

    Some things happen in life that strip trust from you so completely that it never grows back the same. Since last year, I have known that something in me has changed for good. I do not trust. I do not believe I ever fully will again. So I stay alone, in my own company, where disappointment cannot walk through the door wearing a familiar face.

    There was a time, about eighteen months ago, when I would go out walking and take photographs of everything beautiful. Flowers. Bees. The river. The sun. The moon. The trees. The clouds stretching themselves across the sky as though they had all the time in the world. I noticed things then. I felt pulled towards them.

    Then I stopped.

    And maybe that is what losing your spark looks like. Not becoming someone else entirely, but slowly ceasing to reach for the things that once lit you up. Quietly drifting away from what made you feel something. Letting life harden around you until wonder no longer feels natural.

    But today I took photographs of the clouds.

    And they mesmerised me.

    That has to mean something.

    Maybe I did not lose my spark at all. Maybe it was only dulled. Worn down by years of pain, by things that should never have happened, by the sort of hurt that changes the way you move through the world. And then, just as I was already carrying enough, I was retraumatised by someone I had believed I could trust.

    That kind of pain does not just bruise you.

    It alters you.

    But sparks fade. They do not disappear.

    I need to believe that now. I need to believe that there is still something in me worth finding again. I need to start looking for beauty in small things. I need to let myself enjoy gaming not as a distraction alone, but as something that genuinely brings me joy. I need to make the TikToks again. Edit the videos. Learn new things. Build something from the skills I do have. Not for clicks. Not for likes. But for the feeling. For the small flicker of pride. For the sense of purpose. For the reminder that I am still here.

    Gaming brings me joy. It always has. My competitive side wants to improve, to sharpen, to keep going. Editing gives me something to focus on, something to shape, something I can make mine. Creation matters. It reminds you that even when life has taken so much, it has not taken everything.

    I do not naturally believe I am talented. I can say I am a good mam, but even that I downplay because it feels easier to minimise myself than to stand fully in anything good. But I have written a book and self published it. I have another one in progress, this time fiction. That must count for something. It has to.

    What I need now is belief.

    Motivation.

    Desire.

    A reason to keep reaching.

    Because the truth is, I have never really had anyone in life who believed in me in the way people should be believed in. I have had to become my own cheerleader, my own comfort, my own support system. And that is hard when your faith in yourself has been chipped away over years and years.

    But maybe this is where it starts again.

    Not with a miracle.

    Not with some grand transformation.

    Just with a photograph of the clouds.

    Just with a small return to wonder.

    Just with the quiet decision to believe that something in me is still glowing beneath it all.

    Maybe I have not lost my spark.

    Maybe I am only learning how to find it again.

  • You Can Just See The Love

    You Can Just See The Love

    Do I believe there are days when you need something, need to hear something that helps you?

    God yes. Today was one of those days.

    I took my four younger boys to the beach. We devoured fish and chips, ice cream, and time together. No pressure to do anything extraordinary, just the quiet beauty of being with each other. Talking, listening, relaxing beneath the burning sun. It felt like a pause from everyday life, a breath of something lighter.

    We were sat on a bench. I closed my eyes and let the sun wash over me. One of my sons stood behind me and began to massage my shoulders whilst the others sat talking beside us. Then a lady approached. She looked to be in her early sixties. She asked, “Are all of these your boys?”

    I smiled and said yes, they were.

    Her expression was soft, warm, reassuring. There was no judgement in it, no edge, no slyness. So I told her I had another three sons and a daughter too, but that they were all adults. She smiled and said, “Oh, that’s absolutely lovely.”

    And it was one of those small moments that did not feel small at all.

    No judgement. No nasty comment. No assumption. Just kindness.

    Then she said the very thing I think I needed most to hear.

    “You can just see the love between you.”

    And it filled my heart.

    Because I can feel the love I have for my children. It lives in every part of me. They are my reason for living, my hope, my resilience, my determination, all wrapped into one. I like to think my love is plain to see, and after the week I had had, her words were far more than a passing comment. They reached somewhere deep.

    My youngest son had been in hospital just days before, for four days. I had rung an ambulance the Wednesday afternoon because he was seriously unwell. After twelve long hours in A&E, with numerous tests, he was admitted to the children’s ward at the RVI and placed on intravenous antibiotics.

    I did not leave his side.

    When my children are poorly, nothing else matters. There is no other focus in me but them. But those twelve hours in A&E were mentally exhausting. I had reached twenty four hours without alcohol, and I knew withdrawals were likely going to become part of the problem. I told the nurse that I had issues with alcohol and that I was under services for help. Other than sweating profusely and feeling my anxiety climb higher than usual, I did not expect much else. So I rode it out that night.

    They offered for me to check into A&E myself so they could prescribe something to help. I refused. I would not leave my little boy.

    People see alcoholics as selfish. But even in the grip of addiction, I am not selfish. My instinct is still to put my children, and everyone else, before myself. I cannot not do that.

    Whilst we were on the ward, a nurse made an internal safeguarding referral. I was never informed of it and only read it in the paperwork when my son was discharged four days later. But clearly, they saw that my parenting was not in question, and that the care my son received from me was unwavering.

    My children adore me. They tell me often that they do not know what they would do without me, without me being the one who picks up the pieces and solves the problems. It is not a superpower. To me, it is the bare minimum of what a mam should be.

    Alcohol or no alcohol, I will always put them first.

    They are my entire life. My soul. My heartbeat.

    And yet sometimes, I do wonder if there is something almost supernatural in the way I feel them. There are moments where, minutes before one of my sons rings me, I already know something is wrong. I feel it. I have some kind of inbuilt radar that alerts me to danger, hurt, illness, or trouble without any obvious clue at all. I do not know if there is a name for it, or whether it is a recognised phenomenon, but I know it is real. It has happened too many times not to be. I have woken moments before one of them has come into the house, or moments before they have woken and told me they were unwell.

    So when I heard those words from that lovely woman, they stirred something in me. Pride. Warmth. A quiet ache too.

    Because I do adore my children.

    They want for nothing material, but more importantly, they want for nothing emotionally. And maybe that is why, by the end of the day, I have so little left for myself. When you spend your life pouring into others, your own cup can sit empty for a very long time.

    Would I change that?

    No.

    Because I believe my purpose on this earth is to be a mam. To do all I can to make sure my children reach adulthood with a solid foundation, with emotional safety, with regulation, and with the deep knowing that they are loved unconditionally.

    Things I never had.

    It takes courage, strength, and bravery to break the chains of abuse and generational trauma. And whilst I have no ego in saying it, I know this much is true. I have only ever wanted to give love, even though I received so little of it myself.

    Because passing my pain down to my children may have been easier on my own wounded mind, but it would have destroyed me much sooner.

    And maybe that is what healing really looks like, love given freely where pain once lived.

  • When I Need To Be Held

    When I Need To Be Held

    a small confession about comfort and longing

    Alcohol still knows how to comfort me.

    It wraps around the ache,

    soft and familiar,

    like arms that don’t ask questions.

    It’s the only thing

    that feels like a hug

    when I’m falling apart.

    The warmth never lasts,

    it fades,

    leaving me hollow and heavy.

    But still,

    in the quiet that follows,

    beneath the guilt and the noise,

    one truth remains.

    I just want to be held.

  • I Have A Confession

    I Have A Confession

    I have a confession to make.

    I’m actually quite scared to divulge this really quite petite fact that holds little significance in the grand scheme of things.

    But I need to make it less powerful, to reduce the imaginary pull that seems to reel me in to the hold it has on me.

    Under my desk is a bag, and inside the bag is a can of lager. The bag is covered with my blanket. It’s a safe space, one nobody in the house would dare to go near or touch, and I know this. The place was chosen to keep it safe, hidden by choice. If I had wanted it to be found, if I had wanted sanctuary from the mental battle currently engulfing me, I’d have put it in the fridge where everyone would see it.

    The deviousness of hiding it somewhere nobody goes is a choice. There is always a choice.

    That solitary can is my get out of jail free card. For me, it’s how I move around the board when everything becomes too impossible to handle or cope with. I’m still trying to decipher whether I’ve kept it as a deterrent, a safety net, perhaps; a reminder that the choice is there but I choose not to take it.

    Or whether it’s actually there as an emergency, like a defibrillator placed perfectly.  Just in case.

    Alcohol has become my “just in case.”

    It was my crutch. My reliance. But I’m tired of the monotony of drinking to excess and the downward regression into anxiety, pain, dread, and shame. Yet I’m also painfully aware of my inner need to survive, to survive to raise my children, to survive to simply exist. Alcohol, in a twisted way, allows me to survive.

    It destroys me, I know. My drinking crushes me. Mentally, it pulls me under. I isolate, I hide, I retract from a world that feels too loud and demanding.

    But the noise. The endless noise; it stops me from seeing clearly. Everything becomes blurry when I’m sober. I hear too much, feel too much, and my brain can’t keep up with the incessant waves of fear, panic, and expectation. Alcohol dulls it down.

    Because the withdrawal from society in active drinking gives me peace; but the withdrawal from alcohol in sobriety terrifies me.

    To others, it might look like oversensitivity.

    To me, it’s survival.

    I know alcohol won’t solve anything. I know it doesn’t fix the pain, but do they see me? Do they feel the ache that floods every nerve? Living hurts, and there’s no softer way to say it. The pain may change form, but it still exists. And it can be utterly debilitating.

    So this can of lager, this confession, I need to take the power out of it.

    Perhaps binning it would solve everything. But it would also take away my safety card, and sometimes, holding onto something, even the wrong thing, feels safer than letting go completely.

    I know my thinking is flawed.

    I know that the problem isn’t the can of lager. It’s me. My inability to cope without something that helps me to breathe through the pain.

    Because right now, I feel like I’m sinking, and there is no anchor.

    If this were anyone else, I’d know exactly what to say.

    I’d tell them tenderly that alcohol doesn’t heal pain; it only mutes it until it comes back screaming. I’d remind them that what they’re really reaching for isn’t the drink; it’s peace.

    But when it’s me, everything changes.

    Logic becomes fog. My own advice turns to whispers I can’t quite hear over the noise.

    Because I know what it’s like to sit in the dark, heart racing, eyes burning, wanting the world to stop spinning for just a moment. I know the exhaustion of surviving when every breath feels heavy.

    I know I’m damaged. I know I’m broken in ways that words can’t capture. I see it in my shaking hands, in the silence that follows my tears, in the way I pretend strength to protect those I love. Some days it feels like I’m hanging on by my fingernails  and they’re bleeding.

    That can under my desk isn’t just alcohol.

    It’s a symbol. A promise of escape. A threat dressed as comfort. A reminder that control is both my safety and my prison.

    I tell myself I keep it as a choice, that as long as it stays there, I hold the power. But maybe the truth is this; the real power lies in not reaching for it.

    Maybe one day I’ll throw it away. Maybe one day the pull will fade.

    But tonight, this confession, these words, are my first step.

    Because saying it out loud, admitting that it exists, that I exist like this, is me taking the power back, even if just for a moment.

  • I Didn’t Drink Tonight

    I Didn’t Drink Tonight

    It’s strange how the weather can hold so many memories within the mind. As easily as the soaking rain can drench you through, the way the sky looks, the smell of the air, and the way light glances across the horizon can pull you back into a place you thought you’d left behind.

    This evening, the sun flowed red across the sky. A bright, fiery ball sat above the landscape as if it were watching over everything, shining its light across the last dregs of the day.

    But as I stood and watched the sunset tonight, sorrow filled my heart. The mid October chill that spread through the air clung to me, pushing my thoughts to another time. The temperature, the sun, the blueness of the sky, the way the clouds tinged with a threatening pink, it all brought back a flashback so intense, so untimely.

    Memories, even the darkest ones, have a way of resurfacing in the quiet moments of ordinary life. This evening was no different. It was mid October, the air cool, the sky heavy with fading light. I was twelve again. The sky looked the same as it did then, and that’s when it hit me, the first night my dad came to my room. Every year, around this time, the sunset brings it back.

    I remember standing at my window, looking through the thin net curtain, the world outside washed in that same pale orange light. The cool breeze that had found its way through my open window from that day brushed against my skin tonight as I watched the sky through the transparency of the trees. The imprint of the sky, an echo that ricochets through time. Then his voice behind me, low and certain: “This is all women are good for.” His breath warm against the back of my neck.

    Later I sat alone in the bathroom, the sun gone, shadows claiming the rooms. The sting, the blood, bright red against white tissue. I turned it toward the dim light, afraid to switch it on, afraid of being found. Fear kept me there, hostage to the dark.

    That night, I lost more than blood, more than tears. I lost something I could never reclaim, something I could never give again.

    And so tonight, the pain hit again, as it does almost every year since. In the past, I drank — drank to numb, drank to cope, drank to hide the shame. But tonight I didn’t. Tonight I stood firm. My sobriety needs to remain resolute, because without it, my healing will forever remain stuck in the shadows of the past.

    Tonight my heart is breaking. It aches in a way that words can barely reach. The memories, the longing, the exhaustion of holding it all together; it feels unbearable at times. There’s a part of me that still wants to numb it, to make it stop, to reach for the drink that always promised silence. But I know now that silence isn’t the same as peace. So I sit here, heart breaking, hands trembling, but still sober. Because even in this pain, I know it’s the only way through.

    So instead, I went to my cupboard. Piles of old books that I used to read to the kids sat peacefully, mismatched and waiting. Slowly, I went through each one, knowing what I was looking for, what I needed. Eventually, I found it. The book was still in perfect condition. Of all the stories, I’d always hated this one the most. The kids would ask for it, and my heart would sink. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

    The book that teaches you that you can’t go over it, and you can’t go under it; you have to go through it. To face the reality of those words while sober felt like one of the hardest things I will ever have to do. But tonight, instead of picking up a drink, I picked up a book and read it aloud, reminding myself of what must be done.

    Healing doesn’t come in waves of light or sudden moments of peace. It begins quietly, in the stillness of the same places that once held your pain. Tonight, I didn’t run or hide. I stood beneath a sunset that mirrored the worst night of my life and stayed there long enough to let it pass through me. Sometimes healing isn’t about forgetting; it’s about standing in the memory and choosing to live differently this time.

  • Someone Like Me-part 2

    Someone Like Me-part 2

    There are parts of my story that feel almost too heavy to put into words. But silence has never made them go away. The past has a way of sitting quietly in the background, shaping how I see myself and how I move through the world.

    I wasn’t raised in a home shaped by alcohol. I was raised in a home shaped by abuse. My parents, the people who were supposed to protect me, were instead the ones who hurt me the most. Their abuse was emotional, physical, and sexual. As a child, I didn’t have the language for what was happening, but I knew I wasn’t safe. I learned to keep quiet, to shrink, to survive.

    Those lessons didn’t vanish as I grew older. They followed me into adulthood. I still catch myself doubting whether I deserve kindness, or bracing for pain even when none is coming. Abuse teaches you to expect the worst, and unlearning that is one of the hardest parts of healing.

    In part, I’m still very much stuck in that cycle. The worst has become a safety net for me. If I expect disappointment, I won’t be surprised. It’s the most painful comfort blanket imaginable, wrapping me in a promise that I’ll never be hurt again, yet keeping me from feeling true happiness or joy. When you live inside worst-case scenarios, there’s no space left for gentler thoughts. Even the smallest moments of peace are muted by fear, the fear that if I let myself feel happiness, when (not if) it fades, the fall will be too painful to bear. Because somewhere deep down, I still believe that nothing good happens to someone like me.

    What is someone like me? There are moments when I feel like I was made from something lesser; a quieter thread in a world woven from colour and noise. I move through days carrying a shadow of difference, not the kind that shines, but the kind that isolates. My reflection feels blurred, misshapen by years of silence and smallness. I’ve learned to hide behind words, behind smiles, behind the fear that if I were ever truly seen, people would turn away. There’s a heaviness that whispers I will never be enough. That I am something broken, unworthy, forgettable. Sometimes I wonder if I was ever meant to belong anywhere at all, or if I was always meant to exist just slightly out of reach.

    For a long time, I told myself to just get over it. But you don’t just walk away from a childhood like that. It stays with you, in your body, in your thoughts, in the way you see yourself. Naming it, saying out loud that what happened was abuse, has been one of the hardest but most freeing things I’ve ever done. It reminds me that the weight I carry has a reason.

    If you grew up in a home where love and harm were tangled together, maybe you know what I mean. The silence, the fear, the way you learned to be small. If that’s you, I want you to know you’re not alone. The shame doesn’t belong to us, even if it feels like it does.

    Writing this is another step in laying down the weight. I can’t erase the past, but I can stop carrying it in silence. And maybe, if you’re reading this with your own heavy memories, you’ll feel a little less alone too.

    Until next time, be gentle with yourself.

  • Growing Beneath The Bottle

    Growing Beneath The Bottle

    Some seeds grow in silence. Through connection and reflection, they begin to rise; slowly, softly, quietly until one day you realise how far you’ve come.

    There’s a saying I’d never really thought about until now: when you plant a seed, it doesn’t bear fruit the same day.

    Only recently have I begun to see how many seeds have been planted, both by me and for me, and how quietly they’ve been growing beneath the surface of my life.

    In these past months, words from others have lingered like rain, softening the soil around me. Small moments. Conversations , glances, shared truths have helped me act and reflect in ways I once never could. I’ve realised that without connection, our capacity to plant anything meaningful is limited. Isolation keeps us trapped in our own thoughts, rooted in stillness, repeating the same stories.

    But through connection, something shifts. Growth becomes possible, not all at once, but gently, like light spreading over still water at dawn.

    One seed that took root was the realisation that I had used alcohol for decades to numb my pain. I believed it could fix what was broken, but it only buried it deeper, covering cracks with temporary calm. Earlier this year, I reached out for help; a step that led to a medical detox. It wasn’t smooth or easy; growth never is. Life doesn’t move in straight lines. But slowly, I began to see that even in the hardest moments, new shoots can appear.

    Acceptance was another seed – the understanding that relapse doesn’t mean failure, it means learning. Now, sober, for today, I can look back and see the quiet influence of others. The gentle reminders, the shared stories, the encouragement that took root when I wasn’t even aware.

    Those small seeds have bloomed into something unexpected, fruit that nourishes me with knowledge, compassion, and patience. I’m harvesting lessons I didn’t know were growing.

    What I’ve also come to see is how one seed can start a chain reaction, a quiet domino effect of growth. A single moment of honesty, a small act of reaching out, can set something in motion we might never see fully. One seed takes root, then another, and soon what began as a single act of connection becomes a field of change. The words someone once shared with me became my turning point,and now, in sharing my own, maybe another seed begins to stir somewhere else.

    Maybe you’ve planted seeds too. Quiet moments of change that haven’t yet shown their bloom. Stay with them. They’re growing, even if you can’t see them yet.

    And if you’re in that quiet stage; where nothing seems to grow, you’re not alone. The roots are there, waiting. Together, we’ll keep watering them, one sunrise at a time. Beneath the bottle, there’s always room for roots to take hold.

  • When The Day Was Too Heavy

    When The Day Was Too Heavy

    Trigger Warning: This post contains honest reflections on alcoholism, relapse, and difficult emotions. Please take care while reading, and only continue if you feel safe to do so.

    This is a desperate blog. A one where I’ve tried everything else and the futility finally overcame me.

    My plan today was simple: get to a meeting, A.A. Then on to therapy. The therapy was cancelled because my therapist was ill. The friend who’d come with me had to take the bus because the metro was cancelled. I had to walk through town, which sparked my anxiety. Once anxiety rears its head, it’s so hard to crush. It’s the little things that tip you over on days like this.

    I spilled tea down my white jumper. Did it bother anyone else? No; of course not. Was it the end of my world? Yes, of course it felt like that.

    The women’s A.A. group was calm and welcoming. My foot tapped the whole time, my body’s tiny attempt to suppress the fear. One woman even asked three others if they had spare tissues; she’d been watching me and thought I might burst into tears at any moment.

    A.A. is different from anything I’ve known. After a share, when someone tells their story, everyone goes up to hug and thank them. It felt alien. Not because people weren’t kind, but because I didn’t come from a place where kindness, togetherness, and mutual respect were taught. I sat there frozen, knowing I looked isolated and ungrateful for the courage it must have taken to share a story of alcoholism in a room full of people. In my head my expression read as disrespect; in my heart there was warmth and gratitude, but I couldn’t bring myself to show it. I was stuck. Not because of her, but because of me. I was so scared to move, to be seen, to be noticed. I wanted to be invisible. I’m not sure A.A. has a practice for not being seen. As I stood to say thanks, my only thought was: she’ll think, who the fuck is this person? And that thought is a recurring habit.

    The day folded in on itself and I found myself doing two A.A. meetings. Was it enough? No. Honestly, I could’ve gone to several more and still not felt like it was enough. My sobriety has been on and off since July 1st, 44 days. It hurts that I made it to 44 days before I crumbled. I was that person who thought, “I’ll just have one.” One never stayed one. So many more followed. Since August it’s been sporadic, leaning back into dependence rather than occasional flirtations.

    We all have a realisation moment. Last week, before school runs, I drank seven pints. Armed with chewing gum and mints, I hid the trail of deceit and lies. My kids believed I was sober. I hid a bottle of gin under my desk, bought a pretty pumpkin glass with a lid and straw, two bottles of lemonade, and drank the full bottle of gin over the evening pretending it was lemonade. Nobody knew, nobody guessed. My tolerance and need to hide it mattered more to me than anything visible.

    As I drained the last dregs, the sudden urge to be sick crept up. The next day I woke with severe anxiety and shaking hands and I knew I couldn’t go back to how it once was, repeating the cycle, building an unforgivable tolerance. That was my lightbulb moment. I had to really try. I needed something to make me stick to sobriety, something I’d never found before, something that would challenge me beyond all I’d known.

    After the gin, deep down I knew. Google showed me a local A.A. meeting and whatever fear I had, I knew this was my last chance to try something different.

    But heaviness stubbornly creeps in. Meetings filling me with a fragile hope that this self-sabotaging habit could become the past, but with that hope came the reality: facing the feelings that made me drink in the first place. By this evening there was no escape. Day slid into night and with the darkness came a pain that couldn’t be explained, pinpointed, or medicated away. A numbness that felt like my whole self was heavy and hollow. There was no energy for distractions and none of them would have taken the feeling away. How do you treat a sense of loss when there’s nobody to see you fall, when you can’t articulate how intensely sad you feel about simply existing?

    Then the tug of war begins: the voice telling me to drink; it will change how you feel, even after a few sips you can feel it change your brain, and the other voice saying stay abstinent, sit with this nameless pain. There is no winner. Drink and you re-enter the cycle: guilt, deceit, shame. Don’t drink and you are left with unwavering desolation, your body feeling heavier than before. Exhausted yet unable to sleep, menial tasks become impossible.

    An evening filled with my disabled adult daughter’s meltdowns made the desire to not exist stronger. I found myself praying to be rescued but knowing only I could do it. I didn’t drink. I chose to write instead. To try to make sense of it, or at least to be honest about how I was feeling.

    If parts of this feel familiar, you’ll know that feeling that has no name. Drowning without water. For anyone who feels the tug of war; you are not alone. Knowing others recognise the indescribable things we feel can be a comfort in uncertain times. Giving ourselves time to heal, space, and self-compassion to respect what we’re going through all play a part in the process.

    If you’re struggling right now

    You don’t have to go through this alone. If you’re in the UK, you can call Samaritans at 116 123 (free, 24/7) to talk to someone right away.

    For support with alcohol, you can reach out to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) at 0800 9177 650 or visit www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk.

    If you’re elsewhere, please look up local crisis lines or AA services in your country. And if you ever feel you’re in immediate danger, call emergency services right away.