This was the unkindest cut of all.

The truth is alcoholism is a mental illness. I should know because I am one – one alcoholic. It’s very difficult to control the compulsion to drink, and when you’ve spent most of your twenties and thirties binge drinking, it’s hard to say no. Addictions run in families, my grand father was a drunk and my four cousins in Scotland are smack addicts, or recovering addicts. There is a stigma attached to having any kind of mental health issue and they’re shouldn’t be. But, my parents just don’t want it and neither do I.


What’s madness but nobility of soulAt odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!I know the purity of pure despair,My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.That place among the rocks—is it a cave,Or winding path? The edge is what I have.–Theodore Roethke, “In a Dark Time”

On Friday night I went out with some bloggers and unfortunately I sat there and turned into the anti-social drunk, with, according to friends a mouth like sewer. This has resulted in my friend, Justin, phoning my elderly parents, in Scotland, and telling them the truth about my unacceptable behaviour. So, now I have been given a fixed term exclusion of one year. My mother has told me that I am not allowed back in the house and that I have to be sober for at least one year. This also means that I am not allowed to go to my sister’s wedding in Yorkshire. They’ve fired me and it’s unlikely they’ll write me a good reference. In fact she said “if you turn up I will have you lifted.” They’re going to see a solicitor this week to get their will changed, they’re writing me out of it.

So, that’s it. I teach the socially excluded and now I have become part of that group.

My condition defines who I am. My mum kept referring to me as a ‘drunk’. I am no longer their daughter, I am just a drunk, who bothers them and hurts them. She told me that I have broken her heart.

I adore my parents and I am going to find not seeing them for a year devastating. So thank you Justin for ruining my Easter holiday. I have to stay in Hackney with all the other dross and scallys.

I will be going to AA and we will see if I can crack this disgusting illness.

I am really disappointed that I can’t go to Scotland - I had already planned what I was going to be doing up there. None of the activities involved drinking. I was going to go swimming in the outdoor pool and walking up a Munro with my dad.

Anyway I must apologise to Newmania. You know your stuff and you are a dedicated Conservative. I wish you and your family well.

I am turning my phone off - I am going to destroy the sim card.

What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours—that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child… –Anneli Rufus, Party of One: The Loners’