FORMER alcohol addict Michelle Heaton has revealed her 11-year-old son now keeps her out of the alcohol aisle at supermarkets – after she previously would take vodka to the cinema, wine to the park, and her children to pubs for their days out.
The Liberty X star revealed how her life has been turned around by her 28 days in The Priory Clinic four years ago as she opened up in a new interview about her recovery from drink and drug addiction.
During the conversation, she blamed the start of the “slow burner” towards her alcoholism on the fact that she could not feed her son AJ breast milk after he was born because she’d had a mastectomy to prevent a risk of a cancer gene taking hold.
Opening up to Jessica Ennis-Hill for an episode of the athlete’s Gold Minds podcast, Michelle – set to be on Celebrity MasterChef starting Monday – revealed how she would hide her alcoholism from her children with vodka in bottles of water.
Michelle, 46, married to businessman Hugh Hanley, with whom she has daughter Faith, 13, and AJ, 11, said: “Two years before actually going into rehab, my husband, my manager, and my best friends all got together and staged this intervention to try and get me help and I just managed to talk my way out of it.”
Despite needing to go to hospital for pancreas and liver disease problems she thought she could stop the alcohol – but she couldn’t, so she hid it.
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She said: “I would get drink delivered to the house, I would hide vodka in water bottles and I would be really sneaky.
“We’re very manipulative, addicts. We manipulate to try and only show you what you need to see.
“I was openly drinking, but only drinking wine and I would have that bottle of vodka upstairs hidden in the attic.
“Drinking neat vodka was an everyday occurrence that lasted two years. I would sit in the car outside the house and drink before I went in.
“I would orchestrate days out always around alcohol, whatever we planned as a family – I would bring vodka to the cinema, wine to the park.”\
But eventually Michelle was persuaded to seek help in The Priory after reaching a point where she didn’t want to wake up.
She said: ”Had I not gone to rehab I wouldn’t be alive now.“
FAMILY SUPPORT
Thankfully the rehab ended her addictions and changed her life, while now her children are more aware of her past problems.
She said: “They know more about it now, especially my eldest, she is almost 14 now.
The harms of binge drinking
The NHS defines binge drinking as ‘drinking heavily over a short space of time’.
More than 8 units of alcohol in a single session for males, or more than 6 units in a single session for females is the technical definition, according to Drinkaware.
That’s equivalent to about four pints of normal strength beer for a man or three pints for a woman.
When you binge drink, other than getting drunk, your heart rate and blood pressure will rise. It can cause irregular heartbeats, known as arrhythmias.
Alcohol increases stomach acid production – queue the nausea and potentially vomiting.
You’re also likely to experience impaired judgement, coordination, memory blackouts and poor decision making.
This could lead to accidents, falls, drownings and other mistakes.
Long term, binge drinking can cause acute liver damage and increase the risk of chronic liver diseases such as cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Cardiovascular problems include cardiomyopathy – which is when the heart loses the ability to pump blood efficiently – and an increased risk of stroke.
Over time, binge drinking can contribute to permanent brain damage. This may present as a mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression.
Binge drinking can also lead to alcohol dependence, or “addiction”.
“The kids knew that I was in a hospital – because I was allergic to alcohol. And that wasn’t a lie.
“I don’t think AJ really has any recollection of what happened and Faith doesn’t have much of a memory of the way things were. I definitely would be hiding most of the escapades away from them.
“I think the worst of it from their perspective was that their days out would be with other kids at the pub. There was always a pub in the outing.
“It was my husband who found me the morning after, when I was up all night in the living room. It was my husband who found me in those compromising positions.
“I didn’t think I could exist without drinking alcohol. My whole career I drank alcohol – before a performance, after a performance, during. I’ve had to relearn steps how to live life.”
SON’S OFFER
Michelle then told how her son’s support had proved crucial as she lives her everyday life.
Speaking further about the assistance of her family she added: “They look after me.
“When we go to the supermarket AJ says ‘Don’t look at that aisle, because it’s got alcohol in it’. He knows I’m good, relapse hasn’t been part of my story. He does it out of love.
“Nothing’s off limits with my children. I’ve been very open with Faith and obviously everything’s on the internet.
“I think what kind of hurt a little bit if I’m being honest is that people who you were really close with, who are good people, kind of stop inviting you places.
“They don’t know what to say to you or how to behave, they don’t want to hurt you or put you in a position where they’re drinking, and also they don’t know how to behave with you any more.
“So I have lost a couple of friends who don’t feel easy in my presence. That is a shame. I still like to go out and have a good time – I just don’t need to drink on it.”
HEALTH ISSUES
Talking about the concern that triggered the descent into her addiction, she added: ”I got diagnosed with the BRCA2 cancer gene when Faith was six weeks old.
Me and my husband we decided I’d undergo a double mastectomy and reconstruction.
“I didn’t seek guidance or counselling, I thought I could do it all alone because I was strong enough.
“And then AJ was born. And then came post-natal depression. When he tried to latch on, obviously I couldn’t give him any milk.
“You give what the baby needs and I couldn’t give it – couldn’t do what you’re born to do as a woman when you’ve given birth.
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“Then AJ was sick with meningitis when he was six weeks old so I blamed myself for not feeding him breast milk – I know it was probably completely unrelated.
“And I would say that was the start of me changing the way I wanted to feel about myself. so then alcohol became a slow burner in the journey of alcoholism.”