“An advert for pink gin triggered my relapse”

As Ireland introduces a ban on daytime advertising, Karen from Ponteland reflects on the alcohol advert that triggered a relapse after she’d been sober for 15 years. She’s calling for a national plan to tackle the price, promotion and availability of alcohol.

“It was an advert for pink gin which pulled me back into a world of addiction. I’d been in recovery for 15 years and re-built my relationships with my children, but the advert portrayed this new vibrant drink as something that will bring happiness and success – it showed that lifestyle.

I went to bed thinking about it and woke up the next day still thinking about it. I thought ‘I could just turn this pain off for one night and then go back into recovery.’

Within minutes I was at the shop, and there was my relapse.

My relapse lasted the best part of a year until July 2019 when I woke up having been on a life support machine in Newcastle’s Royal Victoria Infirmary – I had lost everything.

I was given a choice by the doctors – if I carried on drinking I would die and become a statistic.

Instead, I chose recovery for the second time..

Five years on and now sober again, I’ve gone through more guilt and shame than most people. But I also feel angry now. Just like smoking, alcohol is an addiction. And we don’t see adverts or celebrity endorsements for cigarettes.

It’s difficult to walk into a supermarket without alcohol being in your face. The alcohol industry is selling us the idea that drinking is glamorous, empowering, and the perfect way to de-stress.

From ‘wine o’clock’ memes to Instagram-worthy cocktails, we’re told that drinking is part of our social fabric, part of being a modern woman. But there’s a much darker reality.

Nearly one million people in England are admitted to hospital every year with illnesses and problems linked to alcohol.

There are millions of people trying to battle alcohol and yet they are literally pushing it into our homes. For people with addiction, that is dangerous – especially as advertising never shows the downside.

I was born to parents who had a drink problem.

Like many children in that terrible position, I was terrified of the chaos that followed a night of drinking. It was abusive, violent and unpredictable.

On some mornings, the living room would be in disarray, furniture broken, and smashed glass all over the carpet. My parents would be drunk and screaming at each other – it was terrifying.

That meant I hated alcohol, I hated the smell and the effects it had on my life. So I promised myself I would never turn out like my parents.

But unfortunately addiction to alcohol has dominated my life.

The first time I had a drink was at my 18th birthday party. I was awkward and uncomfortable but someone handed me a vodka and cola.

It made me feel grown up. Alcohol is always seen as a rite of passage and I was now, officially, an adult.

From my very first taste, I was hooked. Within minutes, I realised that it took away the fear that I constantly felt. I was becoming calm and turning into a social butterfly.

That was the start of my drinking ‘career’ and for 17 years I chased that feeling while falling into abusive and toxic relationships. Running away from my past, fleeing any type of feelings – every life circumstance was buffered by alcohol.

My drinking rapidly became a problem. It robbed me of ambitions, relationships and my worth.

I recall drinking into the early hours, then turning up as a hairdresser to work with the shakes, hungover trying to cut someone’s fringe.

I wasn’t emotionally available for anyone, especially my children. I’d come-to in the morning, not knowing where I was; losing keys, phones, everything. I couldn’t help them with their homework and I was disinterested. I was forgetful, embarrassing, and not present.

I reluctantly got into recovery in 2004 when I was 35 and the hope in my children’s eyes – who were 13 and 10 at the time – was starting to fade.

I had promised them a million times I would not drink alcohol and failed a million times. In fact, they were embarrassed to bring friends home in case I was drunk.

By this point, my liver was already enlarged.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t go into residential rehab because I had childcare responsibilities. So I used 12-step anonymous meetings to stay sober and learn about sobriety and alcoholism.

As soon as I got sober, my relationships with everyone – especially my children – became a priority. They are my greatest achievement but I couldn’t see that until I became sober.

I stayed sober for almost 15 years and did some amazing work during those years.

I campaigned to highlight Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD) – something I had personal experience of as I had drunk during one of my pregnancies when I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and my daughter was born with FASD.

I spoke at domestic abuse refuges, prisons and hospitals, meeting so many people whose lives had been ruined by alcohol.

I never imagined drinking again but my alcoholism was not cured. Every day I still felt bombarded by alcohol advertising – including the pink gin advert which ultimately lead to my relapse where I lost I lost everything I had built. I lost my home, my children, my job, my respect and the respect of my peers.

I almost lost my life too.

Five years on, I visited the Houses of Parliament with Balance to deliver a message to those in power that we need urgent action on alcohol.

We need to change our attitude towards alcohol and view it more like the way we view tobacco – a highly addictive and toxic substance that causes cancer, damages people’s health and robs families of their loved ones.”