I wanted to share my experience doing an impromptu article for the Daily Mail, working with journalist Sybilla Hart and photographer Murray Sanders.
A huge thank you to the lovely Mieka Leonard for her amazing style wardrobe , and also a massive thank you to the makeup artist who made me feel so comfortable and looked after me beautifully on the day.
I went down, they put me up in a lovely hotel overnight, and I took a huge risk opening up about everything. To be honest, I couldn’t sleep that night — my mind was racing, knowing I was being so vulnerable and open about my life. I recover outloud so others don’t suffer in silence but this is a national platform who have a history of making or breaking people.
I wasn’t naive, and I didn’t go into this blind. I didn’t know exactly how it would all go, but I was trying to tread very carefully every step of the way… and it looks like we’ve come out the other end okay.
The mission and the vision were clear: this was going in the Health Section, and alongside a couple of other brave girls, we were going to talk about loss, recovery, and most importantly — what it is really like being a mum living with addiction.
I was told everything would be fine. I was promised I could read the article before it went to print — and I did. I checked every word, I did everything I possibly could to make sure everyone was safeguarded, and I truly felt the message would come across the way we intended.
Then the day it came out…
I saw the initial clickbait headline online (where you have to subscribe to read the full piece), and straight away, I wasn’t happy. But what hurt even more were the comments — vile, withdrawn, so unempathetic and incredibly judgmental. It broke my heart to read them.
One day like me and many others who get into recovery become role models for the next generation . They may one day help save your daughter, son, niece, nephew, grandson, grandaughter, think about that for a second and here’s what they don’t tell you , Addiction a worldwide Epidemic !
https://www.dailymail.com/…/middle-class-mums-cocaine…
This is what I need people to understand:
If you want children to be safeguarded, you HAVE to look at supporting their mums too. At the end of the day, mums want to stay with their children, but no woman will ever ask for help if she is made to feel shame on top of the shame she already carries, or guilt piled onto the guilt she already feels. Women already believe it is all their fault — usually because of the difficult circumstances life has thrown at them — and judgment just crushes them further.
I know families are affected too — of course I do. Addiction is a family illness, a family disease. But that is exactly what it is: an illness, not a choice or a moral failure.
Don’t get me wrong — if criminal offences have been committed, then yes, of course, that needs to be looked at and dealt with. But punishing people endlessly, shaming them, and treating them like criminals rather than people who are sick? That solves nothing. This is a national health crisis, and it needs to be treated as such.
I did my bit. I spoke out because I wanted to show other women that there IS a way out. I wanted them to know they deserve recovery, and that their families deserve recovery too.
I am grateful that overall, the core message got through in the end and the article itself is fantastic! and I hope that reading my story helps even just one person feel less alone, or gives them the courage to reach out.
Please — before you judge someone, look a little deeper. You never truly know what someone is carrying.
STIGMA KILLS. BE KIND.
www.womenonlywellness.com
www.tracuk.uk
AddictionIsAnIllness #NotAChoice #MumsInRecovery #BreakTheStigma #SupportNotShame #RecoveryIsPossible #HealthCrisis #BeKind #MyStory
Quote of the Day by Maya Angelou: “Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.”