My sister was always a wild child

But I never dreamt her life would turn out the way that it has

Hello and welcome

Today’s post was difficult to write. It might, therefore, be difficult to read. It explores and highlights the devastating effects of alcohol, not only on the person consumed by it but all those around them. It has a ripple effect. If you know somebody who is addicted to alcohol, this post is dedicated to you.

My younger sister was always the wild child, despite her angelic features. Perhaps that was why my mother named her Angela. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She was blessed with long blonde curly hair. I had straight brown hair and buck teeth. Hers were even and white. They lit up her pretty face. I hid behind bangs and a goofy grin. She never hid. She took life by the horns and threw herself into it, full-on. She was a mother at eighteen and two more children were to follow. By her 30th birthday, she was part of a thriving, successful business. I celebrated my 30th birthday with my five-month-old baby daughter. Sadly, more were never to follow, despite wanting them. But that’s another story. My baby daughter grew up into a beautiful woman and is very close to my sister, her auntie.

Angie was the flamboyant one and had a laissez-faire attitude. I was the serious one and just got on with my life, whatever it threw at me.

Nobody has ever asked her when it all began. If we did, we would be berated and told to ‘change the record’. My theory is that it all started way back, when she began working from home, long before it became the post-Covid norm. Or even before most people had even thought about WFH. An uplifting glass of wine when preparing lunch was possibly the beginning of the long, slippery, painful slope that we have all become a part of. Me, my brother, her niece, her children, and their partners. Even her ex-partners. Everybody in her life. We have all been a part of her journey to self-destruct. And not one of us has been able to do a damn thing about it.

Mum and dad have long gone. Dad from stomach cancer in 1986 and Mum from breast cancer in 1991. We had an older brother who died in a road accident in 1977. Our family has had its fair share of tragedy and heartache. My brother and I get on with our lives, despite the pain that we too have endured. I found my outlet in writing, he has a young family to care for and a business to run.

Angie’s children are all grown up with children of their own now. They are amazing and a credit to her. They make regular sweeps of her house. Over the years, her ingenious ways of hiding alcohol, designed to outwit them, have become the norm. Bug spray hiding in plain sight, no longer full of what it says on the label. Mouthwash bottles, washing detergent, you name it, every container is checked and inevitably, the contents poured away. It’s like a game to her. Afterwards, she just goes online and replenishes her stocks. She doesn’t even have to move from her position on the sofa. Another consignment will arrive, courtesy of the most successful and super-efficient online store that we all know and love. I sell my books through them. My sister depletes half the world’s gin supplies through them. Or there’s the local supermarket or any number of home delivery services. Alcohol has become so easily accessible.

Wine soon turned into spirits: brandy, whisky, gin. Then there’s the magical vee. No smell. Once, when Angie bunked in temporarily with her niece (my daughter) I called around for coffee. It was a Saturday morning, around eleven. We were all chatting, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company. Years later, it turns out that her coffee mug was full of neat vodka. Why had I not noticed? What difference would it have made if I had? I can tell you. None whatsoever. There is no reasoning with her.

My sister has been to rehab three times. Amy Winehouse was in one such establishment at the same time as her. Sadly, we all know what happened to her. She died of alcohol poisoning after binge drinking following a period of abstinence. When I hear that song, ‘I don’t want to go to rehab, I say no, no, no,’ I can see my sister’s grinning face. She has an ally in Amy, through her words. A kinship. Somebody who understood. We don’t understand. She tells us that all the time. ‘You just don’t get it.’

We all went to family counselling sessions when she was a resident at another famous (and costly) establishment, now called Wellbeing and Recovery Clinics. I kept in touch with one of the counsellors for years, giving her updates on my sister’s progress. Sometimes I was able to report happy, uplifting news. Two years on the wagon. We all thought she had cracked it. Beaten off the demon drink. But eventually, I stopped communicating. Nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news. Especially after all they had done for her. They had invested in her. Just as we have invested in her.

I remember one particular day at the clinic, relatives of other alcoholics and addicts sat in a semi-circle with a counsellor at the head of the room. She was standing in front of a whiteboard. She asked us how we felt about our situations. The same words kept coming up time and time again. Helplessness. Frustration. Anger. Sadness. Overwhelming sadness was my contribution.

And so the cycle keeps going around, in a never-ending circle. And it will keep going round and round and round. Until somebody or something breaks it.

An elegant and well-turned-out lady sitting next to me was the last to speak. She said she empathised with all of us as stories were shared of husbands breaking limbs while shimmying down drainpipes retrieving secret stashes. Others who had been unable to discover their loved ones’ ingenious hiding places and watched on as they self-destructed. Heart-wrenching story after heartbreaking tale. ‘Your loved ones can go into a supermarket or off licence. My son hangs around squalid places and unsavoury characters. He has stolen from us. We’re wealthy, but I would give it all up to have my son clean again. I’m ashamed. Embarrassed. Disgusted. I love my only son so much. But he loves drugs more than anything in the world, even more than his son. I can’t understand why.’ She burst into tears, her whole body shaking from the depth of despair that burdened her.

I cannot understand why my sister drinks herself into oblivion most days. Or how she can spend an entire day in an alcohol-induced haze muddling through life trying to fix problems. Problems that she has created. Trying to sort out her debts. She must have drunk her way through tens of thousands of pounds. All that hard-earned income from a thriving business that she helped to build. That’s long gone, together with the relationship. Both were lost through the bottom of an upturned glass. Or perhaps it was the pressures of running the business that got to her. Nobody knows. I don’t think even she knows. Or maybe she drank because she could.

All the while, we have to try and focus on so many things that are going on in our lives. Her children, her niece, our brother; we all have busy lives. We worry. Constantly. Will today be the day when we get ‘the call?’ Will she get to her hospital appointment on time? She constantly gets days, dates and times mixed up. Everything has to be checked with the hospital, doctor’s surgery or drug and alcohol support clinic.

My heart bleeds every single day for the sister that I lost. The day she chose the demon drink over her family. Every one of us is as helpless as the next. Her children have been incredible. They are kind and supportive and don’t know anything else. They grew up with her addiction. That too makes me sad.

I worry about the effect this is all having on my family’s mental health. Despite their busy lives, they all find time to nurse-maid our sister, their mother, their auntie. That makes me both sad and angry. Angry that she can be so selfish. But I know she has an illness. An addiction. To alcohol. She has her finger so firmly pressed on the self-destruct button that it might as well be superglued on. Nobody can get through to her. Make her see the damage she is doing. The damage she has done. Not only to her body but to everybody around her. We are all here for her. Nobody has given up on her. Despite the temptation, over the years.

I cannot begin to add up the number of hours, days, weeks, and probably months I have spent on the telephone with her and various other people, trying to help her get sober. I have attended groups that support alcoholics. Once, I even went to the wrong room in a meeting place and only realised when everybody around the table started saying, ‘Hi. My name is whatever and I am an alcoholic.’ I couldn’t wait to get out. The shame of being there. I am ashamed of my sister. Embarrassed by her. But I have tried to help her. I have tried with all my heart. We all have. There is nothing more we can do.

The number of hours on the telephone has been accompanied by a river of tears that we have all cried. Tears of sadness. Tears of helplessness. And, more recently, tears of the inevitably of it all. The inevitably that my sister has finally drunk herself into an early grave. She has two major health issues, both requiring an operation. Whether she is strong enough, or sober enough, to undergo the operations is another hurdle we all have to try and get her over. She has been told that if she doesn’t stop drinking she will die. They will not operate if she doesn’t stop drinking.

I have a lovely photograph on display in my home which was taken nearly thirty years ago. We’re standing side by side in her garden, laughing. She’s tall, slender and full of life; two women in the prime of their lives. I am clearly the older sister. I honestly don’t know if she was sober in that picture or not. She has become so adept at hiding her affliction. Now, on the rare occasions when we are seen together, people automatically think I am the younger sister, despite the seven-year age gap between us. She looks so different now. Her body has been ravaged by alcohol.

I remember another occasion when we visited, a few years later. I was trying to get a novel published, even back then. The days before online applications became the norm. I had written a proposal letter, a synopsis and printed off the first 10,000 words of my book and packaged it all up ready to be posted to an agent. We were flying back to the Middle East the following day and I didn’t have time to stop off at a post office. Could she post it for me? Sure, of course, she would. No need to pay for the postage. She would see to it. Her pleasure. I never heard back from the agents. Over a decade later, Angie handed me that same envelope. ‘I found this when I was clearing out my old office. It must be yours.’ And right there, my dream had been shattered. I often wonder why I entrusted her with that precious cargo. She was oblivious to my dream. All she cared about was where she was going to get her next drink. I had no idea but she must have been so inebriated when I handed it to her or drank herself into oblivion after we left, she forgot all about it. And with it, she forgot about me. Her sister and my dream.

The pain of knowing she is destroying herself is debilitating. Recently, despite enjoying a glass of wine, I can’t face alcohol. It makes my stomach churn. Knowing what it has done to my lovely sister.

I don’t know how this will all end, but somehow I don’t think it will be a happy ending - as much as I would like it to be.

I hope she finds peace. That day will come. When she has no more angst and once more, will be that angelic and carefree girl she always was. I miss that person so much.

I must thank Winston at

Coffee Times

for giving me the courage to post this. After reading his post today, Writing cannot erase our past but it can re-write our future, I felt the need to share this story with you. It is not intended to garner sympathy; far from it. I wrote it because it helped me. And if it can help you too, or anybody else, then my day is made.

Take care, and hold your loved ones close.