“My mom died of an alcohol overdose, but I didn’t stop drinking”

When I was 7 or 8 years old, my mom lost both of her parents within a very short space of time. She had always been a heavy drinker, but the death of my grandparents pushed her into alcoholism in quite an extreme way.

I was born in the north of England, a village called Cheadle in Stockport, but we moved to Camberley, a town in the south, for three years. It was around the same time my mom’s parents died, which I feel was an escalation point for her. She had spent her entire life surrounded by friends and family, but when we moved she was probably lonely and isolated.

By the time I was ten, she was completely dysfunctional. She was drinking a bottle of whiskey a day and was rarely cognizant of us in the house. I was very aware of what was going on, but I think my dad tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. It felt like he was of the mindset that sometimes my mum drank too much, but we just had to try and manage it.

As a child, I was told to keep an eye out for my mom and so subsequently I fell into a pseudo-parental, protector, role. I had no boundaries during childhood; there was no parental control. My dad was out of the house at work and my mom was normally passed out or drunk, so I made my own rules.

And while I believe my lack of boundaries caused some issues in my teenage years and twenties, in terms of trying to find my own balance, I feel it also gave me a less constricted mindset—a perspective that anything is possible.

I started drinking myself from a very early age, because that’s what I saw adults around me doing. We would sneak alcohol from cabinets and take it into the playgroundwhen I was ten, because it seemed cool.

Though I shouldn’t have been drinking at all at such a young age, I was reasonably responsible. When we reached 14 my friends and I started going to nightclubs and bars, but I was always the person who took care of everybody else. I think caring for others when they drank alcohol had been ingrained in me from looking after my mom.

Leaving university and pursuing a career

I have never been alcohol dependent, but as a young adult I definitely used alcohol as a release, after taking on quite a lot of responsibility from an early age. For example, when I was 19, I left university in order to join the workforce and have more independence.

I got my own place and a well-paid job for a motor claims business. I had a natural flair for sales, so I kept getting promoted, but I had no concern for self-care at all. I was 70lbs overweight, eating junk food, smoking 50 cigarettes a day and going out to clubs on the weekends.

At the time, I felt I had earned the right to party on the weekends. My weeks were tough and I thought: “I deserve this, I can let off some steam and relax.” At that stage in my life, I wasn’t out of sync with everybody else, because many young people go out and party, but I was using alcohol as an escape.

At 19, I started dealing with extreme panic attacks. I think they were a warning bell to take care of myself, but I just kept powering through. There were days I would be sat in sales meetings having full-blown panic attacks, but almost splitting my identity and thinking: “I have to get this deal done, so I’ll just carry on pretending this mayhem isn’t going on.”

Coping with the death of my mom

When I was 23, my mom died of an alcohol overdose. At the time, I wasn’t fantastic at processing emotions and was more of a “doer” than a reflector, so I immediately thought: “Okay that’s happened, what can I shove my energy into to distract myself.”

My mom had left me a small amount of money, I think it was around £40,000 ($47,380), which allowed me to pause from the hamster wheel of work, life and responsibility and reflect on what I really wanted to do.

Around the same time, I had broken up with my long-term boyfriend. A few months prior I broke my leg having a water fight at 3 a.m. with some male friends and was subsequently restricted to my sister’s couch for six weeks. My injury made me realize that our relationship needed work.

After this trio of experiences, I had this realization that I wasn’t happy and nothing was going to change unless I changed. I just wanted to do something different, so I decided to set up my own business. I wanted less pressure, freedom and to be able to manage my own hours, this seemed like the most sensible way to do it.

I started a business from my sister’s conservatory, this involved doing consultancy for companies and selling their products for them which later evolved into handling motor claims on behalf of insurance brokers. We went from strength to strength and over three years built up a staff of 15.

It was a great distraction from my mom’s death, but it didn’t deal with any of my core issues. I was still eating too much, smoking and drinking a bottle of wine a night on the weekends, which was manifesting itself in my panic attacks.

Traveling the world

At 27, I decided to leave someone in charge of the company and travel around the world, which completely changed my relationship with food and exercise. I went on the trip with my boyfriend at the time, with the goal of trying to improve my health.

In every country we visited I tried a different form of exercise; I went to the Maldives and swam and cycled in Indonesia. Throughout the trip I cut massively back on my food and by the time I came home I had lost 70lbs in one year. It was a big thing, but I was still smoking and still had panic attacks.

Shortly after returning from my travels, I had my first same sex relationship with a female friend, who I had known for years. I realize now that I had felt feelings bubbling under the surface for her for years. While I don’t know how much of my anxiety was caused by my lifestyle, I believe repressing my sexuality was a huge factor.

At 30, I finally gave up smoking and my panic attacks disappeared. I was still drinking, but would regularly go on detox retreats and took a month off drinking that same January. It wasn’t until 2019 that I decided to try and cut out alcohol for an entire year.

Initially, I quit for three months to raise money for charity with a friend, but once I stopped I felt so good that I carried on for a year. From a health viewpoint, I was exercising, my diet was pretty good and I no longer smoked—alcohol felt like the last thing I had to get over.

But during lockdown in 2020, I just got bored. At some points in the U.K. we were only allowed to spend time with people in assigned “social bubbles”, and everyone in mine drank alcohol. I wasn’t able to get out of that environment and have different experiences, so eventually I started drinking again .

Cutting out alcohol completely

While I only drank on weekends and it was moderate, I felt my tolerance build up after a period of time. I remained conscious of my emotions and was asking myself after each time: “How do you feel?”

Despite having a good night, the next day I would feel terrible, and felt intense hangover-induced anxiety. It was so reminiscent of a place I didn’t really want to be. I kept questioning and questioning whether I wanted alcohol to be a part of my life, until last year I said: “I just don’t want to do this anymore” and I cut it out completely.

I thought: “Why am I dancing with it? It killed my mother and it doesn’t make me feel good.” If I’m really honest, the only reason I did drink was because it’s so prevalent in society and I didn’t want to feel outside the group. My identity was centered around being the fun person who went out and drank and didn’t want to stop being that person.

For me, there are so many positives after quitting alcohol. My sleep and mental clarity are so much better. Beforehand, even if I was just drinking on the weekend, I wouldn’t get full charge back until Tuesday or Wednesday.

But I think as much as anything, it’s just a relief. I think in the back of my head I’ve always thought drinking was like playing with a loaded revolver; something could happen, a big life event, which causes you to lean into it more heavily and for it to get out of control. That’s what happened with my mom.

Many people I know think you’re either an alcoholic or you’re not; that it’s almost pre-determined and so they could never be that person. But I don’t think like that. I believe anyone has the propensity to become an alcoholic, within the right circumstance, with the right ignorance. It’s a relief to know that’s never going to be something I need to worry about.

I believe I was cognizant of my behavior, without changing it, for several years. But I feel that with incremental changes and repetition, anyone is able to make lasting change.

I think it’s easy to be all or nothing. For example, so if I had three months off alcohol and then went on a night out and started drinking again, when I was younger, I would think: “I may as well forget about it.”

But as I got older, I was able to have a bit more compassion for myself and see every attempt as an incremental gain. I could say: “Okay, it happened. Even if I’m not doing exactly I want to be doing right now, I have confidence in myself that I can.”

Whether you fall off the exercise, diet or alcohol wagon, every time you get back on it, you can either see that as a brick building a positive new version of yourself, or you can berate yourself that you weren’t building that house all along.

What I did was see it as a positive brick. I said: “It’s alright” and was really consciously be kinder to myself, whereas when I was younger I was not kind to myself.

Sam White is the founder and CEO of Stella Insurance, a female-centric motor insurance business led by women and designed for women. You can follow her on LinkedIn or tune into her podcast “Human Business with Sam White“

All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

As told to Newsweek editor, Monica Greep.