Episode 57 - Helen Ayling: Choosing Sobriety over Addiction

She thought the answer to her problems was another man, another night out, another bottle hidden just well enough to get through the day. Helen takes us back to 2013, when alcohol addiction and chaotic thinking collided with motherhood, marriage and crushing shame, until one blunt truth cut through the fog. Her kids loved her, but they were scared of her. That moment leads to rehab and a 12-step recovery path that transforms how she lives, parents and asks for help.

We go deep on what sobriety really looks like after the detox glow fades. From losing friends and being judged by other mums to making amends without guarantees and learning how to be “sober me” rather than only a wife or a mother. Helen also shares the reality of raising her daughter with Prader-Willi syndrome, including the medical and behavioural challenges, the constant food management and the emotional weight carers carry. If you’re searching for honest conversations about addiction recovery, relapse prevention, parenting in recover, and disability caregiving, this one is packed with lived experience.

The story takes another sharp turn when Helen’s second husband, also an addict, stops working his program and spirals into gambling and infidelity before disappearing overseas and leaving debts behind. Helen describes reaching a terrifying point where she doesn’t want to drink, but she does want to die and how sponsorship, meetings, online community and dropping her pride helps her survive and rebuild. Listener discretion advised, and if you need immediate support in Australia, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

If Helen’s story lands with you, please subscribe, share it with someone who needs hope, and leave a review so more people can find Everyday Warriors. What’s one thing that has helped you ask for help sooner?

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Transcript

The Ladder And The 12 Steps

Helen 0:00

Well, that's interesting you say that because we have a saying a bit like that in my programme, and it's so you get to the bottom and you look at the light at the top and you see a ladder, and there's 12 steps up, and they're the 12 steps we take. And I think it's a testament to that programme that really anyone can come out of it with a life better than they went in.

Welcome And Listener Safety Note

Trudie Marie 0:21

This is the Everyday Warriors Podcast, where courageous guests share the truth of what they've survived, what they've learned, and how they have rebuilt their lives. I'm your host, Trudy Marie. Listen to these stories of resilience, purpose, and hope so you can remember you're not alone. Please note that the following podcast may contain discussions or topics that could be triggering or distressing for some listeners. I aim to provide informative and supportive content, but understand that certain things may evoke strong emotions or memories. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed or in need of support while listening, I encourage you to pause the podcast and take a break. Remember that it is okay to prioritise your well-being and seek assistance from trained professionals. There is no shame in this. In fact, it is the first brief step to healing. If you require immediate support, please consider reaching out to Lifeline on 13, 11, 14 or a crisis intervention service in your area. Thank you for listening and please take care of yourself as you engage with the content of this podcast.

Reviews And Supporting The Show

Trudie Marie 1:47

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Helen’s 2013 Drinking Spiral

Trudie Marie 2:43

And today I get my wish because I would like to welcome to the show Helen all the way from Kent in the UK. Hi, Judy. Thank you for asking me. No problems at all. I'm so happy to have you here today and to share your story. Wonderful. I can't wait. So I want to take you back to 2013 because I think that's a really significant year for you.

Helen 3:10

Oh, massively. Yeah. 2013 started off. I think the first three and a bit months of 2013, I didn't draw a sober breath and 24 hours a day. And I had three little children. So it led it was a lot of carnage. And my behaviour was off the scale awful. I was married to a very supportive man, and he was despairing of me. Everybody was despairing of me. And I didn't, the truth is, I didn't even want to drink. I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop. I just couldn't stop. It was all I thought about getting it, hiding it, drinking it, getting over it. So drugs came in as well. But it was just absolute carnage. And my mental thinking at that point was that the answer to my problems was to find a different man, but not to address the issues I had with my husband, but just to go and find one. You know, alcoholic thinking is completely off-the-scale weird. And so I would go out at night and just scout around the bars trying to find a husband. Looking a mess, sounding a mess. I was also like was stick-thin at the point, that point. So I probably looked horrific. But one day I wandered into a bar, it was lunchtime, and I had to pick up the children later. But I wandered into a bar, there was horse racing on the TV. And in England, you can buy, if you buy two glasses of wine, they some in some bars they give you the rest of the bottle for free. So I did that, wandered around the bar with my bottle and two glasses, trying to find a man that would drink it with me. Right. And I tried a couple and they said no. I mean, it's so shameful. But eventually I found one that said yes. And this guy and I, we just clicked immediately. He was nothing like me. His social background was nothing like me, his history was nothing like me. But there was something about him that I just fell for immediately. And for the next three weeks, I snuck out or snuck him in to my house, and we just started this completely well, what I thought was a love story. And at the end of that three weeks, I had left the family home one night, gone to a hotel, met him, and unbeknown to me, my husband was tracking my phone, found me, and he and my sister, who's 10 years older than me, walked into the hotel room, which obviously was a bit of a shock. And he said to me, Come home now, or you won't see the children again, and all your money will be cut off. And in my alcoholic haze, I just thought, yeah, yeah, whatever. But I went back the next day and he'd gone and he'd taken the children and he'd turned his phone off. And I was too scared to call anyone to find out where they were because I was too ashamed of what I'd done. So I just wandered around this house in a fog drinking, but not nothing was no reason comfort was coming to me. It was just drinking to get drunk. And on the Thursday, he came back with the children and he said to me, Oh god, I'll never forget it. He said to me, The children don't like you, they love you, but they don't like you, they're scared of you. And that it just sent a dagger into my heart, and I realized that this had to stop. But I didn't know how to stop. I tried so many times to stop and I just couldn't. And my husband said to me, There's a number of a treatment centre on your desk, go and call them, or that's it, I'm gonna take children away.

Rehab And First Steps Sober

Helen 6:46

So I called them, that was on the Thursday, and I started in rehab on the Saturday, absolutely terrified, no idea what was going on. And I was very fortunate because in rehab, I went to practice a 12-step programme and I got sober in there. I was in there for a month, and the children didn't want to come and see me. They came once, but they didn't want to come and see me. And all this time, we weren't allowed off phones for the first week, but as soon as we were, I was messaging this guy that I'd met because he didn't know where I'd gone. Like I just vanished off the face of the earth, and he thought I'd told him to go away. And I said, No, no, no, I've just been sent off to rehab, I'll see you when I get back. And when I got back to my home, it was like I was in a different world because I had no concept of what an alcoholic was. I didn't know it was an illness, I thought it was just me being bad. I didn't know that I had no choice, I didn't know anything. But what I did know, what I did find out, was that if I practiced my programme and I did everything that was suggested, I was going to stay sober. And that was all I cared about at that time because I felt better for the first time in my life. So I just cracked on, I went to meetings, I got a sponsor, I did all the things that were suggested, and I stayed sober. But I was telling my husband I was going to meetings and meeting this guy, texting him all day, and I was married with children, and eventually I had to confess to my sponsor what I was doing, and she was like, Okay, what do you want to do about your marriage? And I was so unhappy in the marriage, I had been for such a long time, but I didn't have the courage to leave. So I told my husband that I wanted a divorce. I was about, I don't know, eight months sober by then, and he was devastated, like literally. I I thought he'd be delighted, he was devastated, and from that moment, so that was October 2013, up to this current day, he hasn't spoken to me, not one word. Yeah, we were living in the same house together for a year after that, and he would text me, he won't speak to me. And even we've had a few problems in the last month with one of my daughters, and he still won't speak to me. He blames me, he hates me, he's cross with me. Yeah, completely went. So, what I did was I moved in with this other guy. I mean, when I look back now, the mistakes I made were getting involved with this guy too quickly, getting into a relationship with him before I knew what sobriety really was, and leaving my marriage for another man. I should have just taken time for me, but I couldn't. I literally, I was so scared. And since I went into the program, everybody abandoned me. No friends or family would speak to me. So I had no one except him, and I literally clung on to him like a life raft, thinking that he was the answer to my life.

Divorce And Losing Her Support

Trudie Marie 9:42

It's interesting that you say that. Like you said, you lost all your support around you. And my work as a police officer, I've seen people at their lowest, I've seen people with addictions and issues, and I understand that families do hit that point where they're like, enough is enough. Even your husband at the time said, shape up, or you're gonna lose a children and you're gonna have your money cut off. I mean, that's a pretty harsh reality to deal with. That's where you need the people who are nearest and dearest to you to lean on during those times where it can be a struggle. And so to hear you say that everyone just walked away and said, nah, you're on your own, that must have been really, really hard.

Helen 10:42

Well, I guess looking back it was, but at the time I I felt so much shame and self-loathing for how I'd behaved because I was looking back at it sober now. And when I realised and I heard all the stories in meetings of how families had been destroyed by this illness, I understood my behaviour was awful. I wouldn't have wanted to be around me, and I understood that people were like, Well, we've had enough actually of her. And look at her now. Most of my friends were mothers, and they were like, How could you do that to your children? Because I don't think anyone knows addiction is an illness. People just think, Oh, you're just behaving like a teenager when you're in your late 20s, or you're you're grown-up, behave yourself. And believe me, I wanted to, I just couldn't stop. So I understood, I totally understood, and I almost isolated myself from everyone. I didn't make any effort. As part of the programme, I made amends to everybody that I had hurt, but I didn't really do it with any expectation of them coming back into my life. Even my sister was the one who had supported me and tried to help me, but she just got to the point where she couldn't cope with the social embarrassment because we were quite uh upper middle class family, and everything was about how does it look to the neighbours and all that stuff. And she couldn't cope with the shame that I brought on the family, and my aunt as well wrote me a letter and said pretty much the same thing. So I thought, okay, fair enough, that's it. I've got a new family now in the programme, and and I'm just gonna have to crack on with what I've got. But I leant so heavily on my second husband, and and actually, that was all I needed. That was all I felt all I needed at the time, and because I was so new into recovery, everything was new and overwhelming. It's like for me, I feel like it's being reborn. I had to learn the world in recovery, like I hadn't been drinking all my life, but I'd been mentally ill with the disease of addiction all my life, and I didn't know how to live, so everything was brand new. So it wasn't so much a shock that everyone left me, it was the shock for me was learning how to live sober. That was the shock for me.

Trudie Marie 12:57

Got it.

Rebuilding Trust With Her Children

Trudie Marie 12:59

So just going back to the fact that you had, like you said, you lost a lot of friends because they were mothers, and even your sister stepped away because of the shame of the family. And you said obviously now your ex-husband doesn't speak to you. But tell me more about your children because obviously you had three little children and 13 years on, they're now adults. What has that journey been like as a mother?

Helen 13:24

Incredibly difficult. I think being a mother in active alcoholism, you're never really present with the children. You're there physically, but emotionally and mentally. Looking back, I don't think I was. And the children now, they're 20, 22, and 24, they don't look back and go, oh, it was so awful, it was so dreadful. I went through the motions. We were very financially well off, and they had a nanny and they had lots of days out, they went to beautiful schools and they went on lovely holidays, and that that's what they remember. And I covered it up as much as I could. But I think the most diff the most shameful thing for me is my middle child, my eldest daughter, has Pradawilly syndrome, so she's quite severely disabled, and I'm her primary carer. And to have let her down in that way. I still did everything I needed to do. I took her to all the therapies, all the hospital appointments. I fought for her to get into every school. I did all the stuff that looked like I was being a good mother, but I try not to feel guilty, but I still feel a lot of motivation to be a better mother because of the damage potentially I did to the three of them, because I think they had to develop coping strategies they shouldn't have had to deal with at that such a young age, particularly my son who was looking after the little ones.

Trudie Marie 14:42

So that's such a responsible place to come from because it's one thing to go through this journey and see okay, areas of your life that you could have done better, but to actually stand and own that and say, you know what, I could have potentially caused other issues. And especially when you're dealing with a child with special needs, I've never heard of this syndrome before. So could you share a little bit more about what it actually is that she

Understanding Prader-Willi Syndrome

Trudie Marie 15:12

has?

Helen 15:12

Sure. So it's uh it's an abnormality of the 15th chromosome caused by the sperm. So I guess what would happen would be the zooming sperm would find the egg, but uh the egg will reject the chromosome 15. So she has double chromosome 15 from me, and in a similar way to Down syndrome, it's completely random. Nobody knows why or how it happens. I thought when she was born it was because I drank. I really thought I blamed myself for like a year until I knew that that was impossible. So, how it presents is she was very, very tiny and floppy when she was born. They thought she had cerebral palsy, we had an MRI, it wasn't that. And as she began to thrive and grow, she just she ate loads, like she'd gone from being tiny to a really chubby sort of nine-month-old. And we had genetic testing, and they told us it was Pradawilly syndrome. I'd heard about it once, but I didn't know anything about it. How it presents is hypertonia, so 50% muscle tone to what we would have, uh, very slow metabolism, the hollow muscle tone leads to heart problems, which leads to diabetes, scoliosis because the muscles in the back don't aren't strong enough, and learning difficulties, behavioural issues, autism, and the most common or well-known feature of the syndrome is that an insatiable appetite. So there's no link between the brain and the stomach to say I'm full. So they're constantly hungry and they will constantly try and eat. So you have to restrict the diet a lot, but bear in mind they want to eat all the time, you know, keep them away from anything that they might eat inappropriately because they have very thick saliva, so they can choke. So there was lots, there's lots of stuff going on with her. But I think when I came into recovery, she was 2013, she was eight. So I'd had eight years of dealing with it. It wasn't like I was brand new to it, and I think I'd managed it pretty well to that point. So yeah, but it's a condition that is very rare, but she's delightful 22-year-old, mad as a box of frogs, but all of us are, and he's thrived. And when historically sufferers of Pride Willie syndrome only lasted till 30, and now they have a normal lifespan. There's so much more known about it now, and more treatment that's effective. So, yeah, she's all good.

Trudie Marie 17:32

So, I need to ask you then, inside of having to that's hard for any parent to deal with. I have a sister who has a child with special needs. In saying that, a lot of similar conditions or presentations of how your own daughter's illness presents, but I can see how they deal with it, and yet you have this other mental condition of your own of addiction. How was it raising her alongside dealing with your own sobriety?

Parenting Promises That Kept Her Sober

Helen 18:06

Well, the recovery programme I follow is all about doing the next right thing, keeping it in the day and thinking of others before yourself. So actually, it was a perfect way to demonstrate my recovery was to put my children first. And in the amends process to them, I just said, and they were little, they didn't know what was going on, but I just said, I will be, I will do what I say I'm gonna do, I will show up when I say I'm gonna show up, I will always love you, and I will stay sober. And those were the things I promised them, and so I had to every day remind myself of that, fulfill those promises, and I have done. That's the amazing thing about this is that recovered alcoholics, I think, make the best mums. Apologies to anyone who's not a recovered alcoholic, but considering we're so awful when we're drinking, I just feel now that I'm more open, I'm more able to talk to them on a totally honest basis. I've been completely honest with them about my illness and my recovery, and they've embraced it. And it's a spiritual way of life, nothing to do with religion, but it's all about the care of others and concern for others and helping others. And I've been able to demonstrate those principles with my children first and foremost, actually. And I have the most incredible relationship with all of them now, and I think far better than I would have had had I not been an alcoholic in the first place, because I didn't know I was capable of being such a present mother. I'm so proud of myself for that. So yeah, it's been really good with my children.

Trudie Marie 19:36

And kudos to you for acknowledging yourself because it's often the hardest thing that we ever get to do is to take a step back and say, okay, I stuffed up over here, but I've taken all these steps. And through taking all these steps, I've come out on the other side as somebody different, and I'm really proud of that journey of getting to where you are today, of having the relationships that you have today, because that takes hard work.

Helen 20:07

Oh, it honestly, it was very hard. It's not a difficult programme to practice, but for someone whose natural mental instinct is to be selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, afraid, it was like a total change of thinking. But actually, what now I've been practicing it for a long time, it's just second nature. I don't even think about it. And I think the thing that saved me with the children is humour, is laughing. Like we laugh so much now, and I've I'm really open with them about how what a terrible mother I was, and I'm constantly mentioning it, and they're always saying, Oh, for goodness sake, stop it, which is fine. They're not remotely bothered about it, but they've all had mental health issues, and I'm not saying that is my fault, but I take my part in that that I don't think I helped, let's put it that way. But now, my eldest, who's my son, he's a management consultant, he's got the most divine Australian girlfriend. They have such a beautiful relationship, they're my go-to example for a really lovely relationship, and they're on holiday this week, and I drove them and chatted to them and bought them food for the week, and I'm gonna go and pick them up, and we chat, chat, chat all the way, and I help them as much as I can emotionally and financially. My youngest, who's most like me, and she's at university, she's got lovely friends, she's able to deal with life, she comes to me if she's got issues, she tells me everything. I mean, it's just it's like beyond my wildest dreams of parenting. And Hermione lives with me, and we've just got a bond like I never thought we'd have. I I have no complaints with my children that they're amazing human beings who've been through a lot, but they've come out and really made a success of their lives so far. So I don't take credit for that, but I'm just it's a joy to be a part of their lives now.

Trudie Marie 21:58

I think you do need to take. Some credit for it because I think as parents we need to be the best examples we can be for our children, and sometimes that doesn't start out in the best possible way. And in your case, there was another condition going on which you said you tried to shield your children from, it got to a point where you couldn't shield it. And like you said, they said that they loved you but they didn't like you, they didn't want to come and see you in rehab, and to now, 13 years on, have an amazing relationship with all three of them, that's because of the person you have become inside of your own healing journey. Because if you were the wreck and you had stayed that way, then you may not have relationships with your children because let's be real, your first husband literally threatened to take them away from you. And had you not turned around at that point in time, who knows how your life may have turned out and the children's lives as a result.

Helen 22:58

Yeah, absolutely.

Regret And Forgiving Past Choices

Helen 22:59

And what did happen actually when I divorced my husband was he did take the children and he moved away. So we were supposed to have shared care 50-50, and he just moved, he moved them away. Now, I try not to have regrets, but one of the areas where I feel I could have done better is I could have gone with I could have gone and lived where they lived and had that shared care. But because of this, because my recovery and this man were in the same place, I chose to stay and not fight that. And that's always an area where I feel a bit about, but I stayed sober. And if the children, if I'd gone down there and been so close to my ex-husband and had the children, maybe I wouldn't have. Maybe that was my journey was to stay. So I only saw them once every two weeks for six years. Not only every two weeks, I went down more than that, but that was my allotted time because I worked every other weekend, and that was hard, not only because I missed them, but because my way of coping was to convince myself I was a terrible mother. It was the only way that I could cope with not being around them at the time. And when it was completely obvious that that just wasn't the case, I had to address the fact that I had chosen a man over my children, and that was heartbreaking to me. But I did it, and I just have to live with that now.

Trudie Marie 24:22

We all make choices in life that don't necessarily go our way, and we have to live with the consequence of that outcome. But saying that, maybe that was the universe's way of allowing you to recover, even though you only had, like you say, that as a mother you chose a man over them. But maybe you just needed to look after yourself with the support of that person, as opposed to putting yourself under more stress, going through your sobriety journey with having to deal with being a parent full-time, because that could have changed the outcome as well.

Helen 25:03

Yeah, you're absolutely right, and that is the way I frame it now. It's just it's very hard to think that I wasn't living with the children during their teenage years. But but actually, it must have been the best thing because nothing changed, and as you say, the universe and whatever my assumptions and beliefs led to that outcome. And I don't regret it, I had a great time with this guy, and I had a little job which I'd never had before, and I think I did need time to learn how to be me, sober me, not sober mummy, not sober wife, just sober me. And I'm grateful that I had that time. And we did some amazing stuff. We went on so many holidays, we would jet off here, there, and everywhere. It was a great life, and yeah, I don't know what it would have been like with the children, but most important thing is that I stayed sober because whether I live with them or not, if I'd been drinking, I'd been the worst mum in the history of the world. So yeah, it was it's all good.

Trudie Marie 25:57

It's good to see that you actually can look at the positive inside of all this journey. So, fast forward, you obviously got married to this gentleman that you were found with back in 2013, yeah, and you had this life with him, as you said, you jet sent it around and you did stuff, but that all changed for you recently.

Second Marriage And An Unrecovered Addict

Helen 26:18

Yeah. What I didn't realise when I got together with him was ironically, he is also an addict, and he would disappear periodically and say he'd had a mental health breakdown or something. And I very quickly realized that was a lie that he was using because that was his pattern, and so I got him into a fellowship as well, and he was working, he was doing really well, and then when we got married, and then afterwards, and he was just delightful. I couldn't have wished for a better man, and then when lockdown happened over here 2020, he stopped working his programme, and so the last six years I've been living with, in effect, a dry drunk, and he fixed on gambling and women because he didn't want to drink or use. I don't know if he drank or used, like it doesn't matter, but anyway, he was not in recovery, and we are not nice people when we're not in recovery, so he would periodically leave, say he had a job elsewhere, or say he couldn't deal with my daughter, or we've got rabbits, couldn't deal with the rabbits, and he'd go and then we'd come back and he'd go and he'd come back. But it was always like it was getting worse and worse and worse. We went on holiday to Thailand one year. I've got a little house out there, and one day I said something that he didn't like, and he just went, and we were five days into a two-week holiday, and he just disappeared. He took everything, all the passports, all the money, everything, and drove off. And I didn't know where he'd gone. Turns out he'd gone to Cambodia, and I met him at the airport, and he's always really sorry when he comes back. He's always really sorry. Yeah, I'm so sorry, it won't happen again, won't happen again. And it kept happening again. And you know, insanity is repeating the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. I was I always had so much hope in him that he'd get back into recovery, and that was my mistake. I should have walked away then, but I what can I say? I loved him. I still do anyway. Last November I took my daughter away on holiday, Hermione, and we came back and he'd gone. Like literally, all his stuff was gone, pretty much, and he wasn't answering his phone, and I had no idea where he'd gone. So that was November. He didn't contact me until December. He rang me once, put the phone down on me, and said he'd gone to Thailand to retire. Now bear in mind he'd been supporting us. We had two cars, so he was helping out with that. He was my life completely, and suddenly he'd just gone. And I I just couldn't, I couldn't believe I was in shock for so long, probably until January, just in shock. Every day, ringing him 20 times a day, emailing him, texting him, contacting anyone I could think of that might know where he was. And then I found out the low point for me was I thought, okay, maybe he's just having a bit of time to himself. He'd always wanted to retire to Thailand, but he's not of retirement age yet. So I thought, okay, okay, maybe he's just gone out there for a bit of peace, maybe he's getting some recovery, I don't know, whatever. And then I found out that he'd been seeing another woman. And not only had he been seeing her, probably for a long time, I don't know. But we'd always planned a really beautiful little trip to Vietnam. It was what we kept talking about all the time. Next time we're in Thailand, we're gonna do it. Next time we go there, we're gonna do it. And he'd taken her, like a Thai woman, who barely knows and probably hardly even communicates with. And literally, that was the thing that broke me when I saw the pictures of them together and I realised that he'd paid for her to have this luxury holiday in Vietnam. And he'd left me with a whole load of debts and county court judgments and whatever that I didn't know existed, and I'm rubbish with any of that stuff. I've always, to my detriment, relied on men. I don't know what to do. I just swung around going, oh, I don't understand. And so I was left with all this stuff, and I had to contact police and citizens' advice and lawyers. I didn't know what was going on, so I just went through the motions for the rest of November and December and January, just trying to deal with all this stuff and pushing it to the side, hoping he'd just appear one day. And when I saw him with this woman in February, it was just kind of like, oh my god, okay, he's not coming back. He's definitely not coming back. This is all on you now, Helen.

Abandonment Debts And Suicidal Thoughts

Helen 30:47

So I sat on the floor. Ironically, it was the day after Valentine's Day, and I sat on the floor and I just thought, right, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore. I've given up so much for this man, and I've helped him in so many ways, and this is how he pays me back. And I must be awful. To be treated like this, I literally allowed myself to go into this total pit of self-pity and self-loathing. I sat on the floor and I thought, I'm gonna kill myself because I can't deal with the pain. The pain was overwhelming, like in my head, in my body, just everywhere. Cry, cry, cry, cry, cry. And my daughter was away, so I was on my own in the house, and I thought I can't I can't do this anymore. So it was that it was the Saturday night, and then I just I just looked up to the universe and I was like, show me what to do. And in that moment, I felt better. Somehow I just felt better, just asking for higher power. And the next day I wrote out some inventory, I went to see my sponsor. I spent all day on online meetings and went to a face-to-face meeting in the evening, and I shared with everybody what was going on, and I asked for help. And my pride and my ego always said to me, Well, everyone's always telling you you should have left him. Everybody's been telling me that for years. So I was too ashamed to say, Look, he's worse now, in case everybody went, We did say you should have left him before, but nobody did. They just all wrapped their arms around me and gave me helpful suggestions on how to get better. And with the help of the fellowship, which is my new family and my children, I feel all right today. I think what really, really helped to focus me in terms of just having something to do every day was the online business that I started last October because I'm in this community of really supportive women who were really open and honest, like it's we're just going to tell you how our life is, and it and there's no Holtz Bard. And they just carried me. I mean, I've never met any of them, they're all online, but just getting new clients and being able to help other women through that, and just I took on some coaching to improve my skill set, and she's an Australian as well. This woman, she's like a little powerhouse, and she really helped me. And I don't know, when you ask for help, suddenly the universe brings all these people, and I feel so supported. And the situation is exactly the same. I still don't know where my husband is or what he's doing, but it doesn't feel so bad today. I had my moments, but I hope I'm over the worst now, and it's not been a long time, and I'm quite astounded how quickly it's turned around because I thought I was going to be stuck in that misery for months, years. Never once did I want to pick up a drink, but I wanted

Protecting Sobriety Through Pride Checks

Helen 33:52

to die.

Trudie Marie 33:52

That was going to be my next question is how did you cope with the sobriety during this whole period? I know you said at one point that yes, you thought your life was pretty much over, but how did the sobriety go?

Helen 34:07

It's such a good question, but my experience of recovery is that if you put recovery first and you work the program to the best of your ability, there's nothing that can come in your way that's going to jeopardize that. And that has been, I'm a bit of an all-or-nothing character, and I've thrown myself into recovery, and I won't I won't let anything get in the way. But I think what I'd done in the December-January was isolated a little bit, not reached out to my fellows, not gone to as many face-to-face meetings, just so ashamed of the fact that I had got myself into this situation that my pride got in the way of that. And it was only when I reached out for help that things turned around. But I think I was still doing enough in my programme to totally remove the obsession to drink. It's never come back to me in 13 years. So it just didn't cross my mind. I know now, whatever situation I'm in, picking up a drink is going to lead to a chaos and carnage, and it's going to make the current problems worse. And so then I'm going to come round and I'm going to think, oh God, I've still got all those problems, and I've just thrown away 13 years of sobriety. So let's have another drink. And I know that that is the pattern that alcoholics go through. So I'm just super vigilant about my recovery. But my illness still played with my mind. It wants me alone and dead. And it found another way to get me alone and dead, but it didn't win. I managed to conquer it. But again, that was just letting go of ego and saying, Look, I know you guys have got less sobriety time than me, but I need you. And I'm not ashamed to say that I'm really struggling because that's the other thing. Everybody, pretty much in the meetings that I go to, the majority have got much less time than me, and yet they were the ones that helped me. So it was a big it was a levelling of my pride.

Trudie Marie 36:11

It takes such courage and self-awareness to visualize that by picking up a drink, it's not only going to cause more problems than what you already have, but it could lead to something really quite catastrophic. But it also takes courage to actually say, I can't do this on my own, and to put the pride and the ego aside and say, somebody please help me. Because I know even when I hit my rock bottom with WA police, and I had to put out my hand and say, Help, I can't do this anymore. I can't continue going on this way. So I think inside of what you've been through, actually putting your hand up to say, guys, it's time somebody else, you know, I can lean on them for a change instead of doing this on my own, I think that takes immense courage.

Helen 37:13

Well, the ironic thing is that I help a lot of women. We have a sponsorship facility within recovery, and I sponsor loads of women. And had one of them come to me or I spotted that they were going through what I was going through, I'd have been right there. But what I didn't do was I didn't tell anyone. I literally just kept it, I isolated. And that was my pride. And I didn't realize, I think the lesson I've learned from this is that my pride is much stronger than I thought it was. I didn't think it was. I thought I was much more humble than that. And I'm happy to share about most things going on, like with my children or anything, but when it comes to that relationship, I think because so many people have said to me, get out, he's not good for you, get out. And I had stubbornly held on to the belief that it was going to be okay. That was where my pride kicked in was that I knew that if I'd followed advice and suggestions, I'd have been out of this nine years ago, and I hadn't. I'd stubbornly held on. And because addiction is a progressive illness, he's been without a program for six years, and his illness has got worse. And I'm blindly going, No, it's all fine. I love him, he's lovely. But that was where the pride was. It was just the knowing how many people had said to me he's dangerous, he's a narcissist, he's this, he's that. I don't really like the labels, but he's definitely an unrecovered addict. And having the total inability to see that and the damage it was causing me, and letting myself get sucked into all that and dealing with it was only going to lower my self-esteem. Courage, yes, maybe. I look at it more as a bit of an awakening, you know. Okay, this guy can't do any more to you. The only thing he can do more to you now is kill you. And he's been violent in the past, and I've stayed with him, what a fool. But the ridiculous truth is I genuinely still love the man. That's the nutty bit of the whole thing. And if he turned up today and said, I've got six weeks' recovery behind me, should we give it another go? I'd say yes. That's the insanity of my mind. So maybe the universe decided I need to be physically separated from him in order to have that awakening to see that I can cope on my own. Life is fun, life is okay, and I've got all the support around me that I need. That's the only way I have to find a positive

Self-Worth Support And Starting Again

Helen 39:34

spin on it.

Trudie Marie 39:34

I have to. That's a really interesting perception to come from because even going back to your initial journey, like you said, when your husband intervened with your sister that night, and you were with this man, and you were given like a second chance to go into recovery and start this life of sobriety, and you said yourself that you could see patterns of behavior and he'd given up his addiction, but your whole life post your family leaving was with this man. Perhaps it is like the universe telling you that Helen, you can do this on your own. You are strong enough, you are brave enough, and maybe even that yes, you are worthy enough.

Helen 40:21

Yeah, who knew? I think that's exactly what I think it is. And I've constantly had people around me saying, Oh, you're so strong, how do you cope with your daughter? How do you cope with? And to be honest, it didn't feel like an effort, so I just brushed it away. But dealing with this has sucked every ounce of strength I've got in that week or two post-Ballentine's Day. It literally every ounce of courage and strength I had just to get through the day. So I think it has given me, it's improved my self-image and my self-worth. I don't want to get arrogant, but I know that I can cope. I'm doing all right. I'm fine financially, thanks to my business. And that's another weird thing. That started just as he left. That I don't there's no, I don't believe in a coincidence, but funny that that happened at that time just before to give me that, because I wouldn't have been able to start a business after he'd gone. I'd started it a month before, and that's carried me through. So nothing happens in this world by accident, in my opinion, if you're in tune with and able to see that things are happening for you, not against you. I'm looking at all this as a journey to something, and I'm really hoping I get there soon. But I knew it wasn't another man, and I knew it wasn't killing myself, and I knew it wasn't because everything in me wanted to run over to Thailand to be with him, everything in me. And at one point I had to go to stay with a friend in Geneva because I was so desperate to go and see him. And this guy said, Don't, don't. I said, Right, I'm coming to stay with you. So I literally left the country and went to stay with him and his husband, and they just wrapped their arms around me and looked after me. So I think what it's taught me is I'm not alone, it's not shameful to admit you were wrong and ask for help, and there's always more in you. There's more in you than you ever know. And even if you believe, I mean, British people I think cope, we cope and we get on with it, the stiff upper lip thing. I I'm just a recovered alcoholic and I need help. And I'm now it feels very freeing to be able to say that and know that if something happens again, I've got a whole fellowship around me that will love me back to health, and that's that feels really heartwarming to me. So I can I'm always going to look for the positives in this, and I'm finding them day by day.

Trudie Marie 42:45

I love that for you, and I want to thank you so much for vulnerably sharing your story today. I think you have gone to the depths and you've come back, and it's like I often say that sometimes the trauma and what we go through, it's like being stuck at the bottom of the well, and you can see the light somewhere at the top, and you've just got to keep climbing that ladder. And I think the fact that you continually climb the ladder instead of falling back down is an absolute incredible testament to who you are, really.

Helen 43:21

Well, that's interesting you say that because we have a saying a bit like that in in my programme, and it's you get to the bottom and you look at the light at the top, and you see a ladder, and there's 12 steps up, and they're the 12 steps we take. And I think it's a testament to that programme that really anyone can come out of it with a life better than they went in. And I I don't take the credit, I just take the only credit I'll take is asking for help because everyone else did the rest for me and carried me. And I'll be able to help other women now, knowing what I've got through and telling them that they can get through

Gratitude Final Question And Closing

Helen 43:57

it too.

Trudie Marie 43:57

So beautiful. I always finish the podcast by asking what is the one thing you are most grateful for today? Oh my sobriety, without a shadow of a doubt. Without a shadow of a doubt. Thank you for tuning in to the Everyday Warriors podcast. If you have an idea for a future episode or a story you'd like to share yourself, then please reach out and message me as I am always up for real, raw, and authentic conversations with other Everyday Warriors. Also, be sure to subscribe so that you can download all the latest episodes as they are published and spread the word to your family and friends and colleagues so they can listen in too. If you're sharing on social media, please be sure to tag me so that I can personally acknowledge you. I am always open to comment about how these episodes have resonated with you, the listener. And remember, lead with love as you live this one wild and precious life.