Recovering alcoholic Jennifer Mackie shares her story and explains why the decision to go to a rehabilitation centre was the key to finally turning her life around.
After her daughter was born, in her early 20s, Mackie went to her GP and told her she was an alcoholic.
“But I wouldn’t say that to someone who might make me do something about it. I wanted her to give me something to stop my hands from shaking. My denial would be, ‘I know I have a problem, but I’m going to stop tomorrow’.”
After the economic crash, she moved to working in a pub.
“I’d finish work at, say, five o’clock in the morning,” she explains. “I’d take a bottle of wine, then I’d go to sleep, then I’d take my daughter to school, and before I collected her I’d have half a bottle of wine. I’d collect her, she’d want to go to the park, and I’d say, ‘no, let’s go home and drop your bag’, just so I could have the other half. Then you’re buckled, halfway through the day. You’re not a parent. As much as I would have said I was. I wasn’t.”
All of her energy was going into protecting her supply of alcohol. “It’s the loneliest place to be,” says Mackie. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. So someone who had an overactive mind in the first place, now is drinking a depressant. On the outside, I would be laughing and joking, but I was dead inside.
“I went past the depression, into complete numbness and hatred for everybody. It was everybody’s fault. I was aggressive. My sister lived with us at the time with her two kids — they didn’t know what was coming through that door each day. As much of an illness as it is, while you’re sick, everybody around you is getting sick as well. Their nerves are on edge, like mine would have been with my mam. I’ve repeated the pattern.”
After coughing up blood at work and passing out, Mackie went to hospital in April 2019, where she underwent detox for a week: “I heard voices, I saw people, I had delirium.”
After her daughter was born, in her early 20s, Mackie went to her GP and told her she was an alcoholic.
“But I wouldn’t say that to someone who might make me do something about it. I wanted her to give me something to stop my hands from shaking. My denial would be, ‘I know I have a problem, but I’m going to stop tomorrow’.”
After the economic crash, she moved to working in a pub.
“I’d finish work at, say, five o’clock in the morning,” she explains. “I’d take a bottle of wine, then I’d go to sleep, then I’d take my daughter to school, and before I collected her I’d have half a bottle of wine. I’d collect her, she’d want to go to the park, and I’d say, ‘no, let’s go home and drop your bag’, just so I could have the other half. Then you’re buckled, halfway through the day. You’re not a parent. As much as I would have said I was. I wasn’t.”
All of her energy was going into protecting her supply of alcohol. “It’s the loneliest place to be,” says Mackie. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. So someone who had an overactive mind in the first place, now is drinking a depressant. On the outside, I would be laughing and joking, but I was dead inside.
“I went past the depression, into complete numbness and hatred for everybody. It was everybody’s fault. I was aggressive. My sister lived with us at the time with her two kids — they didn’t know what was coming through that door each day. As much of an illness as it is, while you’re sick, everybody around you is getting sick as well. Their nerves are on edge, like mine would have been with my mam. I’ve repeated the pattern.”
After coughing up blood at work and passing out, Mackie went to hospital in April 2019, where she underwent detox for a week: “I heard voices, I saw people, I had delirium.”
