Your future is not decided by your circumstances
When people hear the word “alcoholic,” it’s easy for that to become someone’s whole story.
I don’t want that to be my mam’s story.
Before alcohol took hold, everyone who knew her remembers the same person: a beautiful, confident, outgoing woman who was always the first to grab the microphone at karaoke.
She was the one laughing the loudest, making everyone else laugh with her. They all tell me she had a heart of gold and would do anything for anyone.
I never got to meet that version of my mam.
Home often felt unpredictable
Some of my earliest memories are from when I was only two or three years old. Home often felt unpredictable.
My mam would be drinking, and my grandma and siblings would regularly come to check on me because they were worried about what I was being exposed to.
I remember my grandma pouring bottles of alcohol down the sink so my mam couldn’t drink around me.
As I’ve grown older, my siblings have told me how they often stepped in to protect me too. My sister was still a teenager herself, yet she became like a second mother.
She would take me out in my pushchair to a neighbour’s house because she knew we’d be safe there.
Their home became my safe space
Thankfully, I always had my grandparents.
Their home became my safe place. I remember my mam turning up at their house after she’d been drinking, banging on the door and demanding to take me home.
It happened so often that I developed a routine of hiding behind the sofa until everything had gone quiet. At the time, I didn’t understand why any of it was happening. I just knew that whenever I was with my grandparents, I felt safe.
The moment that changed my life came when my mam took me to a pub and drank too much. The police became involved, resulting in me being taken to my grandparents.
That was the turning point, social services stepped in and my grandparents made the decision that would shape the rest of my life.
They took me in and raised me as their own. Had they not stepped in, I would have ended up in foster care.
They gave me a childhood
Instead, they gave me a childhood.
They didn’t just give me a home, they gave me stability, love and every opportunity I’ve had in life. They got me through school, taught me respect, kept me on the right path and away from the trouble that can so easily become normal when life at home isn’t.
They believed in me long before I knew how to believe in myself.
Because of them, I finished school, joined the military and have been able to build a life they could be proud of. Every opportunity I’ve had was only possible because two incredible people put their own lives on hold to give me mine.
I honestly don’t know where I’d be without them.
We’d cry together, wishing things could be different
A few years after I went to live with my grandparents, my mam left our hometown of Washington and moved into supported accommodation in South Shields after an unsuccessful attempt at rehabilitation.
Throughout my teenage years, we spoke over on the phone. I would always try to call before six in the morning, before the alcohol had taken over for the day.
As a family, we’d visit her on birthdays and at Christmas. No matter how difficult her own life had become, she always had our presents bought and wrapped months in advance. She never stopped wanting to spoil us.
Every time I saw her, I could see how much addiction had taken from her. She looked exhausted.
We’d cry together, both wishing things could be different. I’d beg her to stop drinking.
No matter how hard she tried, the alcohol always won.
I sometimes wondered why my family looked so different from everyone else’s
Like any child, I sometimes wondered why my family looked so different from everyone else’s.
Friends would talk about Mother’s Day, family holidays and ordinary moments. Things I wished I could experience too.
More than anything, I just wanted the chance to know the woman everyone else remembered.
My mam passed away in 2022, when I was 19 years old.
The truth is, I never really grieved because I didn’t know how. I’d spent my childhood learning to push difficult emotions aside and simply carry on.
I wasn’t only grieving the loss of my mam
I was grieving the relationship we never got the chance to have.
It wasn’t until therapy, years later, that I finally allowed myself to face what I’d been carrying. I was encouraged to write my mam a letter as though she would one day read it.
It was the first time I had ever put into words everything I’d kept inside for so many years.
That’s when I realised I wasn’t only grieving the loss of my mam.
I was grieving the relationship we never got the chance to have.
Then, in 2025, I lost my grandad.
Losing him reopened wounds I hadn’t fully dealt with. I felt different from everyone else. I wished
I’d had the kind of straightforward family that seemed so normal to other people.
Our struggles don’t define who we are
But with time, I’ve realised something important.
No family is perfect.
Everyone carries something you can’t always see.
Our struggles don’t define who we are.
Looking back now, I understand that addiction isn’t a lack of love. It’s an illness that slowly takes someone away from the people who love them most.
If there’s one thing I hope people take away from my story, it’s this…
Addiction doesn’t define someone’s character.
My mam wasn’t a bad person.
She was a good person who became trapped by alcoholism.
And if you’re a child growing up in a similar situation, or you know someone who is, please remember this…
Your future is not decided by your circumstances
Speak to someone.
Accept support.
There are organisations, such as Nacoa, that understand exactly what you’re going through and can help you realise that you’re not alone.
I hope that, wherever she is, she knows that despite everything addiction took from us, her story is so much more than alcoholism.
Today, when I look back on my life, I don’t think first about what I lost.
I think about what I was given.
I was given grandparents who became parents.
I was given siblings who protected me.
I was given a family who refused to let my circumstances decide my future.
They changed the course of my life.
I never got the chance to know the sober version of my mam.
But because of the people who stepped in when she couldn’t, I was given the opportunity to become the man she would have been proud to call her son.
And I hope that, wherever she is, she knows that despite everything addiction took from us, her story is so much more than alcoholism.
She was my mam.
And she was loved.
Lee
To read more experience stories, please go to Support & Advice.
