Amy Deards says she was a ‘highly functioning alcoholic’ who couldn’t face the world sober after struggling to cope with her relationship breaking down
Like many teenagers, Amy Deards began drinking with friends at the age of 16. What started as a bit of fun over a few drinks became a serious problem in her 30s when she found herself relying on alcohol to cope with life.
After a painful split from her fiancé of six years, she sought solace in alcohol to deal with the emotional distress, leading to Amy, now 43, even drinking on the job.
She led a double life; one that she presented to the world and another that saw her at home, pouring yet another glass. Looking back, Amy identifies herself as a high-functioning alcoholic who felt the need for alcohol to function normally; otherwise, she would start shaking.
Her addiction escalated to consuming four bottles of wine a day until her colleagues had no choice but to call the police after finding her passed out at work.
Despite all the red flags indicating she had a problem, it took her several years to admit she needed help. Now six years sober, Amy is committed to helping others avoid going down the same path and shares her journey to recovery in her own words…
I can’t put my finger on when exactly it was that I had developed an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, because at the start of my drinking days, it felt normal. At 16, I drank the same as everyone else with friends on nights out, with my binge drinking habit nothing out of the ordinary.
But in retrospect, it was in my 30s when I began to use alcohol as a crutch to cope with problems in life, instead of drinking just being a social pastime. It was in 2008 on New Year’s Eve when my fiancé of six years suddenly told me he didn’t love me anymore. The next day, I moved out of the flat we shared and felt heartbroken and lost.
I didn’t know what to do, so I resorted to drinking to cover up the emotional pain. I spent many nights down the local pub with friends and shared countless bottles of wine with my mum, Caroline, until the anger and sadness passed.
I couldn’t go out and socialise sober, as over time, having a drink in my hand felt essential to give me a boost of confidence and have fun. But not long after, I lost my retail job at New Look after someone complained I smelled of alcohol. Instead of being sacked acting as a wake-up call or a warning sign, I had convinced myself it was their fault I’d lost my job. And if anything, it made me drink even more.
In the jobs that followed, I’d count down the hours until I could get home and pour myself a glass of wine. At the time, I didn’t see how consumed I was by drink, but with hindsight, it’s so obvious that the obsession had begun. I was high-functioning enough that no one really suspected my problem, or at least, no one commented.
By 2015, I had started hiding bottles, and that’s when I realised something wasn’t right. But I thought to myself, it’s no one else’s business. At the time, I was living at my mum’s house and saving up to move to Cambodia, thinking a change of scene would do me good.
But I couldn’t hide it any longer from my mum. One night, I returned home from a drinking session, and she had lined all the empty bottles up on the kitchen counter – a total of about 15. She had even discovered the ones hidden behind my wardrobe.
I can still remember the look of disappointment on her face. There was no shouting – just quiet heartbreak. Once I had finally made the move to teach English as a foreign language to young children in Cambodia in 2016, I had total freedom with no one looking over my shoulder and no one to answer to.
I lived in an apartment in Phnom Penh, which I shared with a woman from New Zealand, but I felt an overbearing sense of loneliness. There was one night in particular that always sticks with me. I hadn’t come home after a night out, and my housemate rang my mum back in the UK, as they were so worried.
I’d ended up at a casino with a group of men I’d met in a bar, phone dead, no way for anyone to reach me. My mum was frantic. My housemate was panicked. But me? I thought they were overreacting. That was my mindset.
That’s when I truly knew I had a problem. I thought coming home after a year would fix it. But even on the flight back to the UK, and drinking a beer at the airport, I knew it wouldn’t.
I got my own place, which meant there was no one around to see what I was doing. I think deep down, my mum knew – but she also realised I would have to come to it myself.
She’d talk to me gently about it sometimes, and I’d make these half-hearted promises to cut down. But the truth is, living alone made it way too easy to carry on.
Then came Christmas 2018 when I was 38. I was working in a pub, and after one of my shifts, I drank way too much. I ended up drink-driving home. I don’t even remember doing it. My colleagues were so concerned they called the police. But again, I didn’t see the danger – or my own responsibility. I blamed them. In my head, I was the victim.
I never went back to that job but I also didn’t drive again until I got sober in 2019, so a part of me knew deep down that I had to make change. I made it to my first AA meeting in January 2019. I was drunk when I went. I don’t even remember much about it, but that was the first time I admitted something was wrong – even if I wasn’t ready to deal with it yet.
By the peak of my alcoholism, I was drinking between three and four bottles of wine a day. That had become my normal. I didn’t even think it was excessive – it was just what I needed to get through the day.
I stopped going out as much because it was easier to drink at home. When I did go out, I’d usually end up black-out drunk. I’d fall over, lose my keys, wake up in places I had no memory of ever going.
It became too risky, too unpredictable. So I started choosing the sofa, a bottle – or four – and my own little bubble of self-pity. Eventually, I couldn’t do anything without a drink in me. I needed at least two glasses of wine just to get ready for work because my hands would be shaking so much.
I isolated myself a lot because I was trying so hard to hide what was really going on, as I didn’t want to face questions from friends or family. I wasn’t in a romantic relationship during that time. In some ways I knew I wasn’t capable.
But I was promiscuous. I had a lot of one-night stands, thinking they’d somehow make me feel better. They didn’t. If anything, they made it worse. I’d wake up filled with shame and self-loathing, and then use that as another excuse to drink.
Alcohol and addiction had affected my confidence, my sense of self, my ability to trust my own thoughts. I stopped making plans for the future. I lived day-to-day, hour-to-hour, bottle-to-bottle. It robbed me of time.
And, it impacted my health – my body was exhausted, my hands shook, I sweated constantly, my anxiety was through the roof. But I didn’t care – my main concern was hiding the truth, from others, and most importantly, from myself. I told lies. I lived a double life: the version I showed the world and the one that sat at home pouring another glass.
The moment it all stopped wasn’t loud or dramatic. It was May 2019, and I passed out at work working as a store manage of a retail shop. I was drinking all day, every day – even at work. When they found me unconscious, I felt pure shame. But still not surprised.
At the same time, I was also in therapy, trying to cope without actually telling my therapist I was still drinking. Years of buried pain came up – heartbreak, my parents’ divorce, the fallout from my cancelled wedding. I had no idea how to cope. So I drank more.
But, that day, something cracked. I didn’t want to live like this anymore. But I didn’t want to die either. I’d been given the number for the Samaritans, and I called them. That call saved my life. After that, I rang my mum and told her I needed help.
My mum suggested rehab. And four days later, I was in. Now, I’ve been sober for six years, since 8 May 2019.
If I’m honest, I haven’t found my recovery that hard – not in the way people expect. I accepted very early on that I just couldn’t drink. I loved rehab. I soaked up everything. I started going to 12-step meetings and worked through a programme.
The real shift came in October 2020, when I finally shared on social media that I was in recovery. I was tired of pretending. And the outpouring of love and “me too” messages flipped something in my mind. Maybe I didn’t have to hide.
That’s when I began helping others – and helping others helped me. That’s how it works. On the outside, the changes are obvious – I look healthier, I show up, I’ve built a business. In 2022, I decided to write a book to help others. How Did I Get Here: Building A Life Beyond Alcohol wasn’t just about sharing my story – it was about telling the truth.
Even when I got sober, there weren’t enough stories that talked about the identity crisis, the grief, the rediscovery, the unlearning, the rising. I wanted women to know they weren’t broken. Drinking has been normalised, glamourised, romanticised to the point where not drinking makes you the weird one.
But here’s the truth: you don’t need alcohol to have fun, to fit in, or to survive the day. And once you realise that, once you live that – you start to see the lie for what it is.
Amy Deards is a mindset coach on a mission to help women break free from anything that’s keeping them stuck, whether that’s addiction, self-doubt, or old stories they’ve been told. She guides them to uncover their true power, build unstoppable confidence, and create lives so bold and fulfilling they never want to escape. It’s about transformation, freedom, and living on their own terms. https://amydeardscoaching.com/
If you are concerned that you or someone you care about has a problem, there are people you can talk to. Drinkaware has a free, confidential helpline for anyone who is concerned about their drinking, or someone else’s. Helpline: 0300 123 1110 (weekdays 9am–8pm, weekends 11am–4pm)
