I knew I had to quit boozing when my husband said I was too drunk to hold our baby as he hosed vomit off my clothes
A MUM-of-three revealed the moment she hit rock bottom as she sat in the bathtub fully clothed, while her husband sprayed lumps of sick off her while holding their baby.
Victoria Vanstone, originally from Brighton, was a self-confessed ‘party animal’, who hadn’t been sober in 20 years until she fell pregnant at 35.
Victoria stopped drinking during her pregnancies, but old habits crept back and after she’d given birth she’d start drinking again, despite vowing to continue her sober streak.
Now living on the Gold Coast, Australia, Victoria said weeks would pass when she was a ‘good mum’, but she’d end up overdoing it on her rare ‘mum nights out’.
Now 43, she recalled the moment she decided she needed help, after heading out with her friends desperate to ‘go out and be me again’.
As she woke up with a raging hangover, she could hear her baby crying, but knew she couldn’t breastfeed him as her milk was “toxic, spoiled”.
She wrote on her blog, : “As I closed the curtains, a sudden flashback leapt at me from my blackout, an image of stumbling around in the bathroom with my bra shoved down around my waist, demanding my husband hand the baby over.”
Victoria remembers being “covered in vomit”, as her husband told her to “get in the bath”.
She sat in the empty tub as her husband desperately tried to put their son to sleep with a bottle of milk instead.
She continued: “He then plugged the hose in and sprayed me down, fully clothed, like a zookeeper that was washing a muddy elephant.
“I saw lumps of sick lodged in the plug hole.”
As she lay in bed with a splitting headache the next morning, she thought back to how she’d envisioned herself as a “rockstar mum”, giving her kids mohawks.
But as she heard the front door slam as her family headed out to enjoy the day, Victoria was left hungover in bed, with “guilt in her bones”.
Feeling “broken” she tried to sleep, but as she lay there “smelling like a brewery with a bucket of sick next to me”, she knew the time for change had come.
As she skulked into the living room with a splitting headache, she said ten words to her husband: “I want to stop drinking. I think I need help.”
He was incredibly supportive and vowed to help her, and Victoria looked into getting therapy, saying her sober story “started there”.
It’s been two years since she stopped drinking, and Victoria says she’s a “better mum” now, who feels healthy and less anxious.
She said quitting alcohol had made her realise how much she’d been missing out on, and she’s determined to “never waste a Sunday again”.
Victoria documents her journey on her blog and , adding she was sharing her story to help other mums reach out if they think they have a drinking problem, no matter how small.
Explaining her back story on her blog, she says: "The inspiration for change is my children.
"I got pregnant at 35 and this forced me to be sober for 9 months. I saw a different me and I wanted more.
"Pregnancy gave me a great excuse not to get pissed for the first time ever."
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