Former Geordie Shore star Vicky Pattison has admitted she was worried that she would become an alcoholic after her father suffered from a booze addiction.
The 34-year-old opened up about her binge drinking past ahead of her new Channel 4 documentary, Vicky Pattison: My Dad, Alcohol and Me. She recalled being used “as a human walking stick” by her dad John as his drinking became worse and grew “frightened” at the idea of his alcoholism being passed on to her.
Vicky reflected on her drunken Geordie Shore days in an interview with The Times Magazine, saying that she felt “sick to her stomach” watching old episodes of the Newcastle reality show. Vicky was arrested in 2013 after throwing a shoe in a bar which left two people injured, leading to her being suspended from Geordie Shore.
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Vicky admitted that she contemplated suicide after the incident, but was helped through it by her sister and a friend. She returned to the show for two further seasons before finally quitting in 2014.
The star looked back on her time on Geordie Shore and shared that she “didn’t like who it made me become”, adding that at the age of 22 she didn’t possess the skills to “navigate being surrounded by that much alcohol”. Her drunken behaviour made Vicky convinced that she would “go the same way” as her dad.
“I believed I was my father’s daughter, so it was going to happen sooner or later and didn’t really matter when,” she told The Times. “Loads of people on the show had a really nice time and became funny and silly and then stopped.
“That was never me,” she admitted. “I don’t have an off switch and I was never a nice drunk.”
Vicky said that growing up with her dad had led her to believe that binge drinking was the norm. “The boys didn’t want to knock on my door because Dad could be scary,” she revealed.
She continued: “I didn’t want to be like him. But at points, I’ve been exactly like him.” Vicky even said that she once decided not to have children because of her experience growing up.
“The real reason was because I had all my dad’s issues and hang-ups and addictions, and I was so frightened my children would end up like me: broken,” she said. Now living in London with her fiancé, TOWIE star Ercan Ramadan, Vicky said that while she isn’t an alcoholic she maintains a “complicated” relationship with alcohol.
“It’s a slippery slope from being social to being dependent to being addicted,” she said. “I’ve danced with that my whole adult life. But I am aware I have the potential to turn into someone I don’t want to be and have a life I don’t want to have."
Vicky now hopes to “break down the stigma” surrounding alcoholism in her new documentary. The star said she is continuing to work on her relationship with alcohol and stop her “destructive patterns” when it comes to drinking.
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