Michelle Heaton has appeared on Loose Women today (May 5) celebrating one year since she stopped drinking alcohol and admitting she finally feels “really strong.” Charlene White asked the former popstar how life is a year on and Michelle replied, “If somebody told me again nine months ago I’d be feeling free, happy, that feeling of the knots in your stomach and ‘not sure whether I can do this’... I think the fear is, ‘Can I actually do this?’ because all I knew the past seven or eight years is active addiction.”
She added, “It’s hard to think about the new you because you don’t know who you are. I’m glad I made it. But it’s still one day at a time… I still do my programme.. I keep it so I can keep my sobriety.” Talking about when she went Into The Priory, Michelle admitted she was “selfish to the core” and “manipulative”.
She added, “Drinking was so exhausting, it occupied every waking moment, so this is easy… I’ve got a really happy sense of being now, and I just didn’t.” On the effect Michelle’s addiction had on her children, Michelle explained, “I had no regards to what was happening to my family. It’s shameful to say that sometimes they were in my way. When the kids really needed a cuddle, I just wasn’t there for them… It wasn’t until I got sober and clean could I recognise how I was behaving. And then the guilts come in. Working through guilt in sobriety is tough as well.”
Michelle spoke about a letter her husband Hugh Hanley wrote to her five days into her being clean. Speaking of the moment she received the letter in The Priory, Michelle said, “It was only then when I heard his words, being clean for the first time, that I could say ‘Hi I’m Michelle, I’m an alcohol addict.’ Thank God I did. I acknowledged what I was and from that day, I worked on it.”
On being absent from her children during her addiction, Michelle said, “I wasn’t present for anybody - I wasn’t present for myself. I didn’t give them what they needed, which was nurturing… no nurturing at all. When I came out and I started to navigate who I was again., so were the kids… They had to navigate who I was again. Kids are very forgiving, they didn’t acknowledge how much I was in pain… however, they were navigating my reactions.”
Michelle then read out part of the letter Hugh wrote to her. It read, “Watching you spiral like this has personally been very hard to deal with. I couldn’t talk to my best friend which was you. The last three years I’ve watched you spiral and turn into someone I don’t recognise. The strain that has been put on our relationship has been very demanding.
“I’ve been left embarrassed several times by the way you spoke to me in front of people, which was never you - you were always my biggest fan. Yet I found myself being the brunt of your anger and having to shoulder that while also trying to help the kids navigate your new behaviour.
“Your addictive behaviour has hurt me a lot 'Chelle, and it’s turned you into a liar - you’ve become someone who’s very untrustworthy. Your behaviour has robbed me of my wife and the kids of their mummy.”
Linda Robson then hugged Michelle and Michelle said, “I don’t recognise that person… addiction got me and addiction created that person I don’t recognise now. But at the time I couldn’t recognise it” Charlene asked if she now feels strong and Michelle said, “I do, I feel really strong.”
