MIchelle Heaton has shared a series of painful photos from her alcohol battle and rehabilitation as she marks 14 months sober and aims to help others struggling with addiction.
Having struggled massively with the country being in lockdown, Liberty X star Michelle is reported to have used 'alcohol' as a crutch, before tackling her issues by checking into famous clinic The Priory. In a TV interview last year, one of the doctors who treated MIchelle, Niall Campbell, confessed to her that he wasn't sure how she was 'still alive, ' telling her: "Your liver function test was terrible. You had alcoholic hepatitis, you were heading towards cirrhosis, that’s permanent. And one of the enzymes that we measured, gamma GT, should be about 50. Yours was 2,053.."
Speaking candidly about her battle with alcohol, Michelle admitted that she "couldn't breathe without drinking," adding: "I was able to hide it with the lockdown, able to manipulate it. We weren't interacting with people, so ultimately it became a party for one.
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"It became self sabotage on my part and, at some point, over the last year and a half I lost complete control and I was completely powerless to alcohol. I don't know when or how it happened but at some point it did."
After leaving The Priory, Michelle said she'd been given 'a second chance at life, with her husband Hugh Hanley and children AJ and Faith and has thrown herself into family activities and fitness, whilst appealing to others who are struggling to get help.
Michelle made one of those appeals as she marked 14 months of sobriety, as well as exposing some of the torment she went through as a result of her addiction. Sharing pictures of her at different stages of her journey, including ones of her looking gravely ill at the height of her addiction, MIchelle wrote: "I continue to share my story because by sharing I might just help the still suffering addict!
"I’m just over 14 months, looking back at this person, I see fear, sadness, confusion, pain, and as that month went on I see hope, light, fight, and a desire to live.
"Whether you are the addict or a loved one of the addict, there is hope! If I can do it so can you!
I follow a 12 step program, regularly attend my meetings and help others to achieve sobriety like I have. I have a life now I could never have imagined, a life without fear"
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