Jazz and blues singer Mary Coughlan spoke frankly about her battle with alcoholism and the times she used to drink three or four bottles of vodka a day before she went ‘on the dry’ 15 years ago.
Speaking on TV3’s Midday all-female panel show, Coughlan said she would drink for ten or 12 days and then get really ill. She was hospitalised 32 times in two years and hospitals refused to admit her.
“The mental hospital down in Newcastle would take me in to dry me out,” Coughlan said. “I used to sit alone in a room in our house, the top floor of our house, sort of sad, morose and depressed.”
She recalled other “fun” times when she was the life and soul of the Pink Elephant, when it was around, and Susie Street. It was a time of her life when she didn’t want it any other way.
“When you got sober, you’d just want to get back there, cause you didn’t want to deal with the reality of what you had done.” She spoke about the impact of her alcoholism on her children and going to the Rutland Centre.
About women’s drinking habits, Coughlan said she thought it was a shame that younger women drink so much nowadays. She said she lost her fear of drinking 13 years ago and it was something that no longer bothers her.
Coughlan tells TV3 viewers about her alcoholism
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