“My main goal for the day would be just to drink. There was no other goal. Which is so sad, when I say it like that — for a 50-odd-year-old woman.”

Nicola is in the latter stages of treatment for alcohol addiction at Tiglin’s Women’s Centre, a comprehensive residential recovery programme in Wicklow. These days, she’s part of Tiglin’s reintegration programme — working in the bakery at the Rise coffee shop in Greystones, studying, and slowly rebuilding her life.

“I’m working in the bakery with the Rise coffee shop here in Greystones, to dip back into reality — and to life. And reality would have been a thing that was scary to me,” Nicola says. “It really is a must — to get up in the morning and know where you’re going and what you’re doing. You’re on a timetable. You’re not just floating along like I did in addiction.”

Nicola’s struggle with alcohol began when she was a teenager. “I found alcohol when I was a teenager. It was a crutch. It helped me with my confidence. It made me feel complete — like I could do anything.” But as the years went on, alcohol began to control more and more of her life. “I was a very dogmatic, argumentative… just not a nice person to be around. Slowly but surely, people in my group of friends started approaching me, saying, ‘Nicola, this is a problem.’ They were very good people, but I lost them because I didn’t want to listen.”

In the later years of her addiction, Nicola became completely isolated. “I wouldn’t have had any company. It would’ve been just me and the alcohol. I had a few suicide attempts.” During the second year of the COVID-19 lockdown, Nicola’s partner died by suicide. “He took his own life. I froze my emotions. I didn’t want to deal with it. I drank very heavily — for the guts of a year and a half before I came into Tiglin.”

At her lowest point, Nicola remembers how her days were shaped by addiction. “My main goal for the day would be just to drink. There was no other goal. Which is so sad, when I say it like that — for a 50-odd-year-old woman. Was that really it? Yeah, it was.” She also experienced the pain of repeated relapses. “Every relapse is worse. You hear that — but believe me, it’s true. And it’s harder to come back from every one of them. Very hard.”

Through her time at Tiglin, Nicola began to understand more about herself and why addiction had such a grip on her life. “I always felt different. Nobody ever made me feel different — but I did. I felt not good enough. And when I came to adulthood, I wasn’t equipped for reality. I did the best I could in my 20s and 30s, and then I started to really not be able to face life.”

Part of that feeling, she says, came from comparing herself to her sisters. “They all attended college. I didn’t. They all got married. I didn’t. They all had children. I didn’t. And then I started to limit myself — that I wasn’t intelligent, I couldn’t go to college, I couldn’t study.”

Nicola is also deeply aware of how her addiction impacted her loved ones. “They were very hurt and traumatised. It interfered with their lives — them growing up, having children, trying to have careers. They had to look at all this. And it is selfish, because I didn’t care.”

Now, as she works, studies, and begins reconnecting with her family, Nicola is focused on showing through her actions that she’s changing. “You can throw the word ‘sorry’ about, but they want to see the work. They want to see you being better, see you well, socialising with family — not ringing up saying, ‘I can’t make it.’”

Rebuilding those relationships won’t happen overnight — and Nicola knows that. “I don’t expect a red carpet to be thrown out for me. It has to be built again. And that’s the way it is. Acceptance is the game on my part. But I won’t lose sight that I will have restoration with them all.”