I drank all day and night but I couldn't admit I was an alcoholic

FROM the outside, businesswoman and Cheshire native Nicky Wake, 53, looked like she was living the dream.

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She ran a successful events company, lived in a beautiful home, was happily raising her teenage son and travelled in style, sipping champagne in business class.

But behind the polished surface, Nicky was silently destroying herself. She was drinking from morning to night, hiding bottles and falling apart in private.

She said: "I was drinking all day, every day. Sometimes I'd start before breakfast. By night, I was regularly downing three bottles of wine without blinking, sometimes more. But I still ran a business. I still got my son to school. I told myself that meant I was in control but I was completely lost."

Nicky was brought up in Runcorn, and later lived in Widnes, where she launched an alternative clothes shop and café in the town centre when she was in her late teens.

As her entrepreneurial career took off, Nicky found alcohol was an embedded element in her work routine. Business lunches meant wine was standard and work events and award dos were awash with alcohol.

"It was just part of the job. Midday prosecco, wine with lunch, cocktails in the evening. It was constant. No one batted an eyelid because I always got the job done. But really, I was drinking during most working days."

It's a story that will resonate with thousands of women, high-achieving, high-functioning and drinking far more than they dare to admit. For Nicky, it took a near-total collapse to admit she was addicted.

"I didn't think I was an alcoholic. I just thought I was going through a rough time. I'd lost my husband, I was running a company and I thought I was just self-medicating."