PREGNANT AND ADDICTED TO COCAINE

Sarah Ibrahim, 43, thought she was in control of her drug habit - however, she was anything but...

- 

Chopping up a line of cocaine with my bank card, I inhaled it and smiled with relief as I felt the drug surge through my body, all my stress and anxiety fading away. I wasn't at a party or in a nightclub, though. I was in my bedroom at home in Essex, with my baby fast asleep in his cot in the room next to me. In the grip of addiction, it had become normal for me to mix motherhood with cocaine - in fact, I couldn't imagine functioning without it.

A single, working mum in my late 30s, the drug had become my crutch. Now, five years on, I look back and am staggered at how lost I was at that time.

I started dabbling in drugs as a teenager. I was rebellious and never one of the pretty, popular girls at school, but drugs made me feel good, albeit temporarily. I started with weed, then speed and by 21, I'd moved onto ecstasy which became my drug of choice through my 20s.

'I'D PARTY FOR THREE NIGHTS ON NO SLEEP'

WIPED OUT

I'd party for three nights on no sleep, before rolling into my job as a temp, exhausted and on a crushing comedown. In 2008, I got a job in a bar which was popular with cocaine users and dealers. I'd used the drug the odd time before then, but with it all around me, very quickly, I wanted it more and more.

I loved how confident and happy it made me feel, and soon found myself using it every day.

Even after enrolling at university in London as a mature student, to study for a tourism management degree, I was still sniffing coke daily, and blew my entire student loan in three weeks on the drug. Not for a moment did I believe I was an addict, though.