At this precise moment I’d do anything this woman says. I am cracked wide open, teary and soft.

‘Right, time for a shower.’

I must really stink.

‘We’ll be moving you out of detox today and starting you on your road to recovery.’

‘Can’t I go back to Tommy, attend AA from home?’ My voice sounds a little pathetic as I say, ‘I feel fine now.’

‘Sonya, this is a particularly vulnerable time for you. Don’t believe anything your mind tells you, especially when it tells you you’re “fine”.’

How is that supposed to be helpful? As if reading my thoughts, she tells me there is a reason for a twelve-week period of supervised recovery in a controlled environment. Addiction is not just physical. New grooves need to be established, new patterns of thinking and behaving. There are many, many triggers in the outside world and the job in here is to strengthen not only resolve, but a sense of self that operates without substances. Blah blah. I tell her that my drinking is quite recent, that I used to be a successful actress, that I had a life in London that did not revolve around booze.

‘Is your alcohol abuse linked to becoming a mother, Sonya?’

That feels terrible, a terribly cruel accusation.

‘I really don’t think I abused alcohol.’

‘Do you think it abused you?’

I feel bamboozled, winded. I want that shower. The nun, who tells me her name is Sister Anne, explains that from tomorrow my days will start at 7 a.m. and that my routine will consist of work duty, prayer, meditation, group therapy, AA meetings and, if a need is ascertained, individual therapy, at a later stage.

‘The devil makes work for idle hands, eh, Sister?’ I try and fail to crack a joke.

10

The smell of cooking meat, possibly beef, though it’s been such a long time since I’ve had such a thing, wafts – no, attacks, yes, attacks my senses, cutting through the haze. What else, besides animal flesh, are they going to make me swallow in here?

‘You new here?’ A skinny girl with a booming voice, leaking energy, enters the room that is to be my bedroom for the next eleven weeks and two days (IF I complete the stint, although I’m sure I won’t need to). Apparently I spent five days in the drying-off ward, which doesn’t seem possible. This room is a replica of the one I just came from: four beds, too-bright lights, too much brown, this one with a smattering of beige, though no plastic undersheets, thank fuck.

‘You’d wanna get yer skates on. There’ll be no food left.’

‘I’m not hungry. Thanks, though.’

‘You’ve a long night ahead. Need some sustenance. The rosary, followed by a meeting, followed by meditation. All before lights out at ten.’

‘I’m not a practising Catholic, so I’ll give the rosary a miss.’

She laughs through her nose. ‘None of us are, but it’s part of the programme. Something about finding a “channel” to the Holy Spirit that’s meant to be a substitute for the real thing.’ Her voice is dry, cracked and brittle, like the rest of her.