On the Wednesday night, Dad dropped me to my first meeting. I knew that he wanted to ask me if I’d heard from Mum, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t mention Mum’s drinking either, he just leaned over after pulling into the parking spot, gave me a kiss on the forehead and said, ‘Good luck. I’ll be right here if you need me.’

I walked into the community centre, my legs jelly from the nerves, but I also really hoped that the group could tell me how to make Mum better.

A white woman in her thirties with short brown hair walked up to me and said, ‘Hi, I’m Sue.’ She shook my hand.

‘I’m Phoebe,’ I told her. She led me past an older man and three women drinking cups of tea around a huge table in the centre of the building.

I was relieved to find the room empty. Sue gestured to the kitchen area and said, ‘Get a cuppa if you like, and take a seat. We’ll get started soon.’ She left the room.

As I was pouring a glass of water a couple of kids walked in. They were clearly brother and sister, surfer types with long, straight golden hair and tanned bodies. Definitely not who I expected to find at a meeting about alcoholics. They were kind of around my age. I noticed the girl’s cool yellow corduroy pinafore dress and aqua Converse Hi-Tops as she sat down and said, ‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ I replied before picking up a brochure from the table and burying my head in it to hide. I started reading how the group was about offering a better understanding of the effects of someone else’s drinking on yourself. And then I looked to see if there was information about how to get someone to stop drinking.

Sue walked back in the room and said, ‘Right, let’s get started,’ and I was relieved that it was only me and the two other kids in the room. Sue explained, ‘I am going to read a bit about alcoholism, Phoebe, and then we’re going to introduce ourselves, and talk about our experiences with an alcoholic in our life. You can just listen if you like, or you can talk about why you’re here, too. There’s no pressure, although there’s one very important rule: everything that’s shared in this room is private and everyone’s anonymity remains protected.’

I nodded, also feeling relief, knowing that even with anonymity it was going to be hard to talk about Mum. But I worried that if I didn’t talk about all of the hard stuff that Sue might not be able to give me the help I wanted.