A brave mum has revealed the pressures of parenting and dealing with family tragedy led her to become a daily drinker - until a worrying symptom finally convinced her to quit.
In a piece for WalesOnline, mum-of-two Rachel Shephard opened up about how she began telling herself that drinking glass or bottle of wine of an evening was "the antidote to the pains of motherhood", as she raised her two young boys Arthur and Alfie.
Rachel explained that before she became more reliant on alcohol, she "didn't consume booze daily and didn't feel like alcohol was having any major impact" on her life, but when she did drink it was always "to get wasted".
She stopped drinking when he got pregnant with her eldest Arthur in 2013, and said she "actually started to better moderate my alcohol consumption - not because I wanted to - but because getting up at 5am on a raging hangover was utterly soul-destroying".
Her second son Alfie was born two months premature in 2017 and Rachel said he was "so tiny he looked like a bird that had fallen out of his nest; he was a very easy baby", and almost was immediately sleeping through the night.
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As a result, Rachel said she felt for the most part like she "didn't even have a second child" and her intake slowly began to increase.
By the time Alfie was a toddler she was "knocking back wine a few times a week", admitting it was her "mission" to get drunk every time.
Then tragedy struck in 2020, when her mum died out of the blue when the boys were still only three and five.
"I very suddenly and unexpectedly lost my mum to aortic dissection," explaining that her mother, who was only 62, had gone out for a run "never to return after she collapsed and died".
Rachel then became a "daily drinker" overnight, getting through "at least a bottle of wine a night", she wrote.
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The year after, she left her husband and was "catapulted" into the responsibilities of being a single mother and coped "by adding more wine" to her "nightly routine".
Reality came crashing down in 2021 when Rachel "started to exhibit signs of physical dependency to alcohol" during a holiday in late 2021.
She realised she was shaking and was met in the mirror by a "puffy-eyed, exhausted", version of herself that was "riddled with shame". Rachel admitted to herself that something had to change and decided to stop.
While she had anticipated feeling healthier, she didn't expect the dramatic transformation in her relationship with the boys that abstinence brought.
Though her thoughts in the first month were still "dominated" by wine, she found being a mum to Arthur and Alfie had become "immeasurably easier".
"It didn't occur to me that my avoidance of my boys' troublesome behaviour was actually the cause of it," she wrote. "As soon as I dedicated my drinking time to playing, they became incalculably better behaved."
In the past she had waited for 4pm, for when she could "open a bottle of Pinot - a reasonable and socially acceptable time - without being considered an alcoholic".
But having committed to ending the succession of hangovers, she "opted for puzzles, games and crafting activities" with her children instead, and found that the irritation and tension she previously experienced had greatly reduced.
Rachel reflected that, though she had previously thought of alcohol as an "antidote to parenting", it had been the wine itself that made being a mother "so difficult" all along.
Having banished the vicious cycle of drinking to cope, she now feels she doesn't need a remedy, "because quite simply, I love being a mum".
If you're struggling with alcohol addiction, you can find support services here.