IT’S Tuesday night and I’m at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting at a church in a smart corner of South West London.
Out of the 20 or so people here, about eight are women — and they look far from what you may expect of someone struggling with drink addiction.
One is wearing fashionably narrow trousers and a patterned blouse. Another is in a jacket and smart neutral trousers, as though she has just come from the office.
Most of the women appear to be in their thirties and forties and I believe many are mothers. A well-dressed lady looks like she is in her late sixties.
These women have hit what is known in AA as “rock bottom”.
Health chiefs warn that the UK is in the grip of an alcohol crisis. Last month, the Office for National Statistics revealed that alcohol-related deaths hit a record high of 10,473 in 2023.
And British women top the list as the world’s biggest female binge-drinkers, according to a 2023 report by the OECD.
There are ordinary mums across the country whose “wine o’clock” reward at the end of the day has spiralled into alcoholism.
It is a sign of the times that AA, which holds more than 4,000 meetings across the country each week, now runs the occasional “parent and child” group.
According to the NSPCC, the number of children in England with a parent who misuses alcohol is consistently high, with more than 70,000 cases recorded each year since 2019.
One parent and child group was held every Wednesday morning for most of last year at a location in Kent.
It featured an upstairs room fitted out as a creche where young children could play with toys while their mums and dads attended their meeting.
AA meetings have a reputation for secrecy, but I have been granted special privilege to attend a gathering in South West London.
One of those there is Amanda, a 44-year-old divorced mum and chartered accountant who brings her ten-year-old son to sit in a side room, playing on his Nintendo Switch.
She tells me matter-of-factly: “I’ve been to a lot of funerals. Women who have relapsed, fallen down the stairs and broken their necks.
“You hear it all at AA. Drink-driving with kids in the car, failed suicide attempts, stealing. But it’s all pretty normal to me.”
Before the meeting starts, tea, coffee and biscuits are served. The atmosphere is friendly. Then everyone takes their seats and the mood becomes sombre.
A middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic, chairs the meeting.
Seated next to her is a man who is to be tonight’s story sharer.
Draped over a couple of chairs are banners outlining Alcoholics Anonymous’s famous 12 Steps, which range from admitting you are “powerless over alcohol” to the point where you have a “spiritual awakening”.
You hear it all at AA. Drink-driving with kids in the car, failed suicide attempts, stealing. But it’s all pretty normal to me
One of the women begins by reading from Alcoholics Anonymous, aka The Big Book, which contains stories about AA and its programme of recovery.
The sharer then tells his story, how he used to take his daughter with him to the pub in the dark days of his drinking.
He is in a good place now. He’s sober, but his marriage has broken up. There is silence. It is now up to the rest of the group whether to respond.
One of the women speaks up.
“I’m Charlotte and I’m an alcoholic.”
It’s strange to hear AA’s most famous line said in real life.
“Good evening, Charlotte,” replies the rest of the group.
It feels almost like a religious mass, with its church setting, its rituals and moments of sombre contemplation.
Charlotte says she used to take her daughter to the pub and give her a pack of crisps to keep her happy.
Her marriage is over, too. Alcoholism destroys marriages.
To protect confidentiality, AA has asked me not to report specifics about what is said.
Later, however, one woman at the meeting, Susan, a 64-year-old grandmother, tells me her own harrowing story.
For the past 19 years, she has attended one or more AA meetings every week.
IF you’re struggling with alcohol addiction, the most important thing is to recognise the problem and seek support - You don’t have to face it alone.
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“I was a top-up drinker for ten years,” she tells me. “Every day, I bought three bottles of wine for £10 and drank steadily from morning to night.
“For a long time, I kept it secret. I held down a job running a restaurant, and my four children were dressed and fed. My husband was an alcoholic. We split up. I carried on drinking.”
Like many alcoholics tired of being nagged to give up, Susan began drinking in secret.
She says: “I stopped drinking in public. I had a boyfriend. I never stayed the night. We never went on holiday. If we did, he would have discovered the truth.”
Susan’s life became increasingly chaotic.
One of her children’s teachers tipped off social services.
“In the last year or two, everything fell apart,” she says.
“It had a terrible effect on my children. They were worried and angry.
“They’d be thinking, ‘Is my mum going to be here when I come home from school? Will she be alive?’.
“One of my children’s teachers contacted social services. I was fast-tracked into detox and rehab.
“I was ready to die at that point in my life.
“I went to AA. In the first year, I attended a meeting every day. After that, it was three meetings a week. I haven’t had a drink for 19 years.” Amanda started drinking heavily in her teens.
She says: “I’d binge drink on a Friday — three bottles of wine in one night, as much white wine as I could swallow.
“I would get very drunk, very quickly. I’d go into blackout.”
She explains that she managed to hang on to her job by a thread.
“We’d go to the pub at lunchtime.” she adds. “When the others went back, I’d stay in the pub alone, pick up my phone and pretend to have conversations, to look busy.
“I’d sleep around. On a good Friday I’d wake up alone, on a bad night there would be a stranger next to me.”
In 2006, she attended her first AA meeting, on the King’s Road in Chelsea, South West London, after being invited by a friend who was already a member.
“We walked into this primary school,” she says.
“I couldn’t believe how many people were there because they didn’t want to drink. I thought, ‘S**t, there are other people like me’.”
Amanda says she found the ritual and repetition of AA, as well as its supportive environment, helpful.
She stopped drinking and in 2010, when she had been sober for four years, began a relationship with another recovering alcoholic at AA. They married in 2013.
She says relationships between AA members are common.
“I hardly know anyone who hasn’t had a relationship in AA,” she says.
“Like in any other social group, people bond over common issues and spend a lot of time with each other.”
Making advances to vulnerable people who have recently joined AA is known as “13th stepping”.
“Some people might use the term to warn people to take care around romance in their AA circle,” says Amanda.
I hardly know anyone who hasn’t had a relationship in AA. Like in any other social group, people bond over common issues and spend a lot of time with each other
She points out that her own relationship was not in the 13th-step category.
She had been sober for four years when she met her husband and “the power between us was balanced”. But Amanda’s husband sadly relapsed and they split up in 2016.
“It was a difficult marriage,” she says. “He eventually confessed to me he’d been secretly drinking for a few years. I had no idea.
“I’ve had to remain sober for our son.
“I have a son who has grown up in AA. I’ve had to explain to him about his dad and about alcoholism. He can’t help it.”
Relapses are not uncommon.
“You get close to people and they fall away,” says Amanda. “I don’t know if they stopped coming, or if they’re dead.”
Back in South West London, the meeting is drawing to a close.
The host concludes with the Serenity Prayer, which asks for strength and wisdom in challenging times.
She asks for a volunteer to do the washing-up.
It’s mundane, but mundanity is what AA members thrive on.
And so, as the chairs are stacked and the last cups washed, it strikes me that in this quiet, unassuming church hall, lives are not just being rebuilt, they’re being saved, one meeting at a time.
According to the NHS, regularly drinking more than 14 units of alcohol a week risks damaging your health.
To keep health risks from alcohol to a low level if you drink most weeks:
If you're pregnant or think you could become pregnant, the safest approach is not to drink alcohol at all to keep risks to your baby to a minimum.
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