'Christmas was dad's excuse to start drinking early'

Two women who lost their fathers to alcoholism have teamed up to share their experiences through a podcast.

Sarah Drage from New Romney in Kent and Amy Dickson from Reigate in Surrey present the Children of Alcoholics podcast, hosted by the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA) charity.

Steve Drage died of organ failure in 2017, after relapsing following his own father's death, having been sober for 16 months.

Ms Drage said special occasions such as Christmas could be the worst times for living with an alcoholic.

"There's already an excuse to start drinking in the morning, and that was tough because we knew he'd had an excuse to start drinking straight away," she said.

"We never knew what mood we were going to catch my dad in - whether he was drinking, whether he hadn't been drinking, whether we were going to do present opening. He was desperate to get up and have a drink.

"You could always see it in my dad, he'd start shaking, he was physically dependent on alcohol. Towards the end of his life it was a litre of vodka a day, that we knew of."

Ms Dickson's father, also called Steve, died of multiple alcohol-related illnesses in 2020. She said the podcast was a chance to help others.

"Every story's different, but there's so many threads going through it, so many feelings, of not telling anybody, feeling lonely, not knowing how to cope," she said.

Ms Drage said her memory of her father's last Christmas was still a happy one.

"He was sober, and that was one of the best Christmases we'd ever had with him," she said.

"We played board games, we were there as a family, all together, and it was the dad that I remembered as a little girl."

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