Maureen was a primary school teacher, a wife, a mum to two grown up children and friend to many. She loved to socialise and was always the first to get up to give a song at a party ... a favourite being Man I Feel Like a Woman by Shania Twain. She enjoyed catching up with her friends over a drink and putting the world to rights. But it started to become more than that. Alcohol started to become more frequent until it was suspected she was drinking most nights ..... a drink to relieve the stresses of a busy day, a drink to get through those tough times such as the loss of her mum, her husband being diagnosed with cancer. A week before her husband Pat passed away she was given the news she had liver cirrhosis and told she could never drink again but only 10 weeks after her husband died, Maureen sadly and very suddenly passed away due to sepsis caused by the cirrhosis.

Maureen was aged 56 when she died .... she was my mum. This was devastating to lose both parents so close together.

This was 20 years ago, I was 32, worked in the Scottish Government, I didn’t really drink much myself and looking back now I didn’t know much about the damage alcohol does and the huge impact it can have on somebody’s life. Jump forward to today and my job as a mental health nurse specialising in alcohol problems has really opened my eyes and made me want to do more to raise awareness and help people. So my coaching and healing business came to life.