‘You know you want me,’ the voices were going round in Lorraine’s head again. She’d been clean for twenty two days now, the longest she’d been sober for in her entire adult life and she intended keeping it that way. Lorraine Terry was an alcoholic; she finally accepted it after years of denial.
She started drinking at the age of fourteen, there were seven of them in there little gang, all from the estate, a typical inner city estate, graffiti everywhere and no-go areas. Lorraine was the second youngest but when it came to drinking, she could hold her own with any of them. Mark Quinlan was the oldest at seventeen but he looked at least twenty and bought the drink for all of them. Every Friday and Saturday they’d all be wasted at the back of the garages.
Her Father was a butcher, a man that worked seven days a week to put food on the table. When he found out Lorraine was drinking every weekend he told her to stop, when she didn’t he threw her out. Her Mother took her in but only for a short while, a drunken argument and she was on her own.
At nineteen Lorraine was pregnant, she didn’t know the Father that well, a drunken rump and she was caught. As soon as she told him he ran a mile, later she was told he went running back to his wife. Despite carrying a child she still drank and smoked the odd joint of cannabis. Her excuse every time was, ‘I need it,’ luckily for her the baby was born perfectly healthy.
Motherhood did not come naturally to her, she’d cut down on her drinking and tried to do the best job she could, which according to social services was, ‘just enough’. Her daughter Kylie started going to nursery when she was four. That’s when Lorraine met Vincent, a bus driver that made her heart miss a beat.
She waited two weeks for him to ask her out, when he didn’t she asked him out and Lorraine’s life was finally starting to get better. After eight months he moved in with her and was a great Father to Kylie. At the age of twenty five Lorraine was pregnant with her second child and the young couple could not be happier.
Lorraine suffered really bad morning sickness, she couldn’t eat a thing and when she did she couldn’t hold it down. The headache was constant, like a hangover she couldn’t shift, she’d cut her drinking down to about a bottle of wine a week. Her mood swings put a strain on her relationship, Vincent could handle them most of the time but then she started accusing him of having an affair when, in fact, he was working.
The birth was trouble free, the baby was a day early, and a healthy weight, everything went well for the first few months. Lorraine soon got her figure back and started going out once a week, it was Vincent’s idea, and he babysat and loved every minute of it. They named the baby Jonathan after Vincent’s Father; of course, everyone called him Johnny.
Johnny’s development was slow, he didn’t seem to be able to play with the other children his age, he was a very moody baby, if he didn’t get his way he’d scream the place down. Just after his second Birthday the doctor sent him for tests and the results were catastrophic, Johnny had a brain tumor, but the really bad news was the doctors couldn’t operate, it was to deep in the brain.
Johnny passed away two days before his fourth Birthday; Lorraine wouldn’t and couldn’t except it. It was just easier to lose yourself with a drink and that’s exactly what Lorraine did. As soon as Vincent went to work she’d pour herself a drink, she went through a bottle of vodka a day, hiding the evidence when Vincent came home. She was still having her night out; her relationship with Vincent was breaking down. One night, after a very heavy drinking session she came home and accused him of having an affair. It was the last night they slept in the same bed.
