No such word as can’t

Anna Elston tells us how she turned her life around from alchoholic mother to successful and happy addictions counsellor

When I left residential rehab for substance misuse, I was under no illusion about the fact that I needed to remain abstinent to have a chance at getting my three children out of foster care. It was a Sisyphean task, to put it lightly: just seven weeks before, I had attempted to take my own life and had been on life support in intensive care. My toxic marriage was broken, I was due in court for being drunk in charge of my vehicle, and my soon to be ex-husband was about to stop paying the mortgage. I had no job; I had left my last teaching post due to post-natal depression and I was heavily pregnant when we moved counties. Three months later, I was pregnant again with my third child, who was still in intensive care himself, due to me going into labour 15 weeks early. I had no social worker looking out for me and no care manager in charge of my treatment, because it was means tested and I didn’t meet the threshold.

It quickly became apparent to me that, when a mother’s children are in the care of the local authority, if the children are safe and well, the mother’s needs generally fall by the wayside. I can’t even begin to describe my emotionally fragile state: I felt isolated, alone, and frightened. It is little wonder that a very miniscule percentage of mothers successfully get into recovery and get their children back from care. The timescales laid down by the law are stacked against vulnerable mothers—which is why I count myself extremely lucky.

I discovered I have immense resourcefulness in times of adversity. I just needed to learn how to access it, and that takes time and unflinching self-reflection. After three years of abstinence and adjusting to being at home together with all three children, I learnt to feel confident in my capabilities as a single parent. I had to build an entirely new support network and I became passionate about helping other mums get into recovery. I discovered that there weren’t many women in treatment, in recovery and in fellowship meetings, and was curious to know why so few parents with addiction issues were successfully reunited with their children. My own experience fuelled my ambition to retrain as an addictions counsellor, and my university thesis was on this very topic. I was thrilled to obtain a first class honours degree. As a single mum of three young children, and with a full-time job during my third year, it was one of my proudest achievements. I didn’t even try to hide that fact during my speech in front of the Duchess of Cambridge, Patron of Action on Addiction (now Forward Trust).

I progressed my career in a variety of roles: from addictions counsellor in treatment centres to co-ordinating the Amy Winehouse Foundation Resilience Programme in the South West, returning to addictions counselling in another treatment centre, and then Head of Service for a carer organisation.