A mum who first started drinking aged just 12 has opened up about the impact addiction has had on her life. Zosia Rembowski would often go into school drunk and says she then left school on the week of her 13th birthday.
By her early teens she had already learned how to hide her drinking problem from others, saying she'd mask the smell with mouthwash or chewing gum. The 54-year-old says: "Back then in school, it was nothing like it is now, so nothing was really followed up with.
"I went a couple of times in the following years, just to hand notes in. Notes that I'd written from my mum to keep everything quiet." She worked odd jobs to fuel her addiction, helping out at a chippie and using her earnings to buy alcohol.
She'd buy lager or spirits and drink as much as she could at a fast pace so she could drunk quickly. She said: "At that time, you would just go around different place.
"Some shopkeepers were alright with selling it to you as long as it was empty. Other times, you could just wait on the corner of the street near the shop and get people to get you it, or buy something for them to get them to buy it for you. It was quite rife."
The mum describes drink as one of her "first love affairs". "It gave me a feeling of confidence - a false confidence that I didn't feel I had," she told Lancs Live.
"It becomes an obsession. Once you've already put the first one in, or once you've relapsed with that first drink, or you're dependant on it, everything and anything becomes about that - getting that first drink," she continued.
As a teen, she hid her alcoholism from her mother, and would often sneak booze into her bedroom without her mother noticing. She'd often come home and go to bed straught away so her family didn't notice she had been drinking.
When she became a mother later on in life, her three children would too be affected be her addiction, and one by one they all went to live with her mother. She said it resulted in parenting being one of the lowest points in her life, with her children still to forgive her for being absent during their formative years.
"I wouldn't have allowed myself to have kids either, but I'm really lucky they didn't go into the system," Zosia said. "So, because sometimes I would have a little bit too much, or sometimes I wouldn't have the money to get what I needed to take the withdrawals away, I would just not go. I would just not go and visit them for months on end.
"That's a massive regret and I would do anything to turn the clock back. Two of my children still haven't forgiven me, they can't forgive me for not being present. When I was there and did turn up, I was only physically there, I wasn't mentally there. These days, I'm really lucky to have the most amazing relationship with my youngest daughter and my son-in-law and my granddaughter.
"I always say, 'you can't give up hope' and I can't give up hope, as a mum, with the other two. I will never sort it out, just because I want it, doesn't mean to say it's the right time for them, I just have to wait until they're ready and accept that they might never want a relationship. I've had kidnapping, I've been held hostage, I've never been killed, but in comparison, that doesn't compare to how I was as a mum, or how I wasn't as a mum."
It was in 2014 when Zosia was seriously assaulted whilst walking to the garage in the early hours of the morning, that she decided to change things for herself.
"That whole experience and the court case after it in 2015, had me thinking, normal people don't do this. Normal people wouldn't be on the street at that time. They wouldn't put themselves in that position to have something like that happen and I thought, I've got to change my life.
"I've got to absolutely change my life and that started me on the road to recovery."
Zosia says she "jumped through hoops" to get into a rehabilitation facility, but says she used all of the determination she put into using whilst battling her addiction, she put into reaching her end goal of getting clean and sober.
She is now part of the Hidden in Plain Sight campaign, led by Change Grow Live, known locally as Inspire. She says a lot of her time these days is taken up by volunteering, but she didn't previously have a job, adding: "Being an addict, you're not going to look for work. Your time is all put into finding either drugs or drink, or finding the money to get them."
Now that's behind her, she wants to raise awareness of alcoholism and addiction and says the age range of 18 to 30 year olds are underrepresented, as a lot are "still in party mode", but unable to see where addiction might take them. The Hidden in Plain Sight campaign focuses on this, shining a light on people who may be drinking to harmful levels that are not seeking support.
By sharing their stories, those like Zosia who have struggled with addiction hope they can help people to teach them of the support available and what could happen if they don't take a hold of their situation. The campaign, which will bring together a film made by Inspire Youth, hopes to provide advice, support and guidance to these people to reduce alcohol related harm.
