A mum who was consuming three litres of vodka a day has been warned she has just one day to live.
Charlotte Durcan, 30, says she had sworn off alcohol before her addiction reached its peak. The self-confessed 'extremist' spiraled out of control before she was in danger of losing her life, reports the Manchester Evening News.
She suffered blackouts and seizures, and without alcohol would break into sweats. When she realised she couldn't cope without it, she knew it had become serious.
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The mum-of-two said: "In the mornings, I would have to have a drink, just to level me out.
"It would be vodka and that would be a pint of vodka neat. That would be literally to stop me from shaking and stop me from being too sick and sweating - that'd work.
"From there, it would just carry on throughout the day, but obviously, when money went tight and things, I would try and get family to get me drink. I was using all my money up on drink, so they'd sometimes only be able to get me bottles of wine and things.
"Then I started to realise it was a problem, when I could have a full bottle of wine and it wouldn't affect me."
Charlotte says only when drinking vodka would she feel the affects but after one blackout, she visited the hospital for the first time. She was kept in for a few days and eventually returned home, but despite going four days without drinking she "went straight back to the drink" upon her return and ended up back in hospital again.
This circle of events repeated itself around three or four times before the situation became grave.
"The last time, I ended up in intensive care with multiple organ failure," Charlotte continued. "I had heart failure, liver failure, kidney failure and they had to take two litres of fluid from my lungs and I was in for three weeks, but I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I couldn't talk.
"So I was in intensive care, I was on oxygen and they got all of my family in to say bye to me. I was literally on end-of-life care."
Charlotte's family visited her in hospital at 2am, after they were told by doctors that such was her condition that she had only one day left to live. However, she says that somehow she "managed to pull through" and decided to enter rehab after recovering.
The mum is now celebrating 11 months of sobriety and is paying back the help she received by volunteering for the charity that helped her into rehab, Inspire Lancashire. The group are currently undertaking an alcohol awareness campaign, Hidden in Plain Sight.
It focuses on those addiction issues who may not appear to be suffering on the outside, but are battling inner demons. Charlotte believes addiction is often associated with people who have been struggling for years, but in her case, she was grappled by alcoholism quickly.
"My story is a lot different to other people's," Charlotte explained.
"I think people think that you have to be an alcoholic for so many years or start off as a drinker, then a binge drinker and then you're an alcoholic. Whereas, I'm trying to raise awareness that it can literally happen to you so quickly, without you even realising and then it can be too late for some people.
"I was close to dying, all of my family thought I was going to die, but I didn't have a clue because I was so out of it. That was my outcome after two years of drinking heavily."
Charlotte says Inspire Lancashire supported her to stop drinking gradually, as stopping cold turkey could have killed her. The mum is also hoping to raise awareness of addiction and inspire others to ask for help if they're struggling with their own journeys.
For her future, Charlotte's hoping to get to a year sobriety and from there, will then look into finding full-time employment.
