Model and TV personality Millie Mackintosh has said that binge drinking left her with “crippling” anxiety and “massive panic attacks”.
The 35-year-old, who is the great granddaughter of Harold Mackintosh, the inventor of Quality Streets, stepped into the limelight as a cast member on reality TV show Made in Chelsea.
Mackintosh joined the series in 2011, appearing for five series before marrying her co-star Hugo Taylor in 2018. The couple, who reside in Chelsea, have two daughters, Sienna and Aurelia.
In a recent interview with The i , Mackintosh revealed that she has been sober for three years in August.
The star cited the anxiety she felt when hungover as the reason why she stopped drinking alcohol.
“When I moved to London I would go out and party a lot, but I’d eat really healthy food and go to the gym and kidded myself that it wasn’t a problem,” she said. “But then as I got older, I realised I wasn’t learning to cope with life better. If anything, things were getting worse.”
She added: “After I had my kids, it definitely became more of a problem. When I had a drink, I just had an unquenchable thirst for more. By that point the hangovers were really bad, and the anxiety was crippling. I had these massive panic attacks, which are actually symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol. It was just really clear to me that I had to stop.”
Earlier this year, Mackintosh released her first book, Bad Drunk, which combines scientific advice with insight about her own journey to sobriety.
“I don’t wake up every day and have to decide not to drink; I just no longer drink alcohol,” she said. “Calling my book Bad Drunk felt like finally letting go of a dirty secret I’d been ashamed of for so long.”
Mackintosh also claimed that cutting out alcohol had improved her marriage with Taylor.
“We’ve both gone away and done work on ourselves and it means we can communicate better. It’s not always easy, though. We’ve been married for seven years so you have to really put the work in,” she said.
Mackintosh revealed that she has undergone various treatments for her mental health, including eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) - a form of psychotherapy used to treat PTSD.
“I’m on a very low-dose medication, which I’m planning to come off at some point in the near future,” she said. “I’m very into wellness, but I totally appreciate that sometimes wellness on its own is not enough.”
