Mary Coughlan has opened up about suffering a miscarriage and ending up on life support after she “downed a bottle of vodka in one go”.
The legendary blues singer lays bare her battle with the booze on RTE’s The Meaning Of Life which airs tonight.
In a candid interview with host Joe Duffy, Mary reflects on growing up in Galway and how her early years shaped her life.
She tells how she turned to alcohol at 30 and was drinking Tequila Sunrise cocktails for breakfast by the time she was 33.
The former hellraiser said: “I know now alcohol and addiction are just the end result of something traumatic or some deep unhappiness.
“At 16 I was in Eyre Square sitting up on a wall with the hippies smoking dope. I had taken acid.
“It was always to remove myself from reality, that is what I was doing always.”
Mary, 65, revisits the trauma of being sexually abused by her grandfather from the age of six and how she self-harmed in a desperate cry for help.
She tried to break her wrist off a cast iron bath in a bid to avoid her First Holy Communion and made an attempt to end her life as a teenager.
Mary added: “It was extraordinary the way it [music career] took off, I wasn’t prepared for it.
“I moved to Dublin. I remember being in the Pink Elephant and had my first ever gin and tonic. I’d say I
probably had 30 of them before the night was out. The guilt of being away from the kids was somehow softened by the alcohol. But it took over very quickly.
“My parents were pioneers, there would never have been drink in the house. By the time I was 33 or 34 I was having Tequila Sunrises for breakfast.”
The Tired and Emotional singer, who was hospitalised 32 times with alcohol poisoning, says it all came to a head when she blacked out while pregnant.
She said: “I was off the drink for about 14 weeks, I was pregnant... I don’t actually remember going out to buy the bottle of vodka but I did.
“When Frank [Bonadio, ex-husband] came home I was on the floor. I had downed the lot in one go.
“I ended up in Holles Street and I lost the baby. My organs were in failure, I was on life support and my family were called in to say their goodbyes.
“It was on St Patrick’s Day. They came in, I think reluctantly, and said harsh things, very true things.
“They said, ‘Mammy you’re not coming back to this house’. I went to the Rutland Centre.”
Mary spent six weeks in rehab before returning home – but the first thing she did was buy another bottle of vodka.
A longer stint at the Rutland followed and after years of therapy and healing she is now a contented singer and grandmother who is 28 years sober.
She added: “The cycle of abuse and addiction is gone. I believe I have known heaven here on earth.”
- The Meaning of Life airs on RTE One tonight at 10.35pm.
