Back From The Brink

We all face difficult times – but after hitting rock bottom, these three women needed to draw from huge reserves of courage to find their way back to happiness...

- Savanna Douglas; Stephanie Van Der Plank

ANGELA LEITCH, 51, lives in Bryanston and has two grown-up kids, Brian and Tarryn. She’s a manager and partner at a family-run business.

“Alcoholism is a progressive disease. It can sneak up on you over years and then before you know it, you’re hiding bottles under the bed, taking two shots before a meeting, and asking to meet friends for lunch so you can drink. It’s terrifying to realize you can function despite being boozed-up.

For most of my life, alcohol wasn’t a problem. I’d have a few glasses of wine socially, but then it was back to normal the next day. I treated it the way most of us do, as a pleasant addition to a night out. It wasn’t until I couldn’t go a day without a stiff drink that I began to realize I had a problem.

Like most people, I haven’t always had it easy. My divorce in 2013 hit me hard, as did the passing of my beloved father in 2015. He’d been my rock. The difficulty was that I had an inability to deal with the trials I’d faced. Rather than exposing my feelings and admitting I was in a world of pain, grief and sorrow that had accumulated over the years, I internalized it all. I was too afraid and embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t coping – trying to keep up the image of the perfect mother, friend and business woman. So I took comfort in the bottle. Drinking was my coping mechanism.