ON the surface, Emily Redondo looked like any other mum on the school run.
However, the then-36-year-old was hiding a secret addiction that she’d go to extreme lengths to keep under wraps.
Mum-of-four Emily, from Texas, was an alcoholic and would conceal booze in nappy bags, make excuses to go shopping so she could drink and even drank through pregnancy.
Her new book, Wife, Mother, Drunk, reveals how her battle with alcohol would push her to the brink of death and plague her loved ones.
She told the Daily Mail: “I could get sober. That was not my issue. I got sober dozens of times. But I could not stay sober.”
One of her darkest moments with booze even led to her winding up in a police cell.
Emily recalled how she had been on an innocent shopping trip to pick up a throw pillow and some household bits when she was ‘drawn like a magnet’ to a grocery store.
Craving some cheap wine to ‘take the edge off a crippling depression’, she forked out for two big boxes that could each hold a bottle inside.
She drank the first one fast – and unfortunately continued to drive off with her four-year-old daughter in the back.
She shared: “I remembered pulling the car over and telling Becca, ‘I need to rest my eyes for a second.’”
When she came around, the police were banging on the car window, with her daughter crying in the back.
Emily wrote in her book: “I tried to talk, tried to hold my eyes open and force myself sober, all while standing handcuffed on the side of a road with drivers slowing down to watch.”
She was taken in for interrogation – and, ten hours later, it dawned on her that her furious husband Pete wasn’t coming to pick her up.
With her breastfed newborn son at home, the mum was forced to hand-express her painful boobs into a filthy sink, exposing herself to her cellmates in the process.
Speaking of the rock bottom moment, she said: “I just thought, I’m never going to get over this… it’s never going to get better.
“It was such a horror. I didn’t want to die, because that felt too selfish. But I wanted to have never been there in the first place. I wished the kids had somebody else. I wished it wasn’t me.”
Wine has a fine line where, on one side, it’s ‘Let’s have girl’s night and drink a couple of bottles of wine with friends because mumming is hard. But cross the line, and it’s banishment and isolation
Emily Redondo
Although she was determined to leave booze behind for good, she couldn’t stay off it for long.
Major milestone events she missed in her baby’s life were his first smile and his first teeth arriving, due to being in rehab.
She even admitted rejecting hugs from her daughters so they wouldn’t smell alcohol on her breath.
As other mums began to learn about her addiction, they started shunning her from playdates and sharing lifts to school.
Emily – whose parents had also both been alcoholics – said: “Mothers shunning one of their own is a passive form of cruel aggression.
“We’re supposed to believe women are caring and kindhearted, when the truth is our aggression is ruthless.
“Wine has a fine line where, on one side, it’s ‘Let’s have girl’s night and drink a couple of bottles of wine with friends because mumming is hard. But cross the line, and it’s banishment and isolation.”
Her eventual turning point came when she felt that if she didn’t change her lifestyle for good, someone was going to die.
Emily shared: “Death was a presence with me, non-stop. I didn’t know if it was coming for me, or if it was coming for somebody who crossed my path. I just thought, I gotta find a way, I gotta figure this out, I gotta find out what’s wrong with me.”
She is now 51 and nine years sober, although she has some ongoing neurological issues from her alcohol abuse.
However, her kids – now aged between 15 and 27 – along with her husband Pete, are happy and healthy.
Emily said her book is not intended to blame anyone for her mistakes but to help others to feel empowered.
She wrote: “The things we hide make us who we are. It’s the reason the bigger story matters – not to expose family secrets or make villains and heroes of one another, but to get a sense of what’s really going on, what we inherit, and most important of all, what we pass down to our children.
“The more we bury, the more difficult it is to grow.”
Wife Mother Drunk: An Intergenerational Memoir of Loss and Love by Emily Redondo is published by Rise Books
What to do if you think are an alcoholic
IF you’re struggling with alcohol addiction, the most important thing is to recognise the problem and seek support – You don’t have to face it alone.
Seek Professional Help
- GP or Doctor – A medical professional can assess your situation and provide advice on treatment options.
- Therapists or Counsellors – Talking to an addiction specialist can help address underlying causes and develop coping strategies.
- Rehab or Detox Programmes – If physical dependence is severe, medically supervised detox may be necessary.
Consider Support Groups
