Louise Thompson has marked five years of sobriety on Tuesday, sharing with fans a reflective post as she looked back on her ‘chaotic’ Made In Chelsea days as an alcohol drinker.
Taking to Instagram, the TV personality, 36, shared a video featuring several clips of her younger days on the reality show, with the star admitting in a voiceover that she only ‘felt confident when I was drunk’.
Baring her soul openly and honestly, Louise told how giving up the booze was a ‘non-negotiable’ if she wanted to turn her life around, with the mum-of-one noting that she ‘danced a fine dance with alcoholism’ at the peak of her drinking.
Speaking over the video, Louise looked back on how far she’s come, remarking she felt ’emotional’ as she admitted she ‘drank constantly’ and that at one point in her life, she didn’t feel she could go a week without consuming alcohol.
She shared: ‘Today marks 5 years sober. And it’s a strange one to talk about because I’ve never really seen it as an accomplishment. For me it was simply a non-negotiable.
‘It was something I had to do in order to survive through my trauma and to build a life that actually felt sustainable. Especially now I need to be a responsible parent. But saying five years out loud feels quite emotional, because there was a time where I genuinely didn’t think I could go a week without alcohol.
Louise Thompson has marked five years of sobriety on Tuesday, sharing with fans a reflective post as she looked back on her ‘chaotic’ Made In Chelsea days as an alcohol drinker
Louise Thompson has marked five years of sobriety on Tuesday, sharing with fans a reflective post as she looked back on her ‘chaotic’ Made In Chelsea days as an alcohol drinker
‘Drinking was completely normalised around me. It was normal in my dad’s generation, it was normal in mine. Nights out, long lunches, celebrations, commiserations… everything revolved around booze. And going against that, especially when everyone around you is still doing it, is incredibly hard.’
Reflecting on her time in Made In Chelsea, which she starred on between 2011 to 2020, she continued: ‘If you watched me on Made In Chelsea, you probably saw a lot of it. I drank constantly. And the truth is, I only really felt confident when I was drunk. It gave me this temporary version of myself that felt louder, braver and more interesting.
‘But the reality behind the scenes was really quite chaotic. I had my car seized three separate times because I’d left it parked somewhere and I was too drunk to go back and collect it. I woke up in random places, I let people down, I lost important things… at the time it all felt quite normal, funny even.’
On how her dependance on alcohol affected her life and interactions with others, Louise explained: ‘But alcohol has a quiet way of eroding things. It damages relationships, it clouds your judgement, it slowly pulls you further and further away from the person you actually are. And it definitely did that to me.’
Louise continued her poignant video by detailing how going teetotal has had a positive impact on herself, her relationships and her family, before addressing those who may be struggling with alcohol themselves.
She said: ‘Walking away from it forced me to rebuild myself from the ground up. But the person on the other side of that decision is someone that I’m really proud of. My relationships are stronger than they’ve ever been. My family, which at one point felt like it was hanging on by a thread, is now one of the most solid and important parts of my life.
‘I’m calmer, more present, more honest. And if you’re someone that feels like alcohol or addictions has a hold on you, I promise you that you’re not broken. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is go against the grain.’
She concluded by adding: ‘Five years ago I stopped drinking and slowly, quietly, life started to feel a lot bigger than alcohol ever made it seem.’
Louise, who has endured several health traumas over the years, also accompanied her video with a lengthy caption, in which she suggested that she was on the verge of alcoholism and that while her various health issues were not ‘my fault’, she felt that drinking was ‘a choice’.
Louise told how giving up the booze was a ‘non-negotiable’ if she wanted to turn her life around, noting that she ‘danced a fine dance with alcoholism’ at the peak of her drinking
Louise looked back on how far she’s come, admitting she ‘drank constantly’ and that at one point in her life, she didn’t feel she could go a week without consuming alcohol.
‘It was something I had to do in order to survive through my trauma and to build a life that actually felt sustainable. Especially now I need to be a responsible parent’
‘Saying five years out loud feels quite emotional, because there was a time where I genuinely didn’t think I could go a week without alcohol’
Reflecting on her time in Made In Chelsea, she continued: ‘If you watched me on Made In Chelsea , you probably saw a lot of it. I drank constantly’
She penned: ‘5 years sober. And one of the best non-decisions I’ve ever made.
‘For some reason, this video feels a bit scary to post, which might sound mad because I share a lot of full-on things on here… but when I really dig into it, I think the main difference for me is that none of those other things I’ve talked about have been my fault. Bad health wasn’t my fault, birth trauma wasn’t my fault, my stoma bag wasn’t my fault, my mental health wasn’t my fault.
‘But drinking kind of was. In a way. I had a choice to drink. Or did I? I feel like I danced a fine dance with alcoholism for many years of my adolescence, and I’m in a better place to acknowledge that now I’m fully out the other side.
‘It wasn’t very helpful when a lot of people I used to drink with told me I didn’t, maybe because I used to entertain them? But deep down I was always waiting for an epiphany to happen. I knew myself that I was desperate to give it up, but I could never abstain for longer than a few months at a time.’
The sister of Sam Thompson, whose health issues include Ulcerative Colitis, Lupus and Asherman’s Syndrome, went on to note that at the beginning of her sobriety journey, she was ‘too fearful’ of adding alcohol into her body alongside the numerous medications she was on
She said: ‘Without going into too much detail about my past right here right now (I’ll let the video do the talking, and maybe I can write a piece on it because I still maintain that I’m better with written word than spoken word – and long form over short form) I can say that I’ve finally reached a spot where I feel genuinely proud of myself for stopping for a decent chunk of time.
‘At the beginning, I didn’t feel particularly proud because I was simply too overwhelmed with life and poor mental health to even consider having a social life that involved alcohol. I was too fearful of everything I put in my body and all the medication I was on and obsessively tracking that I couldn’t think about adding anything else that would potentially alter the neurotransmitters in my brain and cause my life to mess up even more, so I hard-stopped. And I’ve never looked back. It’s one of the few things I’m grateful for the trauma for.
‘I knew I’d be a crap parent if I continued my drinking habits, so it’s quite good that that decision was removed for me. I am now a brilliant parent, a much better partner, family member, colleague.’
For confidential support contact Alcoholics Anonymous on 0800 917 7650 or help@aamail.org
