My Story
Watch this documentary made about my life and drinking
💗My Story So Far
Hello there, I’m Valerie Moughan — founder of The Emotional Drinker, English-born, Irish-bred mischief-maker, mother of five, granny of five and proud pug mum to Buster. I’m an alcohol coach who tells it like it is… with a cup of tea in one hand and a bloody good story in the other.
But let’s not sugar-coat it — getting here wasn’t some smooth ride into the sunrise.
In June 2020, in Co. Mayo, Ireland, I found myself lying in my friend Judy’s bed — hungover, humiliated, and heartbroken. I had just lost everything: my home, my business in Ireland, my marriage, my children, access to my grandchildren, my health, and honestly… a bit of my will to go on.
I’d been sober for nearly a decade, but I’d relapsed — hard. And I didn’t just fall; I fell with a splat… and a bottle of vodka I didn’t even like the taste of.
That’s the cruel thing about emotional drinking — it’s not about liking the drink. It’s about wanting to escape your own thoughts. It’s drinking because your brain won’t shut up and your heart’s too full of grief, rage, guilt, or loneliness to cope. And the world? Well, it just expects you to carry on like nothing’s happening.
I won’t bore you with all the details just yet (that juicy bit’s coming in the updated 10th anniversary edition of my book Come Back When You’re Sober) — but by October 2020, I’d landed in England, broken but breathing, with my parents and my brother Mark. And I’ve been here ever since.
Did I stop drinking the moment I left Ireland in a wheelchair on that Ryanair flight?