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In this wrenching debut memoir of love, family, and addiction, Liz Fraser tells her story of watching a partner unravel from alcoholism and working to rebuild a life together."My name is Liz, and I am the partner of an alcoholic."
This is the story of two people in love, who packed up their lives and drove a thousand miles across Europe in a transit van to the magical island of Venice, to start their new lives and dreams together and raise their baby girl there. They left behind everything they didn't need. But they also brought something terrible with them: alcoholism.
In the summer of 2019, Liz Fraser watched her husband fall into a catastrophic vortex of depression, alcoholism and self-destruction, which, unbeknownst to her, had been slowly bubbling and building for years. She was suddenly left alone with their baby, in a foreign country, renovating a house, and paying all the family bills along with his enormous drink-related costs. She worked when she could with no childcare or support, all while slowly losing her mind from shock, exhaustion, and heartbreak.
It was a long and lonely time before she met others who live, or have lived, with alcoholism or other substance abuse, whether a spouse, a partner, a child or friend, and found enormous relief in talking about it with people who could understand. In
Coming Clean, Liz tells her story--of life with an alcoholic at his darkest moments, and the uncertain journey through recovery as her husband nears six months of sobriety. With this raw, wrenching memoir, she gives a voice and offers hope to everyone watching a loved one struggle with substance abuse with the crucial reminder: you are not alone.
List of contents
Prologue
Introduction
Part One: Cambridge
Part Two: Venice
Part Three: Madness
Part Four: Scandinavia
Part Five: Shutting the Door
Part Six: The Eternal Chaos of the Broken Mind
Part Seven: Rock Bottom
Part Eight: Sobriety
Part Nine: Lockdown and Breakdown
Part Ten: Recovery
Epilogue
Resources
About the author
Liz Fraser is a writer and broadcaster on all aspects of modern family life. The author of five books, she has written for the Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Grazia, Glamour, Marie Claire, Red and Runner's World among others and appears frequently on TV and radio. She has a psychology degree from Cambridge University and speaks openly about her struggles with various mental health issues. Liz has four children spanning twenty years, and lives in Oxford.
Summary
'Raw, unflinching, incredibly brave' - BBC Woman's Hour
'Visceral and gripping' - Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun
Coming Clean is a searingly honest memoir of loving an alcoholic - both through the heaviest drinking years and into recovery.
When Liz Fraser's partner fell into a catastrophic vortex of depression and alcoholism, Liz found herself in a relentless hailstorm of lies, loneliness and fear, looking after their young child on her own, heartbroken, mentally shattered and with no idea what was happening or what to do.
As she and her family moved between Cambridge, Venice and Oxford, she kept the often shocking truth entirely to herself for a long time, trying in vain to help her partner find a path to sobriety, until she herself finally broke from the trauma and started to speak out - only to find she was one of hundreds experiencing similar things, also living in silence and fear.
Part diary, part travel journal and part love letter, Coming Clean is the true story of addiction of many kinds, mental collapse and heartbreak. Above all, it offers a voice of deep human compassion, strength and hope for recovery.
I hope that in sharing this story it might change the way addiction is talked about and understood from both sides, encourage open, trusting and supportive dialogue between addicts and those their addiction affects, and provide some solace and help for those who need it - as I did.
Foreword
Coming Clean is a searingly honest memoir of loving an alcoholic - both through the heaviest drinking years and into recovery.
Additional text
Liz Fraser's memoir will break your heart into a million pieces and then gently squeeze it back together. Heart-rending and sad. A wonderful book.
