How I almost destroyed my life with booze over acid hell
Brave Katie tells of all-night binges
ACID attack victim Katie Piper has told how she almost destroyed herself booze-bingeing all night to blot out the trauma of her ordeal.
The 34-year-old turned to drink – sometimes until 7am – to “feel numb and be anybody else but Katie Piper” as she battled anxiety and loneliness.
Her ordeal followed the shocking 2008 incident in which she lost the sight in one eye and suffered terrible burns after sulphuric acid was flung in her face. The jealous stalker who ordered the ambush and the man who carried it out were both jailed for life.
On the opening night of her onewoman show, What’s In My Head, the activist and TV presenter told fans: “I almost destroyed myself six or seven years into my recovery.
“I can talk about the attack and graphic photos quite easily but this part is difficult because I’ve never talked about it before.”
Katie bravely took the stage at London’s Duchess Theatre, only 20 minutes away from the attack scene in Golders Green.
She said she started to “self-medicate” with alcohol after moving back to her flat following hospital treatment and having trouble sleeping.
She said: “I’d drink wine, move on to a dodgy spirit, then your cousin’s birthday champagne – then you hear a noise and it’s your neighbours going to work and it’s 7am.
“I was drinking to feel numb. To feel absolutely nothing until I felt unconsciousness. I was drinking to be someone else.” Katie was at the height of her boozing in 2013 when she met builder and carpenter Richard Sutton, now her husband, through a friend. She told how Richard had supported her as she battled her demons, saying: “We were dating, and it’s so easy to drink because it’s so socially accepted. But he stood by me. “People have seen photos of my husband at red carpet events but nobody has really heard about what he did behind all of that.” She added that his support reminded her of the mantra, “When you can’t look on the bright side I will sit with you in the dark.” Loyal Richard proposed in 2014 and the couple, who have two children, wed the year after. But just before the big day Katie was forced to have an emergency op for a nearfatal torn oesophagus. Describing the wedding, Hampshireborn Katie said: “I was starving and shaking, sometimes fuzzy when saying the vows. “My breath stank, I had miso broth and felt so ill. But it was still my perfect day. “I married somebody that genuinely loves me for the right reason.” Katie went on to describe how she had finally got free of the hold that booze had over her. She said: “I broke that cycle of using alcohol as a plaster, as an anaesthetic and a solution, and I did that by getting specialist counselling. “Now I recognise those triggers and I use different coping mechanisms.” On a lighter note, Katie said she may have picked up traits from the eye tissue donor who saved her sight – because she had developed a liking for boxing and Corona lager.