30 years sober..but I’m still taking it one day at a time
TOP AUTHOR ON SUCCESS IN BOOKS AND LOVE
TOP novelist MARIAN KEYES says she’s just an ordinary alcoholic trying to stay sober as she marks anniversaries of writing & marriage – and 30 years since quitting booze. Hannah Stephenson reports...
SHE may call herself an “ordinary alcoholic” - but there is nothing ordinary about global bestselling Irish novelist Marian Keyes.
Her contemporary tales of relationships, family and the ups and downs of life have earned her millions of fans.
And in January, she celebrated 30 years of sobriety, feeling “pride, pleasure and delight”, posting a heartfelt Instagram message to those who are struggling with alcohol issues.
Today, she openly admits that she still goes to support meetings regularly.
“I’m just an ordinary alcoholic, trying my best to stay sober one day at a time,” she says. “It doesn’t go away. It’s not like, you have cancer and then you get cured and you’re grand. But [meetings] work for me.”
There are other landmark anniversaries and events - a portrait of her was recently unveiled at the National Gallery of Ireland, she’s about to celebrate 30 years as a published author and last year she turned 60, although she doesn’t feel her age, she insists.
Invisible
“I felt fine at the time because I’ve never minded about getting older. I’ve always felt that as I’ve got older, life has got easier in terms of what people expect from women. Becoming invisible has definitely got a lot going for it.
“I’ve felt weird in that I feel much younger than 60 and in a way that my life is still waiting to start. I realise that people don’t grow out of this. I think one day I’ll feel like I’ve arrived. Sixty was the age that women were put out to grass, 60 sounds older than it actually is. It’s not what it was 30 years ago.
“You know, it’s youthful now. Between HRT and the fish oils, I feel younger than 60.”
Next year she celebrates 30 years since her debut novel, Watermelon, was published. Her array of bestsellers since then includes Rachel’s Holiday, Grown Ups and This Charming Man.
Keyes has gone through huge peaks and troughs since Watermelon, including periods of clinical depression when she was unable to sleep, read, write or talk, and tried many therapies – both conventional and alternative.
She’s
‘Falling in love is not a game, it’s real life’
also gone through the menopause which she describes as “awful”. Today, though, she feels grateful for all that she has in her career and her personal life.
“I feel amazed and incredibly lucky to have been published and allowed to keep doing this for so long,” she reflects.
Keyes, who lives in Dublin with her husband Tony Baines, seems flummoxed as to why her novels have become multimillion sellers that have stood the test of time.
“I can only go on what other people tell me, that I write with warmth, and I’m truthful, honest and authentic in my characters and people find that comforting,” she said.
Her latest book, My Favourite Mistake, sees 40-something Anna Walsh - one of the sisters in the Walsh family, as featured in some of her previous novels - throwing away her dream life and high flying career as a beauty PR executive in New York, and ditching her partner, to return to friends and family in Ireland.
Boyfriends
Keyes admits she had her fair share of unsuitable boyfriends in her 20s when at the height of her alcoholism and struggled with self respect.
She says: “Falling in love is not a game, it’s about real life, thinking, can I live with this person? Do I care about them, do I want to mind them, do I trust them, are they kind to me?”
Enter Baines, her husband of almost 30 years, who she knew through friends while she was still drinking.
“He’s reliable, he’s kind, he’s clever,” she says of him. “He is very different to me. He is whatever the opposite of an addict is. He’s moderate in his habits. But in other things, we are very aligned on our views on the world.”
Keyes says she no longer feels herself slipping into depression because she looks after her mental health better and has learned to say no to .
“I’m not going there again. It was awful and I don’t think I’d have the stamina to survive another go.”
My Favourite Mistake by Marian Keyes is published by Penguin Michael Joseph on April 11, priced €16.99.