I went from one glass of wine in the evening to a box every night

MUM Clare Hutton was days from death when her husband rushed her to A&E with stomach pain.

The primary school teacher’s “wine o’clock” habit had gone from one glass each evening to a box of wine every night, as well as vodka.

Her liver was failing and doctors told her bluntly: Stop drinking or die. Three years on, she hasn’t touched alcohol again and is desperate to warn others of the perils.

Clare, 43, of Warwick, said: “I’d always been somebody who enjoyed a glass of wine to relax after work.

“But then a glass became two or three and before I ended up in hospital I was drinking a whole box of it, plus a small bottle of vodka.

“It just crept up on me. It was my way of coping with life’s stresses.

“After separating from my children’s father, I was in an abusive relationship before getting with my current husband Matt.”

Clare told how reality hit home at Royal Leicester Infirmary. Doctors told her that if she had carried on drinking for another 10 days she would have died. Clare admitted: “I knew there and then I would never drink again. I don’t want to die.”

But the effects of ARLD will be with her for ever. She was bedbound for a year, cannot work as a teacher because of short-term memory loss – and her two boys, aged 14 and 16, are now in their father’s care.

And that hurts most of all. Clare said: “It breaks my heart. I wish I had known the damage that drinking was doing. That’s the message I want to get across. Don’t end up like me.”