Millie Mackintosh on sobriety, shame and the ‘grey areas’ we don’t talk about
Millie Mackintosh on sobriety, shame and the ‘grey areas’ we don’t talk about
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Mackintosh’s dedication to staying sober and healthy is a self-love lesson for the ages, she tells Emilie Lavinia why she decided to write her new book Bad Drunk. The difficult part of the conversation, the one that made us shift into our seats, was the mention of shame. Mackintosh’s perfectly curated Instagram feed and enviable wellness routine of smoothies and Pilates might, at first glance, convince you that she is a woman who has never felt a shred of self-loathing or misplaced confidence. But this is precisely why she decided to write her new book, which explores her relationship with alcohol.
“I really wanted to write this book because I wish I had read it. I wish I’d read it as a young girl, as a teen, and I also wish I’d had it when I stopped drinking to support me through that process,” she tells me. “I wanted to try and help other people that felt a similar way to me, like they didn’t necessarily need to go to rehab, and didn’t feel like AA was the right fit for them, but they wanted to change their relationship with alcohol. They didn’t like the way that they were behaving when they were drinking, they didn’t like the way that it was controlling their behaviour.”.
In Bad Drunk, she describes weekends lost to hangovers, picking fights, not feeling capable of caring for her kids, uncontrollable anxiety and a cycle of deteriorating self-esteem that led to more drinking and prescription tranquilisers. It’s a huge admission to record everything you’ve ever felt ashamed about and then release those words into the world, “but,” she says, “I thought if I’m going to do the book, I really can’t hold back.”.
