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Barry, Nicola.

Mother's ruin - Headline Review: London 2008. - 292 p.

Originally published 2007.

Nicola Barry grew up in well-to-do Murrayfield, Edinburgh. Her father was a hospital consultant, her mother was medically trained, her brothers boarders at public school. But behind the closed doors of their imposing family home, her mother was drinking herself to death. A beautiful, quirky woman, this is the story of how Monica Barry became a prisoner to alcohol and a prisoner in her own home, her addiction slowly sucking the life out of her. And how - with her father at work, and her brothers away at school -Nicola spent a lot of her childhood as her mother's unofficial carer: hauling her from the bath when she was too drunk to function and running errands to buy her booze. Full of harrowing incidents, and warmed by a touching, bleak humour, this is the powerful story of how a mother drank herself to death and how alcohol destroyed a family. And of how Nicola battled with her own alcoholism but, determined to throw off her mother's legacy, came through - a survivor.

ISBN: 9780755316724

Subjects--Topical Terms:
Barry, Nicola Childhood and youth.
Women alcoholics Scotland Edinburgh.
Mothers and daughters Scotland Edinburgh.
Women alcoholics Family relationships Scotland Edinburgh.
Children of alcoholics Scotland Edinburgh Biography.

Dewey Class. No.: 362.2923092