As a mother of three, I hid my cocaine in the airing cupboard and used while my family slept. No one had a clue… but this is what it did to my sex life and parenting. Here are the hidden signs someone YOU know is a secret addict

Standing in the shower at 6.30am I turned up the temperature, hotter and hotter. The water burned my skin, but I didn’t care. I felt like I deserved it.

My daughter and my two sons, aged nine, six and four at the time, were getting ready for school. I was tired, but not because of the pressure of motherhood.

I was doing cocaine streaks until 2 a.m. Now I was trying to cleanse myself of my shame.

I was married at 39 and living in a beautiful four-bedroom house in Surrey. Before I chose to become a stay-at-home mum, I was earning £100,000 a year in my marketing career. On paper, my life was perfect. Yet here I was, hiding the bags of cocaine in the airing cupboard.

This wasn’t a one-off either. In total, my secret addiction lasted ten years; It took away my marriage, my savings, and nearly destroyed my life.

When I was 29, my daughter Abigail was born, and I got married the same year. I met my husband Tim at a birthday party and he was traveling the world working as a motivational speaker.

I was so excited to be a mother and I devoted myself completely to it, not touching even a drop of alcohol while pregnant or breastfeeding.

But when my second child, Josh, arrived three years later, things were different. By then I had quit my job and was struggling to cope with the loss of my identity and spiraling into postpartum depression. I remember the health visitor asking if I ‘still enjoyed being a mother’. I lied and said yes. It was too scary to accept the truth.

I was so excited to become a mother without touching a drop of alcohol while pregnant or breastfeeding – but when my second child arrived it was a different story 9image posed by models)

I took my first dose of cocaine in college. I liked the buzz of it, the way it made me feel in control. However, although I dabbled in my youth, I was shocked years later when someone from our affluent social circle in Surrey snorted cocaine for the first time at a dinner party.

After dessert, one of the dads said, ‘Let’s bring out the next course,’ and everyone started grumbling around the table. After my shock wore off, I remember thinking, if this is the norm with this respectable and successful crowd, it can’t be that bad. Tim also participated.

This social cocaine use continued when we all became parents.

It was a Friday night when Josh was six months old and Tim was away for work that changed my life. I put the kids to bed and felt completely, overwhelmingly alone.

That’s when I remembered that I had hidden some cocaine from a dinner party I hosted. On the spur of the moment, I grumbled a line on my own, hoping it would provide a much-needed revival.

Instead of dragging around miserably in my slippers, I was suddenly buzzing, feeling an incredible rush, and getting all my tasks done in twice the time. I felt great.

However, as a result, I couldn’t sleep and was exhausted the next day; Not to mention the guilt I felt for taking illegal drugs while my children were sleeping upstairs and I was solely responsible for them. I knew Tim would be very angry if he found out.

It should have been a cautionary tale, but the memory of feeling energized and in control for the first time in months lingered. And unfortunately I told myself that next time I would draw a smaller line.

At first I was drawing a line once or twice a month, always while the kids were sleeping. But for the next five years, this increased to once a week.

I tried to justify this. It felt like a reward for parenting alone while my husband regularly worked away. When we met, it made me feel better that my other mom friends were doing this too; Although I never admitted that I did this alone.

I can now see that my growing habit was masking my depression. Tim was not supportive; I felt neglected as she was constantly angry at me for not being able to ‘manage’.

I had always wanted three children, and when I became pregnant with my third child in my mid-30s, I hoped it would fix my marriage.

I stopped using cocaine while pregnant and breastfeeding, but nothing changed in my relationship. Depression soon set in again and I turned to cocaine, desperate to escape the realities of my life and my crumbling marriage.

Over the next four years my usage increased until I was doing five lines a night, several times a week. I was constantly sniffling or having a red nose, and I was telling the kids I had hay fever or the flu. They got used to ‘mother being sick all the time’.

I used to withdraw £100 a day in cash after the school run to pay my dealers. Tim and I had separate bank accounts, so he had no idea. He could see that I was in bad shape, but he didn’t seem to care. At one point she snapped, ‘Watch yourself, this is not the person I married.’

Over the course of four years my usage increased until I was doing five lines a night, several times a week.

He was so far away from work that I started to get suspicious. I checked his phone and found flirtatious messages from three different women. When I confronted him, he admitted cheating but blamed it on me, saying: ‘You’re not meeting my needs.’

I was crushed. We stopped having sex a year ago because depression caused me to lose my confidence.

In 2017, three months after I found out about his affairs, when our children were between six and 11 years old, I told him I was leaving him.

As a single mom with no family nearby, my struggling friends became my lifeline. But then came the lockdown in March 2020. Because I was desperately lonely, I started getting lines until 12, both day and night.

Homeschooling was a disaster; The kids were glued to their PlayStations and I felt too guilty to drag them away.

Once the lockdown ended, everything continued to slide. They regularly missed football practice on Saturday mornings because I was depressed and couldn’t get out of bed. I never remembered school events.

I felt like I was failing as a parent. As the drug’s effect on me diminished, the lines of cocaine grew. Cocaine was my escape, but the more I used, the less I could cope.

My friends started to worry about me. I looked terrible; My skin was dry and spotty, my eyes were sunken, and I was a size six. I blamed the divorce.

Finally, at 3 a.m. on a Wednesday in February 2021, at age 43, I lay in bed; My heart was pounding and I was sweating, and I was thinking: ‘If I don’t get help, I’m going to die.’

By then I had spent more than £80,000 on cocaine over the last decade, including the bulk of my divorce settlement. I googled ‘help me quit cocaine’ and found the online treatment center Help Me Stop. It was ideal for me because I couldn’t send my sons to rehab. They accepted me for a six-week course that included 2.5 hours a day of group sessions via Zoom as well as one-on-one therapy.

Getting clean wasn’t easy, but it felt incredible. After a few weeks, I noticed that I could smile again, sleep again, and laugh with my children. Since getting clean, I have gone further in parenting and wanted to make up for those years with my children. When I look back, I am horrified; I could lose custody because of my drug use.

Five years later, I still attend online Narcotics Anonymous meetings. There, I met other moms with stories just like mine, but there was no judgment, just support.

I am now 48 and have retrained as a counselor helping others with addiction. Sounds like the best way to make up for it.

• Serena Whiles is a pseudonym. Names and identification information have been changed
• as it is said Emma Elms