Nadia Sawalha and her husband Mark Adderley have given a candid insight into his battle with alcoholism, describing every day as a "struggle". In a searingly honest home video, the couple share their thoughts on the addiction which occurred in the early stages of their marriage.
In a Youtube video, shared on Nadia and Kaye Adams' channel, Mark explained: "Every day is a struggle. Every day is a huge effort, to not get up literally, but a huge effort to tackle the day. The whole day is to be attacked, to be grappled with, it's to be fought. It is exhausting. I always say to Nadia and the girls, 'Look you're all finding me irritating now, you can all walk through that door and leave me, I can't, I have to stay in the same room as me.'"
He continued: "The most important thing they used to say in the Priory you need to need to do it for yourself, you're not getting sober for your wife, you're not getting sober for your children, and I've said this many times, I differ from that. There's no better reason to get sober for your wife, your children, your family, because I struggle to do it for myself because I think I could cope, I could carry on."
The couple, who married in 2002 and have three children together, discussed how the period over Christmas is perhaps the hardest when trying to resist the temptation. Nadia said: "Sometimes it's a real struggle, but it is a struggle for the person living with the person as well, because I wake up and I'm naturally really happy but if someone has got depression and they're not happy, you almost feel guilty that you wake up jolly."
"Every day is a struggle, every day is a huge effort," said Mark
TV producer Mark, who was caught drink-driving by police in 2003, has been sober for 12 years. He went on to open up about a horrific experience which involved his oldest daughter, Izzy, when she couldn’t wake him up from the sofa. He added: "I wish that Izzy hadn’t had that one, two, three experiences before, and I wish that Maddy hadn’t had been a babe in arms for the first two years when I was really chaotic and all over the place, as I didn’t enjoy the first few years of Maddy and I know it was really difficult for Nadia. So the best reason is Nadia and the kids and that’s what works for me."
