Nadia Sawalha welled up on Friday's episode of Loose Women as she spoke about her husband's past battle with alcoholism. The TV star revealed that she gave her partner Mark Adderley an ultimatum and ordered him to go to rehab. She confessed that she still feels "really guilty" for "enabling" him, by covering up for his drinking and not encouraging him to seek help sooner. Nadia, who has two daughters with Mark, said: "It took me a couple of years to realise that Mark wasn't just a party guy or a heavy drinker, he was just an alcoholic. There is a real difference between somebody who drinks and somebody who is an alcoholic. I had to be able to say to him, 'No more'."
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Nadia Sawalha and her two daughters Maddie and Kiki-Bee
The presenter, 52, added: "It's such a hard thing to be honest and say that we've got a major problem here. I was enabling him. I was helping him be an alcoholic by covering for him because nobody knew he was an alcoholic except me. I said, 'You won't spend one more night in this house if you don't get help for alcoholism'." She went on: "I also knew that I wasn't going to live with him if he carried on. He might not have survived."
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"I was enabling him," Nadia admitted
Nadia admitted that while she was caring for Mark, she let her friendships slip by the wayside, particularly her relationship with best friend Kaye Adams, her fellow Loose Women panellist. "I still feel really guilty," said Nadia. "If anybody's watching this who is living with an alcoholic, you'll know it is so all-consuming. [Mark] was a high functioning alcoholic so nobody at work knew, but I did neglect my relationships."
Kaye remarked: "We didn't talk for three years. I didn't know what had happened to a certain extent, it was an odd situation." She then reassured Nadia, saying: "You did the right thing. You were protecting your family until and here you are 13 years on."