I'm a 20 year old girl who has grown up with an Alcoholic mother suffering abuse, homelessness and heartbreak.

My mother Rena started drinking since I was young, I would always remember her with a bottle every evening to 'unwind'. She was consistently late (1 hour +) to pick me up from school, always waking up with a hangover and slowly began to get even more and more violent. She would turn up to parent evenings giddy and was so used to the life, she could hide being drunk like a hollywood actress. She would hit me or pull my hair purely because I was a little girl who got on her nerves. My mum is a single parent and did her best for me but now she's reliable on alcohol and as I got older I started to notice more and more how it affected me, I had no friends and my family did not want to know.

She would show up at my work place and show me up by telling people false information about me or call my friends up and tell them lies like 'Ciara doesn't like you no more so delete her number'. This has caused me to lose work and lose friends. I'm losing everything including my mum. My mum drank to forget her flaws and I haven't seen her sober for months and now she needs help but this help is pricey.

As a child of an alcoholic it ruins you as a person, you never trust and you never make friendships and you doubt yourself every single day because of what you go through. You never know what parent you are going to get...sober or drunk. There is a charity for Children and Adult Children of Alcoholics known as NACOA and here is a link which shows the characteristics and personality of a child growing up with alcoholism; https://www.searidgealcoholrehab.com/article-adult-children-of-alcoholics.php

However there is no help whatsoever if you are living with an alcoholic especially if they dont want to help themselves. The NHS and free groups such as AA doesn't work for everyone and has extremely long waiting lists that the time they do come around they are either dead or gone too far. Groups such as AA in fact made my mum worse because of the consistent subject of alcohol.

I want to raise £10,000 for my mum to go to a 3 month residential rehab. The way my mum has treated me makes some people question why I want to help her BUT I want other children to see if I can help my mum and she gets better I can help them too. I want to eventually create a diary of my mum's journey and set up a charity for people like her and me where children who need financial help to help their parents and show them that they can get better and they will become your mum or dad again.

For more information on how alcoholism is affecting children and adult children of alcoholic parents see NACOA.