For all this yummy mummy knows, the only therapy sessions I’ve seen have been on The Sopranos

But I’ve had more therapy than most people have had hot dinners. What did I learn? That I am OK – warts and all, reveals Charlotte Cripps

‘Why... do I look like I need it?’, I thought to myself, feeling a twinge of paranoia as I sipped my cappuccino (Amara May)

I was having coffee with a friend outside at my local cafe when she told me she’s got a therapist on tap for her teenage daughter. It was all rather alarming; they had just received a bill and it’s £100 a phone session. The daughter was averaging two or three times a week during the stricter lockdown. My yummy mummy friend asked her: “Are you in crisis?” And she said: “No, I’m just bored.”

The daughter also racked up bills for a sports masseuse at school, and when the mum pointed out that she didn’t do any exercise her daughter said: “Whatever.”

Apparently she’s hacked their Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo accounts: the mum’s phone keeps going “ping, ping” to show the rider is on the way – but to her daughter’s exclusive co-ed private school. “Yes she wanders around the golf course smoking cigarettes with her friends,” the mum told me. She’s just bought her son’s uniform for Eton – it was £2,000.

My friend kept saying “you have all this to look forward to” – but I can’t see how. Lola has just got into a local church school. OK, it’s where David Cameron sent his children and it’s off High Street Ken – but when I checked out the uniform, it’s going to cost me £40 if I push the boat out with all the logos.

“Do you do therapy?” the mum then asked me.

Why... do I look like I need it?, I thought to myself, feeling a twinge of paranoia as I sipped my cappuccino. Do I look like the mad woman in the attic or something? Is it the fact I’m a single mum – and my two children’s dad died before my children were born using his frozen sperm? Do they think I”m in bits every night – sobbing into my pillow – as they order sushi with their husbands and brood of brats?

“No,” I tell her. “I don’t have a therapist. Do you?” For all she knows, I’ve only seen therapy sessions on The Sopranos – rather than endure the daily grind of group therapy and one-to-one sessions I did in rehab and aftercare.

How ongoing are you talking – weeks, months? A year? But you are not answering my question! Will I have to go to 12-step meetings forever?

I’ve had more therapy than most people have had hot dinners. What did I learn? That I am OK – warts and all. That nobody else can fix me. It was an inside job. And my family is dysfunctional. That’s it in a nutshell after years and years of therapy. I hadn’t wanted to go at first but it’s unavoidable when you arrive at a rehab.

My mum had been a therapist later in life – perhaps I drove her to it – and whenever we saw one of her clients pass in the street, my mum would hide me in a bush because she didn’t want them to know anything about her life. “I must be a blank book,” she would tell me. My dad had to come home from the office through the garage door and stayed in the kitchen until her final client had left.

I will never forget that day in rehab when I realised that therapy was not the cure: “What do you mean this is an ongoing process? I spat. “How ongoing are you talking – weeks, months? A year?”

“It’s a daily reprieve,” the rehab counsellor told me.

“But you are not answering my question!” I said, nearly sobbing. “Will I have to go to 12-step meetings forever?”

We all do it. You walk in the door and think a few weeks or a month is going to do the trick; or once you unearth a painful childhood memory you will no longer be an alcoholic – but no! There is no cure. I nearly fainted. Plus I can’t drink? Even on my birthday? I had no idea then that as I worked the 12-step programme, and as time went on, the desire to drink would literally be removed. How else would I manage it for 21 years? I’m not holding on by my teeth – teetering on the edge of a relapse every Saturday night.

But then I wanted to run away from myself – from this reality. “Do you know what ‘fear’ stands for?” asked the counsellor? “F*** Everything And Run.” Yes please, I thought. But I chose instead to “Face Everything And Recover”.