Lulu has revealed she fears she could suffer a relapse in her battle with alcoholism, after being ‘traumatised’ by sharing her struggles in her tell-all memoir.
The Eurovision star, 77, who has been sober for more than 12 years, explained that she has had moments of temptation but has never given in because of the consequences, as she appeared on Matt Willis’ On The Mend podcast.
During the interview, Lulu also revealed she’s returned to therapy after being affected by opening up about her demons in her book.
The Shout hitmaker said: ‘I have a healthy fear of relapse, but I don’t go around thinking, oooh oooh. I think I have an understanding that it could happen.
‘Many times when I’m with people who are drinking really good wine, which you develop a taste for – the good things in life – I don’t know that I’ve had many experiences where I thought, I wish that was me.
‘But I’ve had a couple of times when I thought, “This is so delicious, this food, I would love that white wine with this”.
Lulu, 77, has admitted that she fears alcohol relapse as she revealed she has been ‘thrown back into therapy’ after her tell-all memoir ‘traumatised’ her
The Eurovision star, who has been sober for more than 12 years, explained that she has had moments of temptation as she appeared on Matt Willis’ On The Mend podcast
‘But I know where I go when I have that. And the price I would have to pay – it’s like cutting off your arm… I would just collapse. It would be the end of me.’Â
Lulu also revealed that the process of writing her memoir, If Only You Knew, published last autumn, had a profound impact on her mental health.
‘I need to go back into therapy, seriously. I did it for the book. The book threw me back into therapy, it traumatised me so much,’ she said.
The Scottish singer explained how revisiting her past for the memoir forced her to confront difficult truths about her identity.
She described herself as having ‘two characters’ – Marie, her birth name, and Lulu, the stage persona she adopted at 15 when she had her first hit record.
‘The first hat I wore, and the character that I know [and] is very much a part of me, is Marie,’ she explained. ‘When I was 15, I had to change to Lulu.’
She described Marie as ‘happy but scrappy, sometimes angry, bluesy’, while Lulu was the ‘pop princess who was squeaky clean’.
‘I had to change everything. When I brought [Lulu] along, people liked her. I liked the love I was getting, or the adulation, or the praise, or the success,’ she said.
The Shout hitmaker said: ‘I have a healthy fear of relapse, but I don’t go around thinking, oooh oooh. I think I have an understanding that it could happen’
Lulu also revealed that the process of writing her memoir, If Only You Knew, published last autumn, had a profound impact on her mental health
‘But the trouble was, as one goes through life, and you’re a very simple child, who’s not stupid, but simple… Uneducated. I was that one character and it eventually rubbed against me, and it became a problem.’Â
Lulu opened up about her battle with alcoholism in her memoir and revealed what led her to have her last ever drink back in November 2013.
In an interview on This Morning last year, she discussed her past addiction and confessed how ‘sad’ she feels that her dad didn’t have the same amount of help she did.
Presenter Cat Deeley said: ‘Considering the history you have as well, the way you were brought up, the family you lived in, you’d seen this before, really?’
Lulu replied: ‘My father. They would say, “Oh, Eddie likes a good drink.”
‘Back in that day they didn’t have the tools to be able to help themselves,’ Cat pointed out.
With tears filling her eyes, Lulu replied: ‘It really makes me sad when I think that my parents didn’t have the help that I have today.
‘My sister is a psychotherapist. She knew not to bring it up until I brought it up.’
Lulu’s parents are Betty McDonald and Eddie Lawrie.
The Shout singer previously confessed during the interview: ‘I had this secretive, but actually shame-filled, full of shame about being an alcoholic like my dad, full of shame about a lot of things that happened in my childhood, a lot of things I’d done.’
Presenter Ben Shephard wanted to know why she decided to have her last drink all those years ago.
Lulu explained: ‘I don’t think I decided, sometimes things are decided for us.
‘I struggled, struggled, struggled for years, secretly. Nobody knew I was an alcoholic.’
The presenter went on to ask how bad it was, to which she replied: ‘It was bad.
‘It was never bad because I was a fall-down drunk, nobody ever saw me, my son didn’t know I was an alcoholic even when I went to rehab and I called him.’
The star said that she was ‘secretive’ about it all, would go out and go home and have ‘another drink’, and she couldn’t stop drinking.
Despite keeping it to herself, her sister knew all along what was going on with her.
Lulu said: ‘I had a birthday party, everybody left, except my sister and her kids, two of them lived with me.
‘In the conversation around the table with a cup of tea, although I probably had a glass of wine, but I might have had a cup of tea…
‘My niece said, ‘You know so and so, he’s hanging on by his fingernails,’ talking about his problem with alcohol.
‘And I said, I don’t know where it came from, “He’s not the only one.”
‘It was silent. My sister looked at me and said very kindly, she said: “I know. I’ve known for quite some time.”
‘The cat was out of the bag. It was as if somebody up there likes me, I know have to share it.
‘I couldn’t ask for help before, but at that moment, I looked at my sister and said: “I have to go to rehab?” She said: “I think so.”
‘I was there the next day.’
