Lockdown drove us to drink! Three working mums shame-facedly reveal their drinking diaries 

Four months of juggling the horrors of home schooling with work and domestic drudgery — with no avenues of escape — has been enough to make many a woman turn to drink.

The internet is awash with mums swapping tales of double gins as they struggle through maths lessons and 2pm becoming the new 6pm. 

Commenting on the ‘wine o’clock’ culture recently, broadcaster Jenni Murray said it’s getting to the point where women are ‘treating white wine as a non-alcoholic beverage’.

While the recommended weekly drinking limit is 14 units spread over three or more days — equivalent to around six glasses of wine — many people are drinking more than this a night. 

A survey recently commissioned by Help4Addiction showed 71 per cent of people made redundant, and 54 per cent on furlough, were drinking more. 

Doctors warn that frequent, long-term binge-drinking, defined as six or more units in a single session for a woman, can increase your risk of developing cancer, and heart and liver problems.

However, for those worried after over-indulging these past few months, research has shown that taking a month off alcohol can heal the liver and lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels as well as your cancer risk.

Here, three working mums — who rarely touched a drop until the spring — bravely reveal their alcohol diary from last week to show how their weekly drinking habits have significantly increased during lockdown . . .

Only one drink-free day – because I had a hangover

Rachel Helm, 36, is a college lecturer who lives in Bingley, West Yorkshire, with bank worker husband David, also 36, and children Isaac, nine, Phoebe, seven, from a previous relationship, and Jonah, one. 

She has been working from home full-time throughout lockdown. She says:

To date, I’ve had only one alcohol-free day during lockdown and that’s because I was horribly hungover!

The days pre-lockdown when I’d limit myself to a small glass of white wine once the children were in bed are a hazy memory.

These past months I’ve had up to four glasses of prosecco a day during the week, with gin and cocktails at weekends, and David’s gone from one beer a night to three or four, on average. 

Our recycling bin is overflowing and around £100 of our £350 fortnightly food bill goes on booze.

I’m quite shocked by my diary and the number of units I’m consuming. Most of my friends say it’s crept up on them, too: a daily tipple or several has been the only relief from the frustrations of playing teacher, cook and cleaner while also trying to work from home.

There have been days when home-schooling has driven me to pour a drink at lunchtime, although I try to hold out till I’m cooking the children’s dinner. I’ve put on half a stone purely through drinking.

Come September when I have to get up early to drive to school again, I’ll be glad to revert to my sensible habit

I had to knock back a gin after my son spoilt my zoom meeting

Laura Shaw, 39, owns a mortgage consultancy and lives in Norfolk. She’s a single mum to Sofia, eight, and Dominic, six.

She has been working from home throughout lockdown. She says: 

Anyone who saw me on a woodland walk with my children a short stroll from our home one evening recently will have assumed it was coffee I was drinking from my portable mug. In fact, it was full of gin.

I felt exceptionally naughty, but the children had driven me nuts that day and I knew a tipple while attempting to wear them out before bedtime would make me feel better.

Pre-lockdown, I’d have one G&T at home on a Friday night, and a couple of drinks on  occasional nights out. 

But within a week of lockdown I was drinking every day — sometimes as early as lunchtime after a hellish morning of home-schooling, or at teatime when the Prime Minister delivered more miserable news.

I only drink gin and tonic and have never had more than three in a day, conscious of being on my own with the children.

I remember crying one day as I tried to explain to them that just as they miss their friends, I miss mine. 

I didn’t qualify for any financial help from the Government, so I’ve felt huge pressure being a single mum and having to continue to work as well as home-school.

We do it intensively every morning so I can work in the afternoons. But teaching my children to sing in Spanish or recite poetry has almost pushed me to pour a drink mid-morning — I always hold out till at least lunchtime, but the thought’s been there on stressful days.

One afternoon when I was on a Zoom work meeting, my son yelled: ‘Mummy, I need you to come and wipe my bottom!’ for the duration of the 40-minute call. 

At the end of it I had to knock back a mouthful of gin before I went to the bathroom to oblige.

I’m cock-a-hoop that home-schooling ends this week, but it’s hard enough keeping the children entertained for six weeks usually, let alone off the back of four months at home. 

So I can’t see me reverting to my one Friday tipple until they’re back in school

It’s been so easy to slip into a new boozy habit

Sarah Ryman, 45, is a marketing consultant and lives in Brighton with husband Rob, also 45, a mechanic, and their daughters Daisy, 14, and Hunny, ten. 

She has been working from home throughout lockdown. She says:

On warm evenings during lockdown I’ve often escaped to meet my girlfriends at the allotments next door under the guise of growing our own veg.

But very little digging has been done as we’ve been too busy drinking red wine and pink gin to take the edge off lockdown.

I’ve probably drunk more in lockdown than in my whole adult years put together. I used to partake at social gatherings, but I’d rarely drink at home.

As soon as the schools closed for lockdown, I started sharing a bottle of wine a night with my husband on Thursdays to Sundays, which quickly became every night.

I’m certainly not having it on my cornflakes but we’ve been spending £75 a week on alcohol. It’s concerned me how easy it’s been to slip into these new boozy habits.

Trying to work while ensuring neither the girls nor I go mad hasn’t been fun.

My older daughter, Daisy, has sailed through home-schooling and her teachers say she’s an exemplary student. But it’s been a challenge with Hunny. 

I’ve had to compete with YouTube videos for her attention — and failed.

I’ll return to my old sensible ways in the autumn when the girls are back at school