I looked like a successful businesswoman but I was hiding vodka and secretly downing three bottles of wine

From the outside, Liverpool-born businesswoman Nicky Wake looked like she was living the dream.

She ran a successful events company, lived in a beautiful home, was happily raising her teenage son, and travelled in style, sipping champagne in business class. But behind the polished surface, Nicky was silently destroying herself.

“I was drinking all day, every day,” Nicky said. “Sometimes I’d start before breakfast. By night, I was regularly downing three bottles of wine without blinking, sometimes more. But I still ran a business. I still got my son to school. I told myself that meant I was in control, but I was completely lost.”

Alcohol was embedded in her work routine too. Business lunches meant wine as standard, and work events and award dos were awash with alcohol.

The 53-year-old continued: “I didn’t think I was an alcoholic. I just thought I was going through a rough time. I’d lost my husband, I was running a company, and I thought I was just self-medicating.”

In 2017, Nicky’s husband Andy suffered a sudden and catastrophic heart attack at home. She said: “I had to perform CPR while our son called 999. I genuinely thought he was dying in front of me.

“As soon as the ambulance took him, I went straight to the kitchen and downed a full bottle of wine. I couldn’t process the shock any other way.”

Andy survived, but the damage was catastrophic. He was rushed to hospital, where he was placed in an induced coma. As doctors fought to save him, Nicky spiralled deeper into secrecy and self-destruction.

“For two weeks, I sat at his hospital bedside, smuggling vodka in a Diet Coke bottle,” she explained. “I was drinking constantly, at home, in taxis, even in the ward. No one noticed. I was so good at pretending. But I was completely broken inside.”

When Andy eventually woke, it was clear the brain injury had left him unable to walk, talk or even recognise Nicky. He was moved into a specialist care facility, where he would spend the next three years before dying of Covid-related complications in 2020.

Nicky managed to keep her business running and even launched two successful dating apps for widows and widowers but woke up most mornings not remembering how she got to bed.

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Her tipping point came in November 2024 after attempting to go cold turkey saw Nicky end up in A&E. She said: “I had full-blown panic attacks just trying to leave the house. One morning I

looked in the mirror and thought, ‘this can’t be it’. I checked myself into a rehab facility, and started a full medical detox.”

The moment she arrived at rehab, the denial finally cracked. “They said, ‘You’re not a bad person. You’re an unwell person who needs help’. And I just burst into tears. For the first time, someone saw me. Not the businesswoman or the widow or the mum, just someone who was struggling.”

Now, nine months sober, Nicky, who was born and brought up in Liverpool, has recently launched SoberLove, a dating and friendship app for people who are sober or sober-curious. She said: “Dating when you’re in recovery is terrifying. So many first dates revolve around alcohol. I wanted to create a space for people who want real connection without the booze.”

Nicky’s also created SoberAF, an online community and support group for anyone who doesn’t connect with traditional recovery paths. She noted: “AA saves lives, but it’s not for everyone. Especially women. There’s so much shame and stigma around female addiction, particularly for women similar to me who society says ‘isn’t what an alcoholic looks like.”

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