Denise Welch - I Got Sober For Love

0:00If someone said to me, you need to lose a limb and if you do, you will never have depression again. I would have offered both arms like that. And to be honest, I still would. I don't know the person that I was now that I'm 13 years sober. I'm 67 years old and I'm driving along thinking, my God, I'm driving. I've actually passed my test. Hello and welcome to How To Fail. This is the podcast that believes that most failure can teach us something meaningful if we let it. And before we get into this episode and this conversation, I would love it if you could follow and subscribe to the show because it really, really does help.

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0:43Every story you love, every invention that moves you, every idea you wished was yours, all began as nothing. Just a blank page with a blinking cursor asking a simple question. What do you see? Great ideas start on Mac. Find out more on apple.com slash Mac.

1:16When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp. The secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets Mom's 60th. and never miss a meme or milestone, all protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Denise Welsh grew up in Whitley Bay in a family of confectioners. As a child, her habit of turning up to birthday parties with large bags of mixed toffees made her a popular guest. The popularity has lasted and grown into her adulthood, even if the sweets haven't.

2:01After years as a successful and award-winning actor, appearing in long-running soap such as Coronation Street and Waterloo Road, as well as in acclaimed theatrical productions, Welsh became a regular panellist on ITV's flagship panel chat show, Loose Women. She won Celebrity Big Brother in 2012 and after speaking openly about her own experiences with depression and addiction is also a mental health ambassador. She's been married three times, has two sons, one of whom is Mattie Healy, the front man of the 1975, and is now with the contemporary artist Lincoln Townley, whom she credits with helping her get sober.

2:41But this potted biography can only go so far because there's something else about Denise too, something more intangible. It's a warmth, an ability to voice what many of us are thinking combined with a sense of having seen it all before but never having lost her joy or sparkle. It's the knowledge that she's lived through hard times but kept her fabulousness intact. It is, in short, that she's a total hun. As one interviewer put it, the grand dam of Hun culture. Some people won't be outspoken about something because they're so terrified, Welsh says. If I think I'm right about something, I don't care what people think of me.

3:27Denise Welsh, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you. You are so good at those introductions. You're the queen of the introduction. Thank you. Thank you for being here. I wanted to ask if you have always been like that. You've always been someone who, if you think what you're saying is right, you don't mind what other people think of you. It's funny, Elizabeth, because I'm actually the world's worst people pleaser. Okay. In my real everyday life. But on television with the forum like Loose Women, I am not scared of cancel culture. Yeah, if I am really committed to what I think, you know, on a panel of women who say to throw an example in the air is my sort of Harry and Meghan fervour.

4:14You know, I've always flown the flag for them, pretty much exclusively me on that panel. I don't care what Doris from Darlington on X thinks. They are my beliefs and how I feel. And I'm not bothered about being in the minority. Talk to me about being a hun, because when I was trying to describe it in the introduction. It's hard, isn't it? It is very, very hard to do. It is this esoteric quality. Do you like being called a hun? I do. I embrace it. I have to because when you are featured on the Instagram page Love of Huns and Katy Perry likes it who doesn't even know you, you think, right, okay, this is quite cool to be a hun.

4:57Recently, I'm jumping ahead, but recently I was overjoyed to be at Charlie XCX and George's wedding and that elevates your Hun status through the absolute roof. She's the supreme leader of Huns in many ways. She is the supreme leader. And of course, it was hilarious at the wedding because I was, you know, taking photos with lots of the guests and things. And then, you know, when we were allowed, I'd put them on Instagram and people are going, oh my God, have you seen who she's in the photo with? And I didn't have an absolute clue with these young people. Was it an amazing wedding? It was one of the nicest weddings that I've ever been to.

5:34It was in Sicily. And considering that everywhere my husband Lincoln and I have gone this year, we've left the heat wave here and taken the weather abroad. It was a beautiful three-day event in a gorgeous place. And considering there was the cool of coolness of people there, it was the most unpretentious, lovely wedding. But then that's kind of down to Charlie and George. You know, I've known George since he was 12 because he's Matty's best friend. I read this thing that you said about the 1975 that they used to rehearse in your house and you couldn't wait to be rid of them. To be rid of them.

6:10And now you crave them coming back. Well, that's it. I mean, they started, Matty started the band at high school. He was at Wilmslow High School, which is in Cheshire. And so we'd moved down from the northeast. I used to live in London. We moved back to the northeast when I was pregnant and everything went chits up. which I'm sure we'll cover. And then Coronation Street took me to Cheshire. And so when they were about 12, Mattie started the band. And we had these kind of garages and sort of outbuildings and they were just taken over. So for years we had, I'd wake up in the morning and I'd be stepping over bodies and Matt would go, Oh, mum, this is Airship, who were another band.

7:00You know, so I'd step over Airship to go to work. This is you and me at six or something, and I'd step over you and me at six. And they started there. They would eat there. What was lovely was that because that was the hub of their band rehearsals, even though it was years before anything happened, they would, all the girlfriends came there, whereas often with boys, the boys go to the girlfriend's house, and without having a daughter it was quite nice and then of course Louis is 12 years between my boys same dad 12 years in between and then of course they've got this little toddler who's trying to knock on and standing longingly outside the rehearsal room wanting to be in the band and then when they were about 22, 23 Chocolate, one of their signature songs and one of the first songs Matty and George wrote took off and there was no, oh, you're going to university.

7:59You know, we know a year in advance what's going to happen. They were just gone and they were gone internationally. And then that was tough. Obviously, I had a little one as well. So that kind of filled the gap, but it was hard because I knew that life would never be the same. They're not going to come back at weekends and have their washing done. Well, it wouldn't have got done, but in principle, it would have been done. Is it emotional when you see him on stage? Yeah. I can't even imagine as a mother what that's like. It's very emotional. And obviously I'm hugely proud. It comes, Elizabeth, with, if I'm perfectly honest, along with the emotion, it comes with a lot of GLS, I call it, which is guest list stress.

8:43So I always am the person responsible for the guest list, even though I try not to be. and you go somewhere like the O2 and you're trying to just, you know, you're in the box or the area wherever you are and you're just looking forward to it. And then somebody, several people call. Hello. Yeah, hi. We're at the O2. Where do we park? I don't run. Am I allowed to swear on this? Yes, you are. I don't own fucking O2. You know, hi, we're at door B, but they're saying door A and Sue's got the gold band, but I've only got the, I've only got the silk. There is that, but yes, of course, it's very emotional.

9:26And sometimes when there's 20 ,000 people, again, at the O2, for example, I want to scream, you're all here because of me. 42 hours of labour pushing him out. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. It's the adulation you deserve. Absolutely. It's incredible. I mean, I used to scream at them to shut up with the songs. And now when they sing them, I'm thinking, that's my pension.

9:58Sing out, Louise! Your first failure, I've kind of switched around the order a bit. So, Denise, you did this incredibly generous thing. You gave me four where you're only required to give me three. But they're all brilliant, so I'm going to do them all. Your first failure is that you failed to become a domestic goddess. Did you want to be a domestic goddess? My probably level of what is a domestic goddess is probably just maybe cleaning the kitchen and wiping the benches down. But seriously, I look at some people who are the same age as me, younger than me, similar sort of lifestyle. And they'll show what they've done for a dinner party.

10:38And they've got the napkins and they've got the centre thing down the middle of the table. and they've got the lighting and they've gone and got the plant and the flowers and the cutlery and everything. I just can't do it, Elizabeth. I just don't feel like I've grown up enough to have that kind of dinner party. Like I still sometimes am driving along and I want to go, God, I've actually passed my driving test and I'm driving. I've never had anything so relatable. When I have people in the car with me, I'm like, I can't believe that I'm deemed someone who's responsible. I know. I'm 67 years old and I'm driving along thinking, my God, I'm driving.

11:15I've actually passed my test. And I get that with the sort of domestic goddessness. I am busy in my work, but naturally I'm incredibly lazy. I'm what Lincoln calls a sloth. So my blanket that I have on me on the sofa is my sloth blanket because he said I look like, remember that Neil the sloth from those furniture adverts? I can sloth out for nine hours at a time and possibly not even go to the toilet. And if I had a bedpan, I probably wouldn't go for another nine hours. Never say never. Yeah, never say never. But I just feel I failed at the cooking dinners. I did cook for my children because they're alive.

12:00But how people do chicken wrapped in something, stuffed with this. And it's just, it might be ADHD. I don't know what it is. I find this so interesting, given your age. You're 67, is that right? You look fabulous. Thank you. I want an entire breakdown of the skincare regime. But there's something very interesting about that age group. And when you grew up, the kind of socially conditioned role that women were allowed to have and maybe your mum had. and the pressure of that. And I think there's something quite radical about your refusal to do that. Well, my mum, she wasn't the best cook in the world, but she didn't really do guilt to my mum if she felt she was right about something.

12:50Whereas I have been plagued with it all of my life. And in spite of her Irish Catholic background? No, she didn't. No, she didn't conform to any of that. She was quite a rebel, my mum, really. Yeah, so you had this sort of strong female role model. Yeah, absolutely. I'm interested in how much this domestic goddessery or lack of played into your relationships and your marriages. I read this beautiful thing that you said, and I could not agree more, that you and Tim, Mattie and Louis' dad... Yeah, that I'm still friends with. That you're still friends with. You don't regard your marriage as a failure because you had 20 plus years of a married life and these two wonderful sons.

13:29So just because it ends doesn't make it a failure. Yeah, I kind of refuse to think of it as a failure because it would have been an obvious one too. I had a first marriage, which was, it was a first marriage and it didn't work out. And thankfully there were no children around. And, you know, my marriage to Tim, as you just said, was 24 years. Should we have possibly split up earlier? Maybe. But we did what we thought was best, like people do. You stay for the kids, da-ba-da-ba-da. And I refuse to think of it as a failure because we have two wonderful children that came out of that. He was a wonderful man in many ways, especially with living with someone with mental illness like I've had for 36 years.

14:13I think that's another reason why people who are poorly stay because you think maybe no one else will ever understand your illness. And we have maintained a friendship. Of course, when it ends, there was a lot of bumps in the road. We didn't go straight from ending a marriage to being really good friends. But we are now, you know, Tim and his wife, Jo, myself and Lincoln. We all Christmas together, you know, even though the kids are grown. I remember once a few years ago, I think probably Lincoln had said to Louis, oh, make your mum something nice for her birthday. and Louis had kind of done this notepad and put some photos in and whatever and he put a picture of me and his dad and he put, oh it catches me that, he put thank you for still loving this man.

15:05Wow. And I just realised that the fact that I do still means such a lot to my children even though they're grown and asking them they probably think, yeah we're glad that you are both happy now in in marriages that suit you more now beautiful I want to talk more about Lincoln later on yeah but before we move on to your second failure because it's a big one and I want to give it the respect of enough time talk to us about your ADHD because you mentioned it in passing there but yeah it's quite a recent diagnosis it is it's only about it's about three and a half years I would say something like that and and the diagnosis came about because Nadia Sawala, one of my friends and colleagues on Loose Women, suspected that she was very ADHD and that her daughters were.

15:54So she spoke to our producer, Sally, whose husband, Henry Shelford, is very high up in the ADHD world. I'm thinking of being tested. Sally said, if we get you tested, would you be happy to be filmed and we'll use it as a piece? Yes, absolutely. Whatever the result. When they mentioned this to ADHD 360, this company, and said, you know, we have about 20 loose women all together. Some work on the show more than others, but across the board, probably about 20. And one of our girls suspects that she has ADHD. And they said, is it Denise Welsh?

16:30And I said, what the? And the other women went, oh, come on, Dan. Oh, come on. Like that. Is it Denise Welsh? So I thought, well, OK, you're offering me a test. I might as well have one. But to me, depression had always been my illness. I'd never considered that anything else was there. And I thought, well, if it's just that I interrupt a lot, sometimes, girls, that's because you're boring me. You know, I'm not going to have tablets because I interrupt a lot or maybe I sort of go off on a tangent thinking that that's maybe what it was. So I did the whole thing. And needless to say, I was diagnosed ADHD.

17:14And it's only now on my second attempt at medication, which came after a breakdown last year, first in five years, that I've realized how I had completely underestimated the impact of ADHD on me running parallel with my depression. and if maybe I had shown signs before I had Matthew, if maybe there was more money spent on women's health, they would find a huge link between ADHD and postnatal depression, severe postnatal depression. So I can't be resentful about it thinking, oh my God, do you think there is medication that I could have had? But all I know now is that, and again, I keep jumping the gun because it all sort of merges into one life.

18:09But my cocaine dependency was not till my late 30s. Now, I always think if I was going to be a person that was into dabbling in drugs, I would have done it in my 20s when everybody else was doing it. I was vehemently against it. I had no desire to have anything more than have a drink on a Friday, Saturday night with my friends. That was me. But my desperation to lift this immovable depression led me to what will do it? That will? Right. When I've been depressed subsequently in the last four years and I have taken my ADHD tablet, it has the same effect. But not the I'm going to drink and smoke effect.

18:55I so appreciate the way in which you speak about this with such honesty and openness and generosity because people listening to this will feel so seen and held in your words it is incredibly powerful and I don't for one minute underestimate how much that takes and so I just want to thank you for that thank you I can't really honestly talk about my my history of depression and trying to get well without mentioning that that was a part of, well, it was a part of me thinking it was going to help my recovery and then took me on a dark road.

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20:20American Express Business Platinum. There's nothing like it. Terms apply. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash business dash platinum. It leads us on to your second self-stated failure, which is that you say you failed at getting sober for your kids earlier. My kids would say to me, but you're sober now, mum, and have been for 13 years. and I am so grateful that I found the strength and found my husband Lincoln and we did it together because we were both in a very dark place for different reasons and also we were 15 years apart I'm 15 years older than him you know so I was in my late 30s when I was doing Coronation Street and it was an incredible job.

21:13You've got to remember, it was the job that everybody wanted and I was very lucky to be there in the iconic days, you know, when Vera and Jack were still there. I just bumped into Bill Roach the other day and Mike Baldwin and Barbara Knox and Betty Driver and Phyllis, you know, it was the proper Corrie era. but it was incredible incredibly hard work and I think coping with an intermittent illness coping with a job that you couldn't just ring up and say I can't come in I mean I was used to that in theater but in Coronation Street you're working seven in the morning till seven at night and bearing in mind in those days there was 21 million people watching an episode you couldn't go anywhere you were more famous than anybody you could put any american movie star in the same supermarket as you and you'd be the one that was mobbed that's a third of the country watching you four times a week and you're making the equivalent of two movies you know in a in in a week because you know how long a movie takes and it was very hard work and now having an actual what we used to call a nervous breakdown I would have been kinder to myself but I didn't and you think well if I'd had a horrendous kidney condition if I'd had a horrendous heart condition I would have been removed and nobody would have died but because then and I hope that I've played a role in changing the landscape of how we talk about it I was one of the few people talking about it and remember we only had four television channels there was you know there was no the I think Sky was just starting we had no social media and all of this type of way and I would go on Lorraine and and I remember doing Lorraine from down the line at Coronation Street on the cobbles and talking about the horror of hospitalized postnatal depression and I remember Lorraine who I you know see on a weekly basis now saying to me we've never had as much response in any of the get up and give appeals that we've done over the years which is always about a physical condition than we have had with you talking about mental illness because it was still a stigma in some areas it still is which is ridiculous and I remember being sort of berated because I'd said once I wish that well that they'd taken the the the nub of the quote and not continued it I said I wish that everybody in the world could experience clinical depression for 15 seconds 15 seconds and then it would go and never darken their door again so that nobody would ever say well what have you got to be depressed about you know the difference between the illness and how we all it's like we use OCD oh I'm so OCD no you're not people go I know I had postnatal depression for a week after no you didn't you had the baby blues and that's all that's all also horrible I'm not taking that away but with someone like me it started after Matty and never when people say how long did your postnatal depression last I say well 30 36 years.

24:36Can you tell us a little bit about that experience of postpartum psychosis? I can. It sounds terrifying. I was on the verge of postnatal depression and postpartum psychosis so I was in and out of lucidity. I had a wonderful pregnancy I'll try and praise you this so I had an incredible pregnancy. Those ones where people say the blooming woman in pregnancy. My skin was fabulous. My hair was great. I loved being pregnant. I loved every day of being pregnant. I had a husband. We had some money in the bank. We weren't worrying about the financial aspect of having a kid. My husband was a successful actor.

25:18I knew I was in a position that if I I wanted to continue work as an actress I could. We were having a much wanted child. And skippity-doo. And even when I was overdue, I still was thinking, oh, I love being pregnant, love being pregnant. So I was, the little anybody ever mentioned about postnatal depression didn't cross my mind. So I had my baby privately. Tim was a bit of a, I say this with love, a champagne socialist. So he was a bit begrudging. But the hospital I was allocated, National Health, was just, it was a disaster. And I had him in what I didn't know at the time was a natural childbirth hospital.

26:00I'd just gone because someone said, it's a great private hospital. So I went there. And in one of the classes, they were talking about this natural childbirth. And I remember saying, yeah, obviously, if it's agony, you will give us some pain relief, won't you? And they said, oh, Mrs. Healy, as I was then. Mrs Healy, it's not the Victorian times, of course we will. Fast forward to hit me over the head with a spiked fucking mallet. No pain relief. So, and Matthew, true to form, was, you know, in there listening to the radio, having a fag, thinking, I'm not hurrying, there's no rush on here. 42 hours later, natural childbirth, not gas and air, nothing.

26:47Out he came. it was wonderful. It was just wonderful. He was the first boy. My dad was so thrown because he thought he'd have a girl. I'd have a girl. And it was all fantastic. And they said I was the most unanxious mom in the hospital. There's only probably about six other moms in there. I didn't pull the anxiety cord, nothing. Feeding him, wanted to try breastfeeding, wasn't fixated on it. My mom had been amazing. If it doesn't work, love, don't let them pressure you. you know bottle fed babies will be fine so she was fantastic and um got him home and this was on the Wednesday I so I had him on the Saturday got him home on the Wednesday and I opened all the cards that had arrived and I dissolved into this emotional state of hormonal chaos and I I was aware that I had the baby blues so it didn't frighten me it was just I couldn't open a card hard without crying and looking at this child and feeling this wave of huge responsibility.

27:52But I was all right. Two days later, my mum and dad arrived from the Northeast and it was a moment that I had dreamt of for years. I can remember feeling devoid of feeling, something I'd never felt before. Not depression, just a very void feeling that when my mum was saying, oh my God, you know, I knew I'd love my grandchild, but I was unprepared for this overwhelming love I feel for him. I couldn't cry. I couldn't feel anything. And I went to bed that night and I had the first panic attack that I'd ever had. I wasn't thinking panic. I wasn't anxious. I just woke with the only thing I can, the sort of analogy is that you're driving along in your car and a lorry cuts you up and you think you're going to die.

28:50And you pull over to the lay by and you stop and your heart is racing like it's going to come out your chest. But the danger passes and eventually you calm down. It was like that, but never the danger passing. And I'd gone to bed with huge breastfeeding bazookas. And after the panic attack, so I'm talking just hours, I had no milk. And I had spaniel's ears boobs, to put no finer point on it. I'd lost all the milk. and this community midwife came around who I'd never had before and she was bloody awful Elizabeth if I'm honest with you and I'm a huge respecter of the NHS and the wonderful people in that organisation and I said and she went oh that is not normal she said that really I've only ever seen that happen if a spouse dies or a parent dies or indeed if the child dies, you're going to have to go out and get some bottles.

29:53That's really not. Now, the flag that would be waving in front of them would be hormonal. This is a hormonal disaster. Something has gone seriously wrong in this woman's hormones. Obviously, there is a chemical chaos, you know, when your hormones are writing themselves. But nobody knew anything. Tim went out and they got the bottles and they brought them back. And there was the Milton with the bottles in at the top. and we had this long kitchen. And to this day, if I smell the perfume that my mum wore, because she came down for three days and had to take leave of work as a psychiatric nurse, she had to take leave of work to look after me.

30:33And if I smell the perfume that she was wearing, which was Ivoire de Beaumont, it will... Or if I smell Milton in someone's house. So that was maybe the Thursday, Friday. on the Saturday mum said let's take him out for a walk and I was I wasn't depressed I just was odd and we went for a walk in Crouch End in London and I'd lived there for 10 years so it was somewhere I knew very very well and on the way back from this coffee we went into a corner shop to get some milk and on the radio it was announcing the horrible Hillsborough disaster April of 15 1989 and I came out the shop and I remember saying to mum um there's been this awful disaster 96 people have been crushed and died it's terrible and we got half a mile home and mum asked me a question about it and I remember saying that was a dream and she said no no sweetheart you just told and I said oh my god why are you trying to make me go mad that was a dream I dreamt it and my mum thought, oh, okay, this is not good.

31:43We got in the house and my mum said that she walked out of the bedroom and I was on the windowsill trying to open the window. Now the press picked that up as if I was trying to take my own life. I wasn't. I didn't know where I was or what I was doing. So there was no conscious decision to do that. And I then just spent three months pretty much in the corner of a sofa wanting someone to give me an injection. And my mum was so brilliant. And she knew that keeping the contact with my child was really important. So every four hours, she would make me walk to the bottles, make the bottle, which was like she'd said, go and climb Everest.