Marian Keyes: ‘Life got lovely really fast’ after author quit drinking

Marian Keyes speaking on The Tommy Tiernan Show.

Bestselling author Marian Keyes says she used alcohol “as a crutch” from a young age.

Ms Keyes, a novelist for over 20 years, began drinking at 14.

"The wheels were coming off in my final year in school," she told the Tommy Tiernan Show. "I was very angry. And then in college, I drank so much. And, like, from much earlier - it was all about alcohol.

Looking back, she says she feels compassion for herself as she sees now how she was unable to deal with her feelings and build relationships.

"I hadn't a clue how to be in the world. I hadn't a clue how to manage my own feelings. I hadn't a clue how to manage relationships. I was just lost.

"So, when I started drinking, I thought, 'This is it This is the thing I need. This is what's going to help me get through the world like the rest of them. Suddenly, I can be normal. I have found my crutch, my insulin. Whatever the bit that was missing in me, I've found it now'. So, it was a huge relief, and it stayed the most important relationship of my life until I had no choice but to stop."

She said her world changed for the better when she stopped drinking.

"I stopped and suddenly the world is full of colour and loveliness. I had been living in London and I'd come to rehab in Ireland, but I went back to London and I ended up getting a flat on my own through sheer luck. And I had no money, but I used to go to the secondhand shops and I used to buy curtains and candles and beautiful things because I would never have spent money on that before. 

Life got lovely really fast.

Last month, Ms Keyes marked 27 years of sobriety. She said she began to write as she was in the “final throes” of alcoholism when she was 30.

"I had no idea I wanted to write, and it wasn't until I was in the final throes of alcoholic drinking and it was just a short time after my 30th birthday, I started writing short stories out of the blue, completely unexpected. It was the first time I had done something that I thought, 'I'm proud of this'. Like, I really enjoyed it."

"I am aware of how ridiculously lucky I've been," she said. "I do actually work very hard. It's the best job that somebody like me could do. I love what I do. I absolutely love it."

The interview sparked much praise for Ms Keyes on social media. Following the show, she wrote on Twitter: "Thank you for all your incredible loveliness, I had the very BEST of times having the chats with the beautiful human being that is @Tommedian, I felt we could have talked forever. A heartfelt go raibh míle MÍLE maith agaibh."