Nicola Barry grew up in�a well-to-do family?her father was a hospital consultant, her mother was medically trained, and�her brothers were boarders at public school. But behind the closed doors of their imposing family home, her mother was drinking herself to death. A beautiful, quirky woman, this is the story of how Monica Barry became a prisoner to alcohol and a prisoner in her own home, her addiction slowly�sucking the life out of her. And how?with her father at work, and her brothers away at�school?Nicola�spent�much of her childhood as her mother's unofficial caregiver: hauling her from the bath when she was too drunk to function and running errands to buy her booze. Full of harrowing incidents, and warmed by a touching, bleak humor, this is the powerful story of how a mother drank herself to death and how�alcohol destroyed a family. And of how Nicola battled with her own alcoholism but, determined to throw off her mother's legacy, came through a survivor.