Article from the Daily Record by Maria Croce

BACK FROM THE DRINK

May 6 2005

Homeless alcoholics Lilian and Murdoch MacDonald almost drank
themselves to death. But after dragging each other down, they pulled
each other up again. They tell Maria Croce their amazing story


AS Lilian and Murdoch MacDonald huddled together on a park bench,
they thought they were about to die. After a drinking binge, they'd
been mugged, were freezing cold and had run out of booze.

Lilian recalled: 'It had not been my first bender, and it wasn't my
last, but I will always think of it as my worst.'

Her clothes ripped by muggers, dirty from living on the streets after
being kicked out of their lodgings and sporting a black eye, a
dishevelled Lilian even considered snatching a blanket from a nearby
tramp.

But he looked up at her and said: 'You wouldn't steal from one of
your own, would you?'

Initially she was shocked by his response, but then her thoughts
returned to booze and how she was going to get her next drink, as
nothing else seemed to matter.

As Lilian and Murdoch, from Ayrshire, shivered in the freezing park,
they were approached by two nurses returning home from a night out
who realised the desperate pair needed help. The women bought them a
burger with the last of their own money.Then they persuaded a passer-
by to give the couple the taxi fare to a hostel.

'They saved our lives,' said Lilian. 'I don't think we'd have
survived another night on the streets.'

That brush with death proved a turning point for Lilian and Murdoch
and spurred them on to reclaim their lives.

'We lived in the hostel for a year,' said Lilian. 'We did lapse into
drink once, but mostly we'd visit the library and read.'

The pair became interested in psychology and started to analyse what
had led them to start drinking to excess.

They came to the conclusion their problems lay in their upbringings.

'We had feelings of low self-worth and just didn't know how to cope
when things went wrong,' said Lilian.

Their life on the streets seems a world away from how they live now.
They're a respectable, middle-aged couple and, as they serve tea in
the lounge of their listed flat in Ayr, it's hard to imagine how 10
years ago they had sunk so low through alcoholism.

Murdoch, 58, writes for the local paper and runs his own PR company,
while Lilian, 61, has been involved in charity work.

Two years after their brush with death, they returned to Cambridge
where they'd lived rough to track down the nurses who'd helped them.

Through the local paper, they were reunited with Donna Powter and
Kirsten McDougall.

'It was very emotional and we hugged them when we saw them,' said
Lilian. 'I don't know what would have happened if they hadn't stepped
in to help us that night.'

Lilian and Murdoch began writing a book about their experience of
alcoholism, initially as a form of therapy.

But now they're hoping the book, Phoenix In A Bottle, could help
others suffering problems with drink.

Lilian said: 'When I look back, I can't believe that I behaved like
that. But we feel no one's powerless to change.

'Through writing this book we wanted to empower people. Alcoholism
isn't a disease, it's a self-harming behaviour problem rooted in
childhood.'

Lilian and Murdoch believe they've now been able to overcome their
problem through identifying and addressing the issues from their past.

And controversially, they say they even enjoy a social drink now -
although they insist they never get drunk.

Murdoch said: 'Once we addressed our problems, there was no longer a
need for escape through alcoholism, and we can drink normally like
other people again. Now we know when to stop.'

They initially met at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in Ayr in
1993, although they now disagree with the methods of AA, whose logo
is below.

'I don't think lifelong sobriety is the solution to alcoholism,' said
Murdoch. 'It only treats symptoms and not causes.'

Lilian believes her problems stemmed from when she was a teenager
battling against anorexia.

'My grandmother told me I was fat and ugly, so I stopped eating
properly,' she said.

Lilian admits she turned to drink to give her the confidence to eat.
She married at 19 to escape her home life and had two children, John,
41, and Elaine, 36. But that marriage broke down after 10 years and
Lilian's problem with alcohol escalated.

She moved in with a wealthy businessman and the pair ran a pub,
enjoying luxurious holidays and owning a cabin cruiser.

But Lilian felt unhappy and turned to alcohol to cope with her life.
After that relationship ended after seven years, she married a man
who worked for a whisky company and inevitably, with so much spirit
available, her drinking grew worse.

'I'd drink every day for two to three weeks without stopping,' she
said.

Meanwhile, public school-educated Murdoch was a Cambridge University
graduate whose contemporaries included BBC correspondent John Simpson.

He had a strict upbringing and worked in banking and ran his own PR
company before his addiction to booze wrecked his career and left him
without a job.

By the age of 30, he was drinking four pints of beer at lunchtime and
another four at night, before switching to cider because it was
cheaper.

He married at 26 and had two children, Kirsty, 31, and Grant, 27, but
started drinking because he couldn't cope with a marriage that wasn't
working. His second marriage also ended in disaster.

Murdoch was then on his own for eight years before he met Lilian when
he was working in a homeless hostel.

Lilian and Murdoch married within months - but soon alcohol took over
and almost claimed their lives.

Murdoch suffered liver problems and Lilian collapsed more than once.

On one occasion, doctors feared she wouldn't last the night.

The couple moved to Cambridge, where Murdoch planned to do a PhD at
his former university. But their dream turned into a nightmare as
they drank away their savings.

Murdoch recalled: 'We'd start drinking first thing in the morning and
just continue drinking through the night. Then, after a brief sleep,
we'd wake up to find bottles around the bed and start again.'

The pair hit rock bottom when they were kicked out of their lodgings
and ended up on the streets.

But after the nurses saved them from freezing to death in the park,
they began to get their lives back and returned to Ayr.

'We've lost years of our lives,' said Lilian. 'But you can't look
back with regret.You just have to go forward.'

Murdoch added: 'You can only make-up for it by doing something
positive.'

Now the pair insist they'll never return to a life ruled by booze.

Lilian explained: 'I'm a different person and I won't go back to
being the person who had to rely on drink.'

And although they nearly killed each other through their mutual
dependence on drink, Lilian believes they also wouldn't have survived
without each other.

'We almost destroyed each other through drink, but I also feel
Murdoch saved me,' she said. 'We saved each other because we believed
in each other.'

Now they hope their story will inspire others to help themselves.

Murdoch said: 'If there's a purpose to this book, it's to empower
people to save themselves.We're not saying that everyone has to do it
our way, but we hope it stimulates discussion.

'I'm not embarrassed about what we've been through. People now come
to us and ask our advice if they're having problems because we've
been open about what we went through."

Web link:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15483706&method=full&sit
eid=89488&headline=back-from-the-drink-name_page.html


STOP PRESS!


Our new book "Phoenix in a Bottle", describing what we've done and
how we achieved it, will be published on 30 May by Melrose Books
price £16.99.

You can buy online now, for delivery on publication.

Web address to buy our book:

http://www.melrosebooks.com/detail.php?isbn=1905226144

Or e-mail us for further assistance.

LilianandMurdoch@...

Link to Fame Publicity Services website:
http://www.famepublicity