Jan. 24, 2023
Michelle Heaton: Recovery, Relapse & Reality TV – Liberty X, Menopause & Mastering Boundaries
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Matt is joined by Emmy and BRIT Award-winning singer Michelle Heaton, best known as a member of the pop group Liberty X. In April 2021, Michelle bravely entered rehab to confront her battle with addiction — a decision that marked the beginning of a transformative journey. Now 21 months sober, she reflects on the realities of recovery and shares the tools that have helped her live a healthy, balanced life.
In this heartfelt episode, Michelle discusses the importance of setting boundaries in social situations, the power of peer support, and the strength it takes to ask for help. She opens up about her preventative double mastectomy and hysterectomy after testing positive for the BRCA gene, and how those life-altering decisions shaped her outlook on health and resilience. From navigating public life in recovery to taking on the challenge of Dancing on Ice, Michelle offers honest, practical advice for anyone facing adversity — and proves that lasting change is possible.
If you liked this episode then Michelle returns to Believe in People 18 months later in episode 44 ⬇️
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2SMNgB6kBSnZxPi4vpna9w
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/44-michelle-heaton-fame-fear-fighting-back-addiction/id1617239923?i=1000654401057
Click here to text our host, Matt, directly!
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🎵 Music: “Jonathan Tortoise” by Christopher Tait (Belle Ghoul / Electric Six)
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🎙️ Facilitator: Matthew Butler
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🏢 Network: ReNew
WEBVTT
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This is a new original recording.
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Hello and welcome to the Believe in People podcast.
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I'm Matthew Butler and I'm your host, or as I like to say, your facilitator.
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Today I am joined by Emmy and Brit award-winning singer Michelle Heaton, member of the pop group Liberty X.
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In early 2021, Michelle bravely checked into rehab to fight her battle with addiction and today, 18 months sober, Michelle shares her story with Renew.
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So first of all, would you just like to introduce yourself?
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I'm Michelle Heaton, and I'm best known for being a singer in Liberty X.
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Well, thank you for joining us today, Michelle.
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First of all, how was last night?
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It was really good.
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We had a blast on stage at Hull Arena.
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It was brilliant.
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It's really nice to get on stage with other acts from your era backstage.
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A bit carnage
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for everybody else.
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I can imagine it being carnage, but I can imagine it being a lot of fun as well, obviously having so many people
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around.
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Yeah, it really is.
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But it's so different to where it was in 2001 too when we did the Smash Hits tours and everybody was younger without husbands and wives.
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So it was way
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worse back then.
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Completely different now.
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Well, this is your second time in Hull this year, isn't it?
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Yes, it is actually.
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We actually love Hull.
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I've got to say, because we travel around a lot and we go to different cities and we're not there for very, very long each time we get there.
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But we've always said Hull is so lovely.
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You've got a beautiful city.
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Oh, thank you.
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Well, to be fair, I don't know if you'll remember this, but we briefly saw you backstage at the Pride Festival.
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Now, I didn't know about your story.
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So when I got home and I told my wife, she said, oh, did you manage to talk to her about addiction?
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I was like, no.
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She was like, anyway, she knew your story and I didn't.
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So, you know, that was when I messaged my producer and, you know, we said, oh, we should have spoke to her.
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And then that's when we messaged your agent.
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But I don't know if you'll remember, but we had these snazzy rainbow jackets on backstage.
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Of
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course I do
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remember.
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There you go.
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Oh, my God.
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Well, because of that, we wanted to say congratulations on 18.
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months sober and we've also got your own rainbow jacket as well no way so there you go you've got that oh my god because you didn't say you wanted mine as you were leaving I was tempted to give you it
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the girls are going to be so jealous
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I was going to wear it today actually I thought she'll remember me if I walk in I'm totally going to
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wear that down to the lobby and see what they say oh I love that that's that is wonderful thank you
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thank you so 18 months sober
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um well coming up to
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yes okay yeah so what's that I mean I've listened to I actually listened to your podcast with uh sober dev um okay that was like nine months so obviously it's doubled the amount of time that you've done since then yeah yeah
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wow
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so what what sort of i guess what sort of change and maybe for the past nine months because i think one thing that you spoke about on that podcast that i did find um enjoyable and you mentioned it just before before we went on was about boundaries and knowing when to leave social situations and when it's the right time for you um how do you feel you've got with that yeah i think
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like last night take for example um we we got back to this hotel and then we went to the Sky Rift Top Bar and I was already a bit tired so in hindsight I should have said no but however I went because I wanted to catch up with some of the friends from the other bands and I think with time and The more I'm in recovery, the more I am able to recognize the point at which I need to leave a situation.
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And don't get me wrong, I never put myself into those situations early on.
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It's took time.
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I am around a lot of people who drink and other people who use, and I have to set boundaries for that.
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And I didn't attempt to put myself through that pain at the beginning.
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That's really, really important.
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You don't have to do anything you don't want to do.
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If you are still nervous or you get anxiety or you still have the obsession over drink or drugs don't go to a party where you know there's going to be loads I mean it's got to be as black and white as that but with time the obsession is lifted using the 12 step program and last night I went and I acknowledged at a certain point that I was getting tired irritable and discontent and when those set in it's time for me to leave and I just left and everybody understands because I've been quite open about my recovery and my addictions and at the end of you have to put yourself first in recovery because unless you're well nobody else around you will be okay you know I put myself in a situation that if I continued to stay that night last night I would have been angry more likely to have relapse you know I'm saying as a general rule of thumb more likely to go to bed and get really irritated that I wasn't up there drinking so I leave before those moments come
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yeah I imagine like I've The thing that I found interesting was when you spoke to Sobadev, you said about going to that, it was the Tickled Pink event and it was the first time since lockdown that you'd really been out, first time you had your heels on.
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And I suppose being in a bar, especially when you first achieve recovery, can be quite challenging.
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daunting because the problem that you have or had is all around you at that point as well
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yeah that was the first event I went to and I remember it like it was yesterday I remember being really really uncomfortable really nervous I thought it was it was time for me to be able to go out and enjoy myself but it wasn't in hindsight I wanted to go because I do a lot of work for the charity and it's and it's something that I've personally been affected with but I just remember standing there and it was a bright event it wasn't like a nightclub it wasn't like everyone was off their face or anything like that it was just a few few glasses of champagne my friends were there they had a couple of glasses and I was just so angry and irritated that I was an alcoholic I think that's the easiest way of saying it I got angry that that I couldn't participate I got angry that I couldn't enjoy that one cool glass of of um of champagne um luckily I remembered what I am and that that I know what would happen if I had that one glass but I had to leave I think I lasted about half an hour and I just said I'm so sorry I don't feel comfortable I'm going to have to go and then we actually went for some food afterwards and in a scenario with food and them having a glass of wine that didn't actually trigger me so you know I think the point that I got from that and What I recognised is that it depends on every situation.
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It's different.
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You know, don't be scared of going out for food if there's alcohol served around you.
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you know everyone's going to react different in different situations I was put in a position where there was just alcohol flowing it was an event that I would usually drink at so I shouldn't have gone that early and
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you said obviously last night you'd gone to a couple of bars obviously not drinking but it shows that the level of I suppose progress that you've made in that sort of last nine months and as well that you can maybe go to these situations and be a bit more comfortable
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yeah I mean don't get me wrong you know somebody says you want to come out clubbing I'd probably say no but It's of no interest to me anyway.
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And what's the point?
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What's the point in putting yourself through that pain when everybody else is oblivious anyway and no one's going to remember that you're there?
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Unless it's a friend's birthday or something like that, I turn up to my friend's events.
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I turn up to events that I get invited to if I need to go.
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I've learned to say no yeah that's so important absolutely you know I I was kind of like beforehand I would say yes to anything because it was always going to have alcohol there and it was always an excuse oh there's free alcohol so let's go but that that free alcohol was just tipping off whatever else I was drinking um but now it's really strong to say no it feels good
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yeah it's the there's a I think we all have it don't we that people pleasing element we always try and you know a lot of the time we'll often put other people's I suppose feelings and what they want to do ahead of our own whereas obviously now you're in a position where you can say no and I think that's something where I'd like to be sometimes you know we all get put in situations that we don't necessarily want to be in but you know people see you and people see your successes and often obviously more recently you've been able to talk about your low times but the one thing I suppose I'm interested to hear what was your rock bottom moment where you thought right I need help when did you recognise it when was the moment where
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well my the moment i recognized that i wanted help um was not my rock bottom i would say i'd say i had had worse but that moment in time i had had I had a lot of rock bottoms.
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I was in and out of hospital.
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I got sacked from Panto because I was found on the floor of my dressing room.
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And they found substance and alcohol in my room.
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And that should have been enough to wake me up to stop.
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But after 24 hours in the hospital and getting fluids inside of me, I then went straight and bought more vodka.
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And I couldn't recognize that that was wrong.
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It was like I just had to drink.
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I just had to have the alcohol.
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There was no reason behind it.
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It's absolute insanity.
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You know, this is a mental illness.
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It's a disease of the mind and body.
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Once I take the first drink, I get addicted and I need more.
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That should have been my rock bottom, but it wasn't.
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I'd say there was another five months after that, four or five months after that, before I asked for help, I was able to go into rehab.
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So it was just that one moment where I saw somebody else had what I want.
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That was the key.
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The key was seeing somebody else, clean and sober, who I knew had struggles.
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That's what I wanted.
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And that's what changed.
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I think that's the importance of peer support and, you know, people like yourself sharing your story, because that's where the inspiration will come from for people.
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I think I just want to go back to when you said for some people doing the panto, going into hospital, coming out and grabbing vodka.
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To some people, that sounds absolutely ridiculous.
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Oh, it's insane.
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It's absolutely disgusting.
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I think the thing with this is when people don't understand addiction, they say, oh, it's just a case of low willpower or a lack of willpower.
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What would you say to that?
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Because there is a stigma when people don't understand addiction.
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Why don't you just stop?
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And obviously there's the medical reasons why you can't just stop when you're called dependent.
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Which
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I had no idea about, you know.
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Absolutely, yeah.
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You know, it's a good question because I also thought that of myself.
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I'm disgusting.
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Why can't I stop?
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I need to say no.
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I would try to say no.
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I would try not to drink.
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I would inevitably be iller.
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I'd be sicker.
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I'd feel more rough when I wasn't drinking.
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than when I was, because that's how I self-medicated my body with alcohol.
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The only time I felt reasonably okay was when I was drinking.
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And you just mentioned, because you can't, the amount of drink I was taking in, if I stopped straight away, that could lead to my life being taken away as well.
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But I didn't know that time.
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So for me, whenever I felt rough, because I was trying to stop, had to drink to keep myself going and I didn't know what was going on and it is insane and you know when you want to stop and you can't you get scared and I didn't know what I suffered from still I just I just know I knew nothing else other than to just keep doing what I was doing and there were there was a good few times where I was so upset that I was drinking and using and while I'm drinking and using that I was disgusted with myself and I would pray to God, a God, to help me either die or stop.
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I just didn't want to, I didn't want to wake up sometimes because the pain of waking up and repeating it all over again, I didn't want to.
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I was using against my will.
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That's where it took, that's where addiction takes you.
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When you're using against your will and you actually don't like what you're doing, that's, you know, That's almost too far before you should recognise that you may need help.
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But that's where it took me.
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working i've been working drug services for eight years now and sometimes uh conversations around you know celebrity and celebrity culture comes up and and addiction and i suppose it's kind of like lifestyles of the rich and the famous do you know i guess um so when you talk about celebrity and celebrity culture you know it's oh well if they've got problems they can just check themselves into an expensive rehab and they can get the help they they deserve uh or the help they need um our service users Because rehab and, you know, sending someone to a detox is so expensive.
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Yeah.
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There's sort of, I guess, things they need to comply with in terms of they need to attend X amount of one-to-one appointments, X amount of groups to show a willingness and a level of preparation.
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So we're not just going to send somebody and they're going to come back and be straight.
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Yeah, because some people do abuse the system and
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use it as a detox to then get back on it.
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And I know people like that.
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What would you say to people who look at someone like yourself and think, oh, well, she'll have it easy because she's got friends who can help or she can afford to do this what would your response be to those people?
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I mean it just so first of all in my defence I needed medical attention so whether it was rehab or whether I was going to be admitted to hospital it was either or for me I was that ill I was about to die my liver function was off the charts my pancreas still doesn't work I'm still suffering from that today so I would have either been admitted to hospital or rehab and that's where it took me however Rehab got me clean and got me understanding what I suffer from, but it didn't keep me sober.
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What keeps me sober is the rooms, my AA, my CA meetings, and my 12-step program with my sponsor, my sponsees, you know, my 12 steps.
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That's what keeps you sober, and that is free, right?
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Absolutely.
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So I got clean in rehab.
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But I stay sober in the rooms.
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And I know the majority of the people that I now know in classes, really good friends of mine, in recovery, get sober in the rooms.
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You don't have to need rehab or hospital attention.
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You know, a lot of people recognise it before it got to the point that I did.
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You know?
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How have you found the 12-step programme?
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I found in terms of working in services, there's a lot of ambivalence.
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And, you know, you said yourself, you know, at one point you was praying to a God.
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Yeah.
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That can often put people off, that sort of handing yourself over to a higher power, admitting you're powerless.
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How was that transition for you into a 12-step program?
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Do you have any religious beliefs?
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No,
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not particularly.
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I don't.
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Was that a barrier for you
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at all?
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It was a bit of a...
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It's really difficult because I understand when I saw the word God...
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I forgot that I prayed to God to kill me or help me, right?
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I forgot that then.
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So I was praying before I knew what I was going to pray to.
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Does that make sense?
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But as soon as I saw the word God, I did switch off.
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I'm not going to lie.
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But what I found was that when I stopped questioning what God is, then I found my higher power.
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What that is, I have no idea.
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I don't go to church.
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I'm a Christian, but...
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I'm actually fundamentally believing the Big Bang Theory and all of that.
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And I believe the Bible was written to teach us things in life.
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And I believe the 12-step program is a mirror to the Bible.
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It's about teaching us how to live life the way that we should be able to, free from our addictions, free from redemption.
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It kind of actually is a parallel.
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Yeah.
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So when you get over the whole God word, and some people are religious and bring their God and their faith into it, my higher power, I don't know who or what it is, but I pray to a higher power every morning and I pray for a clean and sober day because I used to pray to that same higher power before to help me get vodka when it was closed, the shops, or please let nobody find me like this.
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That was constant.
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So what I've done is shifted the way that I do my prayer and shift it to help me stay and remain sober.
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And then the higher power in that is that I could not get sober or clean for anybody.
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Not for myself and not for my kids and not for my husband or my friends.
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The fact that I was losing jobs all around me.
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You know, it sounds selfish.
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It absolutely is.
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But when you cannot stop for whatever reason...
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All of those things.
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It's not that it doesn't matter.
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It's that you can't get sober for those things.
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So if I can't get sober for my kids, who are the world to me, there has to be something else keeping me from making the wrong decisions.
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And that thing is a higher power.
00:17:14.484 --> 00:17:14.746
Yeah.
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So I just do what the suggestions are.
00:17:17.220 --> 00:17:18.642
The suggestions are there.
00:17:18.662 --> 00:17:23.248
I followed the suggestions from my sponsor and I did the 12 steps.
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The 12 steps is actually something that anybody can apply to their lives.
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Like my husband's really intrigued about it and he wants to apply it to their lives.
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It's actually, it's not a religious program.
00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:34.641
It's a spiritual program.
00:17:35.001 --> 00:17:40.488
And I think we could all do with a bit of spirituality in our lives, whether it's meditation, coming to one with nature.
00:17:40.508 --> 00:17:42.931
You know, a lot of that is a big part of it.
00:17:43.271 --> 00:17:44.953
It's about clearing your mind.
00:17:45.410 --> 00:17:49.977
And making, you know, put one foot in front of each other and making the best decisions possible.
00:17:50.557 --> 00:17:53.280
I wasn't able to make my own decisions in addiction.
00:17:54.282 --> 00:17:56.665
You know, the choices were taken away from me.
00:17:56.826 --> 00:17:57.647
I had no choice.
00:17:57.708 --> 00:17:58.509
I had no option.
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Whereas now, with my higher power and my steps and my sponsor, you know, there's triangle, recovery, service.
00:18:07.682 --> 00:18:12.489
And without every little bit of it, sorry, with every little bit of it, I'm able to...
00:18:13.346 --> 00:18:15.701
to recognise that it is a choice.
00:18:16.097 --> 00:18:18.380
So I have a choice whether I drink or not.
00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:26.707
No, I think you've done a really good job of explaining that because it is a massive barrier for people to get to the first session and then they hear God and then it's like, oh, do you know, I don't want to deal with that.
00:18:26.727 --> 00:18:29.249
But I mean, I have a higher power explained to me in so many ways.
00:18:29.288 --> 00:18:34.513
And someone said to me, imagine your car breaks down on the side of the road and you need to push it to safety, but you're by yourself and you can't do it.
00:18:34.993 --> 00:18:37.175
Someone comes over and they help you push it into the labor.
00:18:37.195 --> 00:18:39.597
I said that in that situation is a higher power.
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Someone helping you gets from A to B and where you want to be.
00:18:42.540 --> 00:18:45.584
And I suppose recovery capital is a big part of it as well.
00:18:46.064 --> 00:19:00.205
talk about um reasons to stay sober as well you've talked about your husband you've talked about your children as well you know they're the they're the reasons why you i suppose you know you i know you said you couldn't do it for them but it's important to stay sober for them as well isn't
00:19:00.507 --> 00:19:16.213
it oh yeah absolutely and um you know my husband's been a massive part of of my recovery obviously but also he's spoken out and how he felt through it and you You don't recognize what other people are going through when you're in addiction.
00:19:16.253 --> 00:19:18.737
You know, I spent the whole time blaming them.
00:19:18.757 --> 00:19:21.300
I spent the whole time being irritated by them.
00:19:21.381 --> 00:19:26.326
And it's not until you get sober that you can recognize like in the steps.
00:19:27.327 --> 00:19:30.372
Step nine, for example, is where you make your amends to people.
00:19:30.811 --> 00:19:33.576
And there's no way I would have said sorry in the madness.
00:19:34.277 --> 00:19:35.117
There would be no way.
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But what they go through now that I'm sober, I don't want to ever put them through that again.
00:19:41.890 --> 00:19:42.651
How was the...
00:19:43.132 --> 00:19:45.777
I think the lockdown was a big part of your story as well, wasn't it?
00:19:46.097 --> 00:19:47.039
Yeah, definitely.
00:19:47.259 --> 00:19:48.742
Talk us through a little bit about that then.
00:19:49.203 --> 00:19:58.701
Because I think a lot of people, I mean myself included, you know, not having to go to work the next day, I found I was drinking more throughout the lockdown just because what else was there to do at home?
00:19:58.903 --> 00:19:59.182
Yeah.
00:19:59.324 --> 00:20:00.405
What was that like for you?
00:20:00.866 --> 00:20:01.508
Well, pre the
00:20:01.528 --> 00:20:01.788
lockdown, yeah.
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Especially having
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an addiction.
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Pre the lockdown, I...
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