"I drank three bottles of wine before running 100 mile races"

I was in bed for three days and couldn't get out. I just wished I was dead. It was terrible, but I knew it was the bottom. I lay down on the bottom of the pipe and let it sweep over me and didn't try to run away. And then I slowly started crawling out of it. It took me three months to start living as a person again and start feeling real emotions.

I had spent two decades on a cycle, masking my self-loathing and depression with alcohol and later running. I had been on and off antidepressants and in and out of therapy for years. I have harmed myself and made several suicide attempts.

Broken dreams

The drinking started in earnest when I was in college and I was downing at least six pints a day. Dangerous situations like assaults and robberies kept increasing – but I never associated them with drinking.

I started running when I was 27, a few years into my dream career in the music industry. I worked at a record label but was constantly told I was lucky to be there and as a result I never believed I was good enough. Liquor was drunk all day and was considered a perk of work.

During that time I was nearing the end of an ill-advised marriage and after a particularly spectacular row with my soon-to-be ex-husband, I ran a mile from my apartment in Whitechapel to Tower Bridge and back. At university, the doctor had advised me to try running and at that point I decided that it was a better option than throwing myself in front of a bus.

Allie started drinking at least six pints a day during college

Afterwards I felt amazing and had a beer to celebrate. From the moment I felt so miserable that I wanted to die, I started running. It distracted me, quieted my mind and stopped those feelings in my running. The problem was that it covered a lot. It didn't change how I felt or what I thought when I wasn't running. Although it was therapeutic, it was not therapy.

Yet at the height of my depression and alcohol abuse, it seemed like I was living my "best life"; I had a great career, running marathons and ultramarathons. But running didn't save me. It didn't stop me from drinking and sometimes it encouraged and enabled my drinking. I used running alongside the drink as both a balancer and a facilitator. I also used running as a measure of my self-worth and to prove that I wasn't sick.

And so, I started running more and more. In 2013 I ran the London Marathon and by 2017 I had run 40 marathons and 17 ultras, which are races of any length over a marathon. But still I wanted to die and I still drank heavily.

Adventure competition

My main diet was three bottles of rose wine a day and I was still able to rock into a race and successfully run 100 miles. Often I didn't have a hangover because I was still drunk and I leveled it up with a bottle of wine hidden in my suitcase. I was such a high functioning alcoholic that I was able to quit my job in music and start another dream career with adventure.

I started working for a racing company helping to test routes and promote events in some of the most extreme places in the world. In January 2018, I became the first person to run 100 miles across Mongolia's largest frozen lake, braving -45 temperatures. I thought if I can do this I will be fixed. But I wasn't. After the run, I showed up at Lorraine Kelly's at 7:30 in the morning, already down with a glass of wine.

World firsts followed in Namibia and Panama. I ran 135 miles through the oldest desert in the country and crossed Panama coast to coast on foot. Despite my drinking, my body felt strong. The alcohol tricked my body into thinking it was full and not in pain, which was handy as a runner.

But mentally, Panama was a huge turning point. It took me to the worst places I've ever been in my head, and physically it made Mongolia look like a run in the park. The jungle was hell and I had to carry a 35kg bag up wet, muddy mountains in 100% humidity. Progress was painfully slow and then my team got lost.

I was angry with myself and wanted to pull my hair out and scratch my skin until it bled. I had to live with my thoughts, without alcohol, for days and days. This made me realize that my thoughts alone cannot kill me, only my actions can if I let it. I did not do own believe everything I thought.

When we finally crawled out of the jungle, something had changed - but it was another two and a half years before I took action.

Base quotation

Fast forward to 2021 and after a week of suicidal thoughts, I finally admitted to coworkers that I was broken. What happened next was like I was watching myself from a movie when my work, friends and family intervened and took me 400 miles back to Somerset.

There is no wall: .

There is no wall: .

Now 26% discount

From that moment on, sobbing on Julius' couch, I decided I never wanted to feel that way again. I felt absolutely nothing for anyone or anything. But my rescue dog Pickle never gave up on me. Every day he would lay with me and lick my tears, no matter how many times I told him to go away.

After a few days the feelings started to return and through sessions with an acceptance and commitment therapist, and when I made a career change into running coaching, I was able to fight my depression head on and leave alcohol behind. I gradually started running again and in June 2022 I ran 1000 miles from Land's End to John O'Groats.

I'm still depressed, but now I can recognize it and have strategies to manage it. I'm not nearly as depressed or anxious as when I was drinking. I am now 42, two years sober and for the first time in my life I am happy. Running gave me clarity, but it also taught me that only you have the power to save yourself.

Allie Bailey's best-selling memoir There is no wall is now available for purchase on Amazon. If you are going through a difficult time, you don't have to face it alone, call the Samaritans day or night, 365 days a year. You can call them free on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org

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