Veronica Callanan

I was coming back from London and picked up the Evening Standard to read on the train, I came across an article about Meg Matthew (formally married to Noel Gallagher from Oasis); she was talking about her new wallpaper line and her life in recovery. Apparently last year after a trip to Ibiza she realised she had a problem and checked herself into rehab to get help. It was interesting reading her story because in many ways she’s had such an amazing life, rock and roll lifestyle, parties, famous friends, rich, successful, pretty, she basically had the best this world had to offer and she still wasn’t happy.

She spoke of her dissatisfaction and unhappiness, in particular just not feeling ‘good enough’, although she says she doesn’t regret it most of it she says she’s lucky to have a second chance at life.

Whenever I read of a celebrity who is getting sober I relate so much to what they’re describing. My life was as opposite to Meg’s as it’s possible to get, there was absolutely no glamour and no rock stars to speak off. So that part I don’t relate to in fact I used to envy. Yet here is a woman who supposedly ‘had it all’ and was still not happy, still felt dissatisfied and not good enough which is exactly how I felt.

It seems that it doesn’t matter what you have on the outside, if you feel empty on the inside then nothing can change that, all the money and glamour in the world just highlight the incongruence of your ‘insides and outsides’ not matching, and just how painful that is.

I remember feeling worthless, no confidence, unattractive and my friends told how attractive I was, how any guy would be lucky to have me (like Meg I couldn’t get a date for love nor money, and had resigned myself to singleness). I knew they meant it and weren’t just being nice as they were genuinely shocked that I could feel that way about myself. But it didn’t matter that they were incredulous and my lack of self belief, it didn’t matter how many people told me how great I was, or pretty etc, I didn’t feel it myself, I didn’t feel good enough and there’s something about believing that about yourself that makes it manifest itself in your reality.

Because I felt and thought badly about myself, I became that person. We are what we think we are.

No wonder we use alcohol to numb that.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 5th, 2007 at 3:32 am and is filed under Alcoholism, Celebrity's and Recovery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.