By Editor,Eimear O’hagan

Copyright dailymail

Sarah Ibrahim had been looking forward to that moment all day. Through all the usual trials and chores of early motherhood, she had told herself that once her baby son was safely tucked up in bed, she’d treat herself to her ‘nightly fix’.

But it wasn’t settling down in front of a favourite boxset or even a glass of wine to take the edge off the day that she had in mind. It was something far more controversial – something that is now a source of intense guilt. As she kissed Marshall good night and quietly crept out of his bedroom, she made her way into her own room. There, she sat on her bed and expertly chopped up a line of cocaine with her bank card.

As she inhaled it, Sarah felt the drug surge through her body and her shoulders dropped, the stress fading away.

‘It’s a shocking scene, I know,’ says Sarah, 43, from Essex. ‘I look back now with so much regret but, at the time, it had become perfectly normal for me to read my child a bedtime story, then do a line.

‘I know other stressed mums have a few glasses of wine in the evening, or even jump on a Peloton bike to burn off some steam, but it was cocaine I turned to.’

However, when the high evaporated, she always felt ‘racked with guilt’.

Today, Sarah is a devoted mother and entrepreneur, running her own successful remote virtual assistant company giving administrative support to business owners, alongside a second role as a recovery coach.

Having been clean for four years, Sarah can see that she was in the grip of an ongoing addiction, one that saw her spend a staggering £150,000 in total on the Class-A drug – using it not only while pregnant, but after the birth and while in sole charge of Marshall. Sarah reflects: ‘To be where I am now, living a very ordinary but content and hopeful life, after the depths I plunged to… I do feel proud of myself.

‘Through my work as a recovery coach, I know I am far from unique in having been a mother with a cocaine addiction. I have supported other women who have been through the same nightmare.’

Indeed, with cocaine use in the UK doubling over the past 20 years, support services are reporting increasing numbers of women, including mothers, seeking help for addiction. From dinner party tables to the bustle of the school run, it seems it has become the worrying new crutch of so many middle-class women: a ‘bump’ or two of cocaine to help them through the endless juggle of work, socialising, domesticity and even parenting.

Just a little pick-me-up to help them function – or so their argument goes. Until they find, like Sarah, they cannot do without it. Sarah’s cocaine habit was cemented when working in the City for a range of firms including Barclays and large media companies. She spent her days in the most impressive and imposing offices in London – and afterwards let her hair down with cocaine.

A terrible denouement loomed on the horizon. In early 2018, then 36, Sarah discovered she was pregnant, the unexpected result of a casual relationship.

This would become a defining moment in her addiction journey – but not in the way you might expect.

By then, having been using the drug for a decade and spending more than £1,000 a month on it, cocaine had become such an emotional prop for Sarah that, instead of swearing off drugs instantly at the sight of a positive pregnancy test, she phoned her dealer.

‘At five weeks pregnant, I binged on cocaine for several days,’ she admits. ‘It’s difficult now to even say those words, it fills me with such remorse. The stigma of drug use by mothers is such a heavy one. I still carry that sense of shame today.

‘I look at my son and think, “How could I have risked him just to get high?” The thought of the drug coursing through my body, when he was inside me, still makes me feel sick with guilt.

‘But by then, addiction meant that the only way I knew how to cope with any sort of difficult emotion was to medicate with drugs.’

It’s hard to reconcile the Sarah of today, a pretty brunette who clearly adores her son, now six, with someone who chose to risk his development and even life.

She makes no excuses – other than to acknowledge that she knows she was gripped by addiction: ‘Cocaine had become my escape, my comfort, my friend.

‘At the time, I didn’t want a baby,’ she admits. ‘Even though I was 36, I didn’t feel ready to be a mother, but I knew in my heart I couldn’t have an abortion. I couldn’t choose cocaine over a life. But I ran away from all the challenging emotions I was feeling by bingeing on the drug for several days.’

So vulnerable and consumed by her addiction, Sarah didn’t even consider the serious health complications her cocaine use could have caused her unborn baby, which studies show can affect development and cause problems in the central nervous system.

Born and raised in Essex, Sarah’s late father was a chef, while her mother worked in IT. Her hard-working, loving parents drilled the importance of independence and rigour into their three children.

For Sarah, who enjoyed playing the flute and netball, they only wished for her to find a career path that would bring her contentment and allow her to stand on her own two feet.

But feeling like she didn’t fit in with the popular, pretty girls at school, Sarah fell into a bad crowd who introduced her to cannabis in her mid-teens.

She was able to conceal this from her parents – only doing it out of the house – but her grades were affected. After leaving school, Sarah worked in a variety of administrative roles, and she began to use cocaine regularly in her late 20s.

‘I loved how confident and happy it made me feel,’ she says. ‘Soon I was using it almost every day, when I was out with friends or after a shift at work.’

The following year, she enrolled at university in London to study for a tourism management degree with a view to moving into hotel management. She had no inkling of the addiction that lay ahead.

‘Despite the fact that I was using every day, and blew my entire student loan – £3,000 – in three weeks on the drug, I was in complete denial that I was an addict.

‘To me, addicts were people sleeping on park benches, down-and-outs, not someone with friends, a social life, a nice apartment.’

After graduating, Sarah worked as a PA in the City. But her years of relentless cocaine use began to take its toll, both physically and in her relationships. Photos of her from that time demonstrate the impact on her appearance – pale skin, huge bags under her eyes, an erratic expression – as she oscillated between cocaine-fuelled highs and crashing lows.

‘I did have some relationships but I was more interested in partying than settling down,’ she says. ‘Cocaine makes you selfish and there wasn’t room for someone else in my life, I stopped caring about anyone but myself.

‘I even missed a big family meal for my mum’s 60th birthday because I’d been up all night on drugs and was too wired to face her and my family.

‘I made up some excuse about being sick and didn’t care if I was believed or not. I didn’t even call with an excuse, I just didn’t show up and switched my phone off.’

Then came her unexpected pregnancy in her mid-30s – and that terrible drug binge.

‘I remember looking at the positive pregnancy test in such a deep state of shock,’ Sarah remembers. ‘Even though I was 36, my lifestyle was still like it had been in my 20s – work, party, recover, repeat. No part of me felt ready for motherhood.’

Soon afterwards, however, Sarah forced herself to contemplate her future.

‘I felt very scared but resolved I would get away from the drug and create a good life for this baby. I knew if motherhood wasn’t a big enough motivation to get clean, nothing would be. I believed this baby had been sent to save me.’

Sarah at least managed to go cold turkey from six weeks pregnant and stayed away from cocaine for the rest of her pregnancy.

‘Looking forward to the baby arriving gave me a focus,’ she says. ‘There were moments when I wondered what my partying friends were doing. But I dug deep, determined that way of life was behind me.’

Marshall was born in late 2018 and, Sarah says, the early months of his life were ‘perfect’.

‘I adored him from the moment he was placed in my arms, and felt so relieved I hadn’t thrown away this opportunity to be his mum. I threw myself into caring for him, soaking up every smile and cuddle and was so absorbed in him, cocaine didn’t cross my mind.’

It wouldn’t, however, be long before Sarah’s resolve was shaken. ‘When Marshall was three months old, I took him with me to visit an old friend one evening. When he was asleep in his pram in front of us, my friend offered me a line of cocaine. Before I knew it, I’d said yes.

‘I’ve asked myself so many times why I didn’t say no and leave. But, after a year being clean, I believed I could treat it as a one-off. I was tired, I’d completely devoted myself to motherhood and it was like there was this little voice in my head telling me it wouldn’t do any harm.’

For a few months, Sarah naively believed she could dip in and out of the drug without returning to full-blown addiction: ‘I was so wrong. I soon found myself using once a week.’

When the pandemic hit in 2020, things worsened.

‘I found myself isolating with a toddler while also working from home. I felt suffocated, overwhelmed and craved a release.’

This is when the nightly, post-bedtime cocaine fix began.

‘The relief I felt as the drug surged through my body was overwhelming,’ she recalls. ‘All my stress and anxiety faded.

‘But my baby was asleep in his cot in the room next to me, I was responsible for him – and yet I still did it.’

The side-effects took their toll on the happy family life she had created: ‘Too high to sleep, the next day I’d be shattered, grouchy and remorseful. So I’d use again the next evening to escape those feelings.’

When lockdown came to an end, Sarah was even taking cocaine after the nursery run: ‘I’d drop Marshall off, then hurry home for a line with my morning coffee before starting work.

‘I hid all this from my family. They were never aware of the extent of my addiction.’

It is a bleak vision – a mother, in charge of a young child, high on drugs. And mercifully, Sarah saw the light when Marshall was two and a half.

‘I wasn’t even enjoying cocaine any more. I felt disgusting when I took it. There was no escapism. I didn’t want my son to remember me as lethargic and snappy. I wanted to be able to afford nice things for him, and take him to special places.’

Sarah took her final line of cocaine alone on a Friday evening in May 2021, and hasn’t used since.

‘I told myself it was going to be my last, and I was determined to stick to that resolution and never go back. That’s not to say I didn’t think about it and crave it in the weeks that followed.

‘I felt exhausted and sluggish, my moods all over the place, as my body withdrew from it. But I had got clean once before and I knew I could do it again, and this time stay clean.’

As part of this vow, she opened up to her mother about her cocaine use – pre and post-pregnancy.

‘She was shocked. She’d had her suspicions but had no idea the extent of my problem. The last thing I wanted to do was upset her. She’d been such a support, especially since I’d had my son.

‘But I felt relieved finally to be honest, rather than ashamed.’

It took a few weeks for Sarah to feel like her old self again, the drug cleared from her system –and her life.

‘It was only then I was properly able to reflect on what I’d been doing and think, “What the hell was I thinking?”’ she says.

More than four years on, Sarah is still clean: ‘I’ve had clinical hypnotherapy which has been really beneficial and calmed my anxiety – and to make myself as accountable as possible, I’ve shared the story of my addiction on social media.

‘It was terrifying feeling so exposed, but addiction thrives on secrecy and shame so getting it out into the open has helped. I was contacted by countless women with their own stories of addiction and recovery, including other mums. I wasn’t the only mum who’d struggled in this way. It helped me feel less alone.’

And Sarah is realistic about the fact that this will have a lifelong effect for her: ‘Like all former addicts, that voice in my head telling me drugs are the answer to any challenges I face, is never completely silent.

‘I hear it when I’m low and stressed, or when I’m happy and want to celebrate.

‘Recently, a dear friend died and my grief was overwhelming. I faced it head on and I didn’t try to escape it by relapsing. It was a huge milestone for me.’

Now Sarah, a single mum, says her love for Marshall, and determination he will not grow up with an addict for a mother, is what motivates her to remain clean.

Their life revolves around his schooling, taking him swimming and enjoying family trips away, and she is grateful and relieved to have seen him grow into a boisterous, healthy little boy. After a blissful stay in the Canary Islands this summer, Sarah is saving to take him on a Disney cruise.

As for other high-functioning women who insist they have a grip on their ‘sociable’ cocaine use, Sarah has one hope: ‘That my story may inspire others to find their own pathway out.

‘I can’t change the past – but I owe it to Marshall to never go back, only forward.’

Marshall is a pseudonym.