{"id":278584,"date":"2026-02-03T14:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/278584\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T14:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T14:02:13","slug":"catherine-gray-i-beat-booze-and-cigarettes-then-the-little-addictions-i-never-expected-took-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/278584\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Gray: I beat booze and cigarettes, then the \u2018little\u2019 addictions I never expected took over"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Having jettisoned an 80-units-a-week alcohol addiction, a conviction that she needed to get married to be complete, and a cigarette habit of 10 a day, Catherine Gray thought she was free and clear. The universe had other plans\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Catherine Gray: \u2018Moderation wasn\u2019t a skill I owned in any way, shape or form.\u2019 Photo: David Yeo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/David Yeo shot five.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Catherine Gray: \u2018Moderation wasn\u2019t a skill I owned in any way, shape or form.\u2019 Photo: David Yeo<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">In recovery world, it\u2019s oft heard that \u2018addictions are like whack-a-mole.\u2019 You can always tell where the recovery meetings are, due to the smoke clouds mushrooming above it. Inside, the attendees fall upon the coffee and biscuits like seagulls upon chips.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">I was one of them, and yet I thought I was above such fallibility long term. I would be the one that was different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having jettisoned an 80-units-a-week alcohol addiction, a conviction that she needed to get married to be complete, and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77748,61,60,898,128197,132860,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-278584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-daily-features","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-latest-news-ticker","12":"tag-shp","13":"tag-signature-human-interest","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}