Cleaning up - Tania Glyde

A tour of one woman's life with alcohol, and why she decided to give it up. Our relationship with alcohol is the longest most of us will ever have, and the most intense, though few of us will ever admit it.
It is blamed for the rise in street violence, and women's increased consumption of it is the cause of relentless moral panic, but it also provides the main route to sexual experience, and to experimentation with drugs, something that policy-makers are reluctant to admit.
Tania Glyde explores the reasons why she drank in the first place, why she carried on doing it - and found it the most effective 'gateway drug' ever - and the long slow car-crash of life events that finally convinced her to give it up.
Through her own story, she looks at why women are drinking more, suggests that they may be kidding themselves, and explains what it's like to break the national taboo and live without alcohol.