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At first glance, Amanda Black looked like she had the perfect life. She had a happy home, two beautiful children and a devoted partner. But for three years Amanda drank vodka from a coffee mug from the moment she woke up to the moment she passed out.

The 38-year-old content creator said: “I drank vodka all day, every day. Addiction turned me into someone I didn’t even recognise, someone I hated. It’s thousands of tiny cracks that finally split you open.”

If she had to choose a moment when her sense of self first shattered, she says she goes back to being five around the time Aladdin came out. She adored her little Princess Jasmine costume, the kind that showed her stomach.

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Her father, who didn’t raise her and who she desperately wanted approval from, came to visit. She walked into the room hoping he’d smile and tell her she looked beautiful, maybe even more magical than Jasmine herself. Instead, he stared at her tiny tummy and said: “You’re way too fat to be wearing that. You have rolls. You need to go on a diet.”

She remembers crawling into the fireplace to hide, listening to her father continue talking about her body, saying the family should be watching her weight. When he found her, he didn’t say he was sorry for hurting her, only that he should’ve humiliated her privately instead of in front of everyone.

He even gave her a little “diet plan” talking to her like a teenage boy trying to make wrestling weight, not a little girl playing dress-up. Despite all this, Amanda loves her dad. They’ve talked about this moment and even awkwardly laughed about it since. ut those words planted a poison inside her, the belief that she wasn’t enough as she was.

“Did that moment make me an alcoholic? No,” she says. But it taught me to hate myself. And I drank to hate myself less.”

Alcohol felt like the closest thing to self-love she could find. A counterfeit version of confidence. “Ultimately, I drank because for a few hours alcohol convinced me I was okay,” she says. Decades later, those internal scars collided with postpartum stress, anxiety, and a mind that didn’t know how to cope.

She thought vodka was her ‘life vest’ but it was actually sinking her as she topped up with the supplement kratom. Amanda often cut or burnt herself while cooking drunk. She even used to go to her dad’s place to get away from other family and they would throw axes, shoot crossbows or ride dirt bikes while intoxicated.

She once showed up to a pregnant friend’s baby shower blind drunk and useless. Then drove home. She drove to the hospital drunk after her grandmother fell, pretending to be present while thinking only about her next drink. She even punctured her lung and broke her ribs after falling over while intoxicated.

On September 11 2023, Amanda drove through a stop sign and was hit by an SUV going 55mph. Her pelvis fractured, her glasses shattered, she tasted blood in her mouth. But it is the terrified screams of four children in the other car that still haunt her dreams.

But she wasn’t drunk that morning. She had promised her fiancé she wouldn’t drink on the drive to work, a rare promise kept, and that decision likely saved lives. At the hospital after that crash, the doctors in ER delivered news that changed everything: she was pregnant.

That baby became the reason she fought through withdrawals while bedridden, unable to walk, and only allowed paracetamol during agony that felt endless. “It was the worst pain of my life,” she says. “But for the first time, that pain led somewhere better.”

It has not been a straightforward path back to sobriety. In fact, her darkest spiral came with a relapse last October. Her fiancé, FaceTimed to see their six-month-old baby girl. He noticed instantly she was drunk. He asked if she had been drinking. She lied. Then he asked her to swear on their baby’s life. She did.

“She had open-heart surgery at three days old,” Amanda whispers. “And I swore on her life just to keep drinking. I still can’t forgive myself for that.”

When the lie finally snapped, she wasn’t saved by honesty or bravery, but by getting caught. Her daughter survived open-heart surgery. Her son, now 10, finally has a mum who shows up. Amanda wakes up sober now. No more relapses. She plays on the floor with her children. She feels sunshine, she laughs, and apologises when she needs to.

“Sobriety gave me back my heart,” she says. Her fiancé, the man who held on while she drifted so far, now gets to watch her rise instead of fall. Their love is stronger, and there is now peaceful. And now, she tells her story, not to relive the shame, but to stop someone else from drowning.

On TikTok, she lays every ugly truth bare. People thank her for helping them get sober, and making them feel less alone. “I thought alcohol made me powerful,” says Amanda. “But it was sobriety that showed me I actually am.”

She still has scars, emotional ones that may never fade. “There is life after addiction,” she said. “There is joy after sorrow. You can be the hero and the princess.”

From drinking vodka out of a coffee tumbler every morning to reading bedtime stories with a clear mind and a full heart, “I’m a mum. I’m a fiancée. I’m a woman who fought her way back,” she says. “And if I can climb out of that darkness, absolutely anyone can.”