In the wake of a profound personal tragedy, one author has discovered a powerful source of solace and understanding in the stories of others. Sophie Calon, who lost her father to alcoholism in December 2021, turned to writing and reading addiction memoirs, uncovering a path to clarity and a sense of shared experience that has helped her heal.
A Sudden Yet Expected Loss
On Boxing Day 2021, the body of Sophie Calon's father was discovered near a hostel in Cardiff. He was 55 years old. His death, while sudden, was not entirely unexpected after years of battling alcohol addiction, which had physically damaged his heart. He died less than a mile from his former office, where he had been an equity partner at a top law firm, and just four miles from the family home in a leafy neighbourhood.
His life had unravelled dramatically in 2019, when he lost both his family and his job. Raised in Barry in a working-class background, he had been immensely proud of the beautiful life he had built. Despite being widely adored, his drinking made him volatile. His final two years were spent homeless and frequently in prison.
Calon saw her father for the last time in the spring of 2019, just before she moved to Australia, unable to bear the distress of his addiction any longer. From then, she followed his life through photographs in news articles about homeless Christmas dinners and police missing-person appeals.
Finding the Words to Heal
Compelled to write the morning after receiving the news of his death, Calon channelled her grief into her memoir, Long Going, published in the summer of 2023 by Honno Welsh Women's Press. The act of writing became a vital tool for steadying her mind, a lesson first taught by her father when she was five, after her brother's first epileptic seizure in 1999. He showed her how finding words could help confront unthinkable events.
The memoir, which recounts her life with the 'lightning-strike man' who raised her, has resonated deeply with readers, many describing it as surprisingly uplifting. Calon herself says she feels lighter since writing it.
The Mirror and Window of Memoirs
Her journey led her to explore other memoirs about addiction, books she had either avoided or been unaware of. In June, she attended a writing course at Tŷ Newydd with Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun – a celebrated account of recovering from alcoholism in Orkney. The 2024 film adaptation stars Saoirse Ronan. Liptrot suggested memoirs could act as windows into different worlds or mirrors of our own; for Calon, they have become both.
She found powerful reflections in Ashley Walters' Always Winning. The Top Boy star's story of his upbringing in Peckham, his father's cycles of prison and binge drinking, and his own path to rehab and a stellar acting career, offered stark parallels. Calon saw her father in Walters' arrogance and herself in the memories of loved ones treading on eggshells.
She also connected with In the Blood, co-written by Arabella Byrne and her mother Julia Hamilton, which explores their journeys to Alcoholics Anonymous nine months apart. At a joint event in Blackwell's, Oxford, with Byrne's mother in the front row and Calon's baby daughter on her lap, she felt a profound sense of breaking cycles.
Other impactful works include Jesse Thistle's From the Ashes, a gritty tale of addiction, homelessness, and eventual recovery, and Octavia Bright's This Ragged Grace, which articulates her sobriety journey alongside her father's Alzheimer's.
The Unanswered Questions and a Moment of Clarity
Through these readings, Calon inevitably searched for explanations for her father's fate. While acknowledging some things remain unknowable, a common thread emerged: each writer described a pivotal moment of clarity, an inner conviction that life would be better without alcohol. This internal realisation, rather than external pressure, propelled them towards AA or rehab, where ego was exchanged for community.
Calon was told her father once said he would rather die than go sober. "He had so much to live for," she writes. "He deserved to enjoy retirement and time with grandkids." Had he recovered, she believes he would have been an incredible presence in her own daughter's life.
This month, she is marking his birthday with three events: at a bookshop in Chester where he attended law college, at the homeless shelter that fed him on Christmas Day, and in Bristol with the charity Nacoa (the National Association for Children of Alcoholics). While she cannot change the end of her father's story, she is committed to passing on his lesson about finding the words, hoping to open more windows and reduce the number of unthinkable things families must face.
