Middle-class mother-of-three 39, was so hooked on cocaine that she ‘needed a line’ to do the housework: ‘It was as normal as a cup of tea’

When the time came to clean her home, it wasn’t just carpets Kaitlin Reeve was hoovering—it was lines of cocaine, too. 

The mother-of-three, 39, who lives in the middle class stronghold of Surrey, struggled with drug addiction for two decades, spending up to £200-a-day on cocaine and cannabis. 

Ms Reeve said: ‘Most days, I was getting the kids ready for school on very little or no sleep.

‘I was going to work, picking them up from school, getting them to bed, then at night I would get back to what I was doing.

‘I needed a line to do the cleaning. It was the only way I could muster up the energy to do it.

‘It was as normal as a cup of tea. I did do it at work fairly often as well.’ 

Ms Reeve got hooked on cocaine aged 16 while working in London, having started drinking alcohol in year five, smoking cigarettes from age 11 and smoking weed at 15. 

At the height of her addiction, Ms Reeve was snorting between half a gram and three grams of cocaine a day, and went to great lengths to hide her habit, even hiding stashes of the drug behind light fittings. 

She continued to struggle with her addiction after becoming a mum to kids – an 18-year-old daughter, and sons 14 and five – and while holding down a career as an estate agent.

Ms Reeve said: ‘When I look back at photos, I can see I still took them (the children) on days out and did arts and crafts with them but I wasn’t present.

‘Other people would say “Kaitlin does this with her kids and she’s great at this” – but inside I was dying.

‘I was very depressed. I found day-to-day life very stressful.

‘I was often lazy as a parent when I look back.’

Ms Reeve got clean after a ‘moment of clarity’ while smoking a joint in her garden.

The mum-of-three went to a recovery group and is now three years sober.

She said: ‘Because I was a very unhappy young person, I think alcohol gave me a bit of relief from my life.

‘I remember sneaking out of school to drink and sneaking alcohol into school.’

Britain is now believed to snort around 117 tonnes of cocaine per year, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency amid a huge explosion in use. 

Users report feeling a ‘buzz’ and surge in confidence from the stimulant—but as the effects fade quickly, users need to take more of the drug to regain the positive feelings. 

It can quickly form a psychological addiction, and long-term use can lead to severe mental health issues, including paranoia, and insomnia.   

The UK has the second highest rate of cocaine use in the world, with one in 40 adults — 2.7 per cent of the population — using the party drug, more than any other country in Europe, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says. 

When snorted, cocaine causes the blood vessels in the nose to contract very strongly, known medically as vasculitis. 

For those that take just a small amount of cocaine, this can cause minor sniffles and slight congestion.

But for other who are much more sensitive to the drug, or who regularly take cocaine, inflammation starts to compromise the blood supply to the tissue of the nose, resulting in more serious consequences, including burning ‘holes’ through their septums.

Ms Reeve first tried cocaine while working as a club promoter in Kensington, London aged just 16.

She became hooked on the ‘glamour’ of early-noughties high society as the drug helped her ‘hold her own’ among celebrities.

She said: ‘The first time I tried it was in a penthouse in Kensington and I felt really glamorous.

‘When I started doing cocaine, I felt grown up.

‘I went from being the underdog to hanging around with Hollywood stars and seeing these amazing places where there was loads of glamour and fashion.’

Ms Reeve said she ‘couldn’t sit still’ and would ‘go out by myself’ instead of spending a night at home.

After falling pregnant with her baby girl aged 20, Ms Reeve cut down her drinking and drug-taking, but when a relationship ended three years later, she slipped back into the cycle.

‘It all crept back in and it was time to go back out partying,’ she said.

She went on to have two sons but the emotional toll of her addiction was growing.

‘When I had my second child, I had to hide it a lot more but I don’t think I was doing the best job,’ she said.

‘Towards 2013 and 2014, I was getting paranoid, hearing things, thinking people were watching me all the time.

‘Eventually, I decided I wanted a better life for my children, so I moved away from London to get away from it all and I did but it crept back in.

‘I found life quite depressing and scary and the only way I knew how to change that was through drink and drugs.’

The addiction cost her anywhere between £20 and £200 a day – and she suspects she could have bought a house with the money she spent on drugs over the years.

She continued: ‘I never lost my kids or my house or any of that stuff but I lost my sanity, my dignity, my self-worth.

‘My health was really bad. I remember one time looking in the mirror and my face had gone grey and my lips were blue from sniffing.

‘I still went back and did another one.’

Ms Reeve painstakingly held down jobs as an estate agent and barmaid throughout the darkest depths of her addiction.

‘I used to think ‘why don’t people like me’ but then I was turning up hungover and on no sleep,’ she said.

‘Jobs would fizzle out but I always had a job.

‘One would end and I would go for the next one.’

After so many years of constant drinking and drug-taking, plus many ‘rock bottom’ moments, one ‘moment of clarity’ in her garden three years ago drove Ms Reeve to change.

She said: ‘One day, I was sitting in the garden smoking a joint and I literally can’t describe what happened.

‘I was enlightened and I thought “you’re going to kill yourself and this is your opportunity to turn this around”.

‘To be honest, I had wanted to stop for years but I was so scared that if I asked for help I’d lose my children.

‘All I ever wanted to be was a good mum so the thought of losing my kids was awful for them just as much as me.

‘I’m grateful I didn’t lose my children but I’m even more grateful they didn’t lose me.’

Walking into a recovery group meeting was a scary moment – but she has never looked back since.

She said: ‘A couple of days after that moment, I walked in all dressed up (to the meeting) because I wanted to look like I wasn’t that bad.

‘And I said ‘I’m Ms Reeve and I’m an addict’ and I surprised myself.

‘I couldn’t believe that these people had done what I was doing and they were OK and they were happy.’

In the years since, she has shared her journey on social media, and started training to become a therapist and supports other recovering addicts through a 12-step fellowship.

‘Recovery has given me freedom’, she said.

‘I don’t have a big house or fancy cars but I have peace.

‘I have a brilliant relationship with my children.

‘If I can help another woman and her children not to go through what some other children have to go through, then me sharing my story is worth it.’

She added: ‘I used to look at my kids every day and break inside but they were the reason I kept going.’