Clutching my four-year-old daughter tightly, I couldn’t hold back my tears.

‘Mummy is poorly, so you’re going to go to stay with Daddy while I get better,’ I sobbed, the sight of her ­confused little face breaking my heart.

It had not been my decision to send her and her older brother away, however.

Social services had demanded they be separated from me after I’d willingly admitted I was addicted to ketamine.

It’s a drug more associated with young clubbers, but I had stumbled into addiction as a middle-aged, middle-class mother after being introduced to it by a fellow school-gate mum.

With that confession, and plea for help, my world came crashing down. Within hours, my children were ripped away from me.

It would be 18 torturous months before I would be trusted to spend time alone with them both again.

But the agony of that time also became my greatest motivation to kick the habit that had crept into my orderly and respectable life and destroyed it.

And it has made me determined to raise awareness of the dangers of drug use – and how women who do not appear to be like ‘traditional’ addicts can fall victim.

My story of addiction began during the first national lockdown in 2020, when I was 35.

A single mum of two – my son was ten and my daughter three at that time – and living in Kent, I was ­juggling home-schooling with ­keeping a toddler entertained. Like so many mothers, I was stressed and exhausted.

Strung out, isolated and ­overwhelmed, it was alcohol that initially became my crutch.

Pre-pandemic, I wasn’t a regular drinker, only partaking if I had an evening out. But now a couple of glasses of wine as I chatted with friends over Zoom in the evening took the edge off the stresses of yet another day trapped in a small home with two energetic children and no respite.

With so many others doing the same around the country, it didn’t seem unreasonable.

As the weeks passed, though, that couple of glasses in the evening became three, then four, then the whole ­bottle. Then I was ‘treating’ myself to a glass or two at lunch, too. By May 2020, I was getting through ten bottles a week.

I knew it was a lot, and I hated that I looked permanently puffy and hungover, waking every morning with a thumping headache, as well as ­gaining weight. I also felt guilty that it was affecting my energy ­levels and patience with the children.

I was complaining – glass in hand – to a friend one evening about how bloated and tired I was feeling when she smiled.

‘Why don’t you try a bit of ­ketamine?’ she said. ‘That’s what I do now and then for a little treat. All the mums are doing it. You should give it a go.’

I was flabbergasted. Ketamine! A Class B drug. Was she serious?

I’d heard about it vaguely; it’s an anaesthetic drug, used on humans and animals, and also used to treat depression. Its popularity as a ­recreational drug has surged in recent years – particularly among young people – largely because it is cheap compared to other drugs.

Yet I never thought women like us – she was a mother of primary school-aged children with a ­respectable job and nice home – might be dabbling.

She explained that there were other mums in the area who used it recreationally, both socially pre-­pandemic and now in lockdown, as a little pick-me-up.

Indeed, figures from the Office for National Statistics show that ­ketamine use among women is on the rise; in 2023, female deaths from ketamine were three times higher than pre-2020. In January last year, it was revealed that the ­Government was seeking advice on whether to reclassify the drug as Class A amid soaring use.

Despite my shock and concern – after all, this was an illegal drug – I admit I was intrigued.

‘It makes you feel a bit floaty, and chilled out, like you’ve had a couple of drinks – but without the calories and sore head,’ she told me. ‘Just give this guy a ring. He’ll sort you out.’

By ‘this guy’ she meant a dealer – yet it was said as casually as if she was passing me the number for a good babysitter.

Foolishly, I told myself it wouldn’t do any harm to try a small amount to see if it helped reduce my drinking, not realising I was standing on the precipice of an addiction that would tear my life apart.

A few days later, I was waiting nervously outside my apartment block for the dealer to drop off a small bag of ketamine, costing £15.

It felt surreal, making this illicit connection while my children watched a film inside. But life was already so strange at that time – it just felt like yet another crazy moment.

That evening, with the children tucked up in bed and the dishwasher humming in the background, I chopped a very small amount of the white powder into a small ‘bump’, or tiny pile.

I’d read all about ‘k-holes’, which is when too high a dose can leave users unable to speak or move and ­suffering hallucinations.

I couldn’t risk that with two young children in my sole care, so I resolved to only use a tiny amount, believing that ‘microdosing’ would protect me from ‘bad’ effects.

As the powder went up my nose for the first time, I immediately felt my body and mind unwind. It was exactly as my friend had described, the ‘softening’ and soothing effect ­alcohol had, just in a different form.

And when I woke the next morning, with no desperate thirst or piercing headache from two bottles of wine, I felt elated, almost smug that I’d ­discovered this new antidote to life’s strains.

I began inhaling a small amount of ketamine nightly once the children were safely tucked up in bed, my ­little ‘Mummy treat’ as I thought of it, after a day of home school, arts and crafts and cleaning.

To begin with, two bags would last a week, costing £30, so it was significantly cheaper than my old wine habit. Another bonus, I thought.

It wasn’t long, though, until, as with alcohol, my body began to demand more of the drug to achieve the same effect.

Although there was no comedown, the feeling I enjoyed only lasted a couple of hours and then I’d be back to normal – which was what I was trying to escape.

So, one ‘hit’ a night became two – and then one during the day, too.

I remember settling the children down in front of a movie after their lunch that first time, then locking myself in the bathroom with my small bag of powder.

I knew deep down that I was ­crossing another line by using during the day – but I told myself I’d be a ­happier version of myself that afternoon, so we’d all benefit.

I never used in front of the ­children, always taking it in a different room. When I was high I believed I was a better mum to them – happier, more chilled and less frazzled, and ­perfectly able to function as their mother. The lies we tell ourselves to rationalise drug use. I was dipping into my savings to pay for it and, of course, the more I used, the more money I handed over to my dealer. In total, I estimate I spent around £40,000.

By the time restrictions lifted and life became a bit more ­normal, ketamine was so firmly entrenched in my life I carried on using it in growing quantities. At my worst, I was using up to eight times a day.

It was around nine months after I first tried it, in the spring of 2021, that I began to suffer pain in my chest, between my breasts and towards the top of my stomach.

It felt like severe indigestion, so I didn’t connect it to my ­ketamine use, but no amount of over-the-counter remedies helped with it.

Then, it didn’t occur to me that something I was putting up my nose could cause pain in my chest and abdomen. But I know now the drug was affecting my bile ducts, a serious condition known as ketamine-induced cholangiopathy, where damage to the bile ducts can lead to inflammation, scarring and potential cirrhosis and liver failure. It can be fatal.

Throughout 2021, these bouts of pain became more frequent and intense, and on 14 occasions I went to A&E.

I was too scared and ashamed to tell the doctors about my ­ketamine use, so they were left scratching their heads trying to work out what was wrong with me.

As well as my shame, I knew that if I confessed I would have to stop taking it.

By then, life ­without ketamine as my ­emotional crutch was ­inconceiv­able. If I didn’t take it, I felt low and lethargic.

However in October 2021, aged 36, matters were taken out of my hands.

By then, I was getting through five bags a day, at a cost of £525 a week, and had burned through my savings. My copious use meant there were days I was ­bedbound with pain, sending the children to relatives for the day, and I was terrified about the long-term effects on my health. I felt racked with guilt but unable to stop.

When I suffered a bout of pain so severe I believed I was having a heart attack, I dialled 999. When paramedics arrived, I knew I had no choice but to tell them the truth.

‘I’m a ketamine addict,’ I told them. ‘And I need help.’

Hearing those words out loud after all the months of secrecy brought a sense of relief – but also fear.

I knew there would be ­consequences in terms of social services getting involved – and rightfully so – to ensure my ­children’s safety and wellbeing.

While I knew they might not be able to live with me for a time while I recovered, I never ­considered that I would be banned from having contact with them. After all, during my months of ketamine use they had never been neglected.

But by the time I was ­discharged from hospital later that same day, a social worker had contacted me to tell me my son was already on his way to his father’s, and that I would have only a brief ­opportunity to say goodbye to my daughter before she, too, left our family home.

I would not be allowed any ­contact with either of them for the immediate future.

I was shell-shocked. I thought I had done the right thing, but now it felt like I was being punished for trying to get help. I also felt so guilty that I was the cause of this shocking disruption to my ­children’s lives.

After a tearful goodbye with my little girl, I collapsed to the floor of my silent apartment in sheer disbelief.

The urge to use ketamine swept over me – unsurprisingly, given the months I relied on it as an antidote to any negative ­emotions – but I refused to give in.

This was rock bottom and I had to claw my way up and get my children back.

I chose to go cold turkey, rather than seek medical support to wean myself off the drug. I felt ashamed and believed that, as I had got myself into this mess, it was down to me to get out of it.

I moved in with my mum because I couldn’t bear to remain in my home with all the children’s toys and clothes to remind me I was no longer trusted to care for them, nor even speak to them.

I began attending Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings, which were instrumental in my recovery. My sponsor became a lifeline. Meeting other women there, including mothers like me, I felt less alone.

As any addict knows, the voice of addiction is still in your mind during recovery but, whenever it spoke to me, I only had to picture my children to find the strength not to listen to it.

It was four long months before I was allowed to have video calls with them both. Seeing their faces on the screen, our call being monitored by a social worker, was bittersweet because I was desperate to have them in my arms.

I struggled to keep my emotions in check so as not to upset them, and reassured them I was getting better and we’d be together again soon – even though it was largely out of my control.

Because they have different fathers, there were two separate legal processes to be followed before I could see them in person, with me having repeated drugs tests and endless meetings to prove I wasn’t a risk to them.

I was reunited with my son, by then 12, after six months, initially in the form of supervised visits, then we were allowed to be together alone.

But it was almost 18 months before I could be with my daughter – then five – again in person. Reuniting with her after so long was deeply emotional. Having them both in my arms, I felt ­complete for the first time since that terrible day they had been taken away from me.

In early 2023, we all spent the night together in my new home, which I’d moved into in late 2021. Falling asleep under the same roof as them for the first time in months, I felt overwhelmed with relief. Since then, I have shared custody with their dads and they spend weekends and holidays with me and my new partner, who has been a huge support to me.

Of course, I miss them terribly during the week, but they both settled into new schools when I was in recovery, and I don’t want to disrupt their lives further. What’s best for them is the ­priority, and I cherish our time together.

My son is old enough now to know why we were apart for those months, and he understands I battled hard to bring us back together, both against addiction and the legal system. No mother wants their child to hear she was an addict, but I cannot change the past and hope my experience will mean he will never be tempted to try drugs. He knows the damage they wreak on lives.

My daughter is still too young to understand what happened, so continues to believe I was poorly all those months we were apart, but one day I will have that ­difficult conversation about why we missed so much precious time together.

My message to mothers tempted to use ketamine – or any drug – is it’s not a ‘treat’ or a ‘pick-me-up’, it’s a dangerous, life-wrecking substance. Learn from my experience.

Now 40, I have made a full ­physical recovery from my ­cholangiopathy and still attend NA meetings, but now I am one of the people who reassure ­newcomers that there is hope.

So much stigma surrounds mothers who fall into drug abuse, and it keeps women silent and trapped in their addiction.

We must treat women like me with compassion and support, or they will never be able to step out of the darkness I found myself in.

As told to Eimear O'Hagan