I was born in Africa to an African mother and an English father. My mother had a fling with my white dad while she was still married to her black husband. When my skin did not darken her affair was rumbled.

At five years old she sent me to England, on the plane alone, to live with my father. I have never seen her since and we lost contact when I was 11 years old. On arrival in the UK, I did not speak English and my dad did not speak Lozi, my tribe’s language.I grew up in a single parent family – just daddy and I. My father is an academic; an art historian who brought me up believing culture was the back bone of my education.

I lived with the anger and pain at losing my mother at such a young age every day. I lived in fear that daddy would desert me if I expressed my sadness about my feelings towards my mum or if I was anything other than the ‘perfect ‘daughter. My goal in life was to please him, so he wouldn't bugger off as mummy had done.
My inability to cope with my feelings led me to try and resolve them alone and eventually aged 12, I discovered alcohol, which initially was my saviour. It gave me a break from my acute feelings of inadequacy and fears of abandonment and hatred towards my mother for leaving me. At 14 I was diagnosed with depression, was getting drunk frequently, had started taking speed and was smoking cannabis.

I left home at 16 and moved from Yorkshire to London with my boyfriend. My relationship with my father barely survived this and through the coming years we have had a very unhappy and tense relationship which has only began to ease in the past three years.

I hooked up with a girl, Petra. We both had  a taste for booze and white powder and together we decided to begin escorting.

I made a lot of money – seeing rich punters either at their homes or in fancy hotels. Earning £300 per hour meant the money never ran out, which kept  my cocaine addiction and alcoholism fueled daily. I had older men pay for flats for me – partied in members clubs and bars, screwed men for money, drank champagne and vodka every night. But the fact remained, I never felt a part of it. I was too cynical and not shallow enough to fit it. I could no longer emotionally cope with myself, my lifestyle, and habit and was desperately lonely, and deeply sad.

Eventually I married a man – then ran away from him after two weeks. I went to Africa to try and escape my London life, and there I married another, making me a bigamist. I was drinking over a litre of vodka a day, plus necking prescription drugs, in the months I was there.

I eventually came back to London and with my lack of confidence started working from a flat, screwing lots of men for very little money. I  lost my home and moved into a hotel, I was no longer smart enough to persuade rich men to pay for my housing. Things changed when Mark,  the only constant in my adult life,  helped me fulfill my desperate desire to get into rehab.

I’ve been clean and sober for six years.

I am 31 years old.

Hooked is my story.