I drank two bottles of wine a day. Then naturopathy (and a cheque from Gazza) saved my life, says Margi Clarke

11 April 2012
The Weekender

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She was once dubbed the Queen of Liverpool by godfather of punk Malcolm McLaren. But as actress Margi Clarke bursts back on to our screens in Coronation Street, she, more than anyone, knows how easy it is for the mighty to fall.

Battling against alcohol and with a debilitating illness that left her bedridden, for the past four years she has veered between making ends meet as a market trader and working in a cafe.

'I'd written off showbusiness,' she says. 'I'd had my chance and I blew it back in 1998 when I left Coronation Street.'

Rescued: Margi Clarke was down and out until the generosity of Paul Gascoigne, below, helped turn her life around

Rescued: Margi Clarke was down and out until the generosity of Paul Gascoigne, below, helped turn her life around

But she was to be thrown a remarkable lifeline by another celebrity alcoholic, Paul Gascoigne.

'To be given a second go is more than I'd ever hoped for. It's made it safe for me to dream again,' says 54-year-old Margi.

The actress believes training as a naturopath and launching a range of natural remedies rescued her after alcohol took over her life.

Her drinking, which began in 1996, triggered a serious yeast infection, Candida albicans, which left her with blisters on her skin and made her so sick she was too exhausted to move.

'I was at rock bottom; there was no further down I could go.

'I've always been tough and able to cope somehow with whatever life threw at me, but there were days when I didn't know how I'd carry on. I could just see this black hole in front of me and I was slipping further and further into it,' says Margi.

At the height of her fame, in 1995, the actress had a wardrobe of designer clothes, a smart BMW and a comfortable home in her beloved Liverpool. She was starring in Coronation Street as jailbird Jackie Dobbs and had become a household name.

But when her mother, Frances, died the following year from lung cancer, she was devastated and began drinking heavily to mask her grief.

'I was very like my mum and, although I'm one of ten children, we were close. She'd always be there to tell me if she thought I needed to nip my behaviour in the bud. I always knew she was watching over me.

'When she died nothing prepared me for it. Suddenly I didn't have anyone to tell me that I maybe had a potentially dangerous side to my personality; in my case it was an addiction to alcohol.

'I was in Coronation Street so there was plenty of opportunity to party and it quickly got to the point where I was drinking a couple of bottles of wine a day, plus vodka and anything else I could get my hands on.

'It was like alcohol had opened a gate to a dangerous lifestyle that I knew was wrong but at the same time it made me feel like superwoman.

'I wasn't focused and although I turned up to work on Coronation Street on time, I'd often be hungover or smell of alcohol.

'My contract wasn't renewed. I'd had a brilliant opportunity and I'd messed it up as a direct result of my drinking,' confesses Margi.

At the same time she walked out on artist Jamie Reid, now 61, father of her 16-year-old daughter Rowan and the man she has described as 'the love of my life'.

'It was all part of the same self-destructive madness I was going through. I'd lost all parameters,' says Margi.

'I don't know what I thought I was doing; maybe I thought I could leave and he'd be there waiting, I don't know.

'He's married again now and I'm very happy for him. He has a good relationship with Rowan, which is great, but I regret that I threw away our 17 years together.'

Margi also has a son, Lawrence, from an earlier relationship.

Work dried up and Margi couldn't face the continued rejection of auditions, so she quit acting and in 2002 signed on the dole. Yet her drinking persisted.

'My family could see I needed help. At one point they came to my house en masse and begged me to go into rehab. But I couldn't afford it and I didn't want to leave Rowan, who was only young at the time.

Street cred: Margi is back in trouble in her old role as Jackie Dobbs in Coronation Street with Alan Halsall as son Tyrone with his fiancee Molly, played by Vicky Binns

Street cred: Margi is back in trouble in her old role as Jackie Dobbs in Coronation Street with Alan Halsall as son Tyrone with his fiancee Molly, played by Vicky Binns

'It must have been so tough for her. There would be half-filled bottles of booze lying around the house, alcohol stains on the floor, the house looked a tip. If I wasn't being sick, I'd have a hangover. And she saw me crying pitifully so often that she just accepted it as normal.'

What Margi - who made her name in the 1985 romantic comedy Letter To Brezhnev - didn't realise was that her alcohol abuse had triggered the yeast infection Candida albicans.

Candida albicans is a fungus that is present in the human body but kept in check by friendly bacteria. However, the fungus, which tends to live in the digestive tract, becomes overactive on sugar and yeast.

Sufferers can help themselves by eliminating sugar, alcohol and fermented or yeasted foods from their diet, but, as Margi discovered, one of the symptoms of a candida infection is a craving for these foods, particularly sugar.

'As well as the booze, I was eating two big bags of sweets a day, cakes, biscuits - anything that had sugar in it. What I didn't realise was that it was the infection making my body crave the sugar and for two years I carried on like that to the point where I got irritable bowel, thrush in my mouth, my skin erupted in blisters and I had sores on my face. Added to that I had crippling athlete's foot. I was a mess.'

Strong antibiotics had no impact on the infection and Margi continued with both her drinking and poor diet. 'It made me feel exhausted. Some days I'd just lie in bed not wanting to get up.

'The NHS had palmed me off as menopausal once the antibiotics didn't work. Then by chance I met a girl in a cafe who was studying naturopathy, a form of alternative medicine that focuses on herbs and nutrition, and I wondered if there might be an answer away from conventional medicine.

'She'd been studying at The College of Naturopathic Medicine in Manchester and I was so intrigued that I checked it out and was completely fascinated. For the first time in more than six years I felt stirrings of hope.

'I found out everything I could about naturopathy, researching on the internet, and it was like a little light had been turned on in my head. I knew without a doubt it was what I wanted to do for a living,' says Margi.

But before she could even think of embarking on a new career, she had to wean herself off alcohol.

'I knew I had to do it; I'd known it for years but now I had a reason.

'A friend stayed with me every night for three weeks as I went through the withdrawal. The first week was the worst, sweating, craving a drink, but I had a goal and it felt like someone somewhere had thrown me a lifeline that I had to grab on to.'

Bright idea: Margi dyed her hair pink to change her image, and the producers of Coronation Street loved it

Bright idea: Margi dyed her hair pink to change her image, and the producers of Coronation Street loved it

Her future suffered another crushing blow when she was made bankrupt by the Inland Revenue for £5,000 in unpaid taxes.

With barely enough money to buy food, there was no way she could afford the £3,000 fees needed for a part-time naturopathy course - until former footballer Paul Gascoigne came to her aid.

'I'd met Paul a few years before at the premiere of the film School For Seduction, which I'd been in with Kelly Brook.

He asked to meet me having seen me in the film Blonde Fist and we hit it off straight away. We'd text one another and have kept tabs on each other for years.

'He was undergoing one of his rehab trips and I'd told him about getting off the booze myself and mentioned I was looking into the course but had to raise the money.

'He didn't say anything but the next day he sent me a cheque for £3,000.'

Enrolling on the course, Margi began studying nutrition, aromatherapy, herbs, massage and colonic irrigation - a treatment aimed at detoxifying the body - and immediately realised she might be able to cure her own health problems.

'I went to a colonic irrigation specialist who was able to treat the Candida albicans,' she explains.

'I had to give up sugar and yeast. By then I'd quit alcohol, and completely purging my body began to show immediate results.

'My eyes returned to a bright blue instead of having a toxic green tinge, my skin started to clear up and the sick feeling I'd suffered for more than two years went. Within a matter of weeks I felt like a new person.

'For two years my tongue had a yellow tinge to it but once I changed my diet it started to go pink again. I started taking a course of probiotic pills as well to start getting my gut working properly.'

Margi bought a juicer and began drinking a cocktail of vegetable drinks including celery, spinach and watercress.

'It was like the juices turned the lights back on in my body. I'd mix carrot, apple and a bit of ginger in the morning and it would be a huge energy tonic for the rest of the day. It was the most amazing feeling.

'Realising how powerful food could be was a revelation and now when I go around food halls I realise they are just sugar shops. There's so much of it in everything we eat.'

Today her diet consists of healthy soups, lentils and porridge, as well as salad at least twice a week. Her only remaining vice is her ten-a-day cigarette habit.

Although the naturopathy course, which she started in 2004, was for two years, the pressure to earn a living made Margi quit after one, but she used the skills she'd learned to set up a market stall selling a line of natural remedies.

She teamed up with homoeopath friend Laura Kemp and together they came up with a range of creams and bath oils they call Soul Rinse.

All the products are made from natural ingredients and not tested on animals. One of their bestsellers is a Geranium face and body cream (£6) that includes sweet almond oil, coconut oil and essential oil of geranium.

Margi began selling the products from a stall in Liverpool's Heritage Market.

She recalls: 'There was one lad who had terrible acne and I got him to try one of the creams. He was a conductor on the buses and it made such a difference to his skin that the passengers wanted to know where he'd got it, which brought me a whole load of new customers.

'Nothing was over a fiver, so working the stalls didn't make me rich. But it was enough to put food on the table and it gave me back my self-respect.'

Redevelopment of the market meant Margi had to give up the stall, but undeterred she set up online.

Breakthrough role: With Alfred Molina in the 1985 comedy Letter To Brezhnev

Breakthrough role: With Alfred Molina in the 1985 comedy Letter To Brezhnev

She also took a job in a cafe where she did everything from frying sausages to washing up, and worked there for more than a year before getting the call to rejoin Coronation Street as Jackie Dobbs a few months ago.

Mistakenly believing she was going to return in another role, she dyed her hair bright pink to distinguish her from her original character. The producers liked it so much they asked her to keep it. She has signed a two-month contract and will be appearing in the Christmas episodes when her screen son Tyrone is due to marry.

The irony that at one point her life resembled a soap opera storyline is not lost on Margi. There was a brief affair with builder Philip Rubin, 24 years her junior, whom she now refuses to even mention by name.

'I began a relationship with someone who was the same age as my son and we talked about getting married,' she says. 'But it was all part of the madness that I was in at that time. We didn't get married and haven't spoken for years.

'I haven't had a relationship for four years. I've been concentrating on getting myself better. I've had great love in my life and done my share of dating but for the first time, I'm enjoying being on my own, spending time at home with my daughter and friends. I've hung up my party stilettos.

'Although I'm 54, I've got a fresh start and if it hadn't been for naturopathy I don't think that would have happened. I'm teetotal and the benefit of my drinking is that Rowan doesn't want to touch it.

'I've also been able to start my own little business and this time, if the acting dries up, I'll have something else that I can still do.

'I'm not interested in the trappings of success. I just want to earn enough money to pay the bills, and if I can earn a little bit extra, top of the list is to pay back Paul Gascoigne.

'He gave me the new start I needed and for that I owe him so much more than just money.'

• www.soulrinse.co.uk.

Hair by Martin at Herberts, Liverpool. Thanks to The Hope Street Hotel, Liverpool.

Need-to-know facts about naturopathy

• Naturopathy - also known as naturopathic medicine or natural medicine - is a complementary and alternative medical (CAM) profession.

• Practitioners emphasise a 'holistic' approach - giving physical, mental and emotional aspects of life equal importance when prescribing treatments, which often rely on the body's innate ability to heal and maintain itself.

• Depending on the training of the specialist, treatment may include nutritional advice, hydrotherapy (water therapy), detoxification techniques, osteopathy/chiropractic and massage. If a patient does not respond to naturopathic treatments, good practice is to refer to conventional physicians.

• Naturopaths believe that disease indicates an imbalance in the body and this can be corrected by lifestyle changes.

• Herbs and foods are used to treat illness, rather than surgery or medication.

• Naturopathic treatments have been shown to help counteract the side effects of treatments for diseases such as cancer and HIV. Remedies can be used alongside conventional medicine.

• Trained naturopaths may use the designation ND (naturopathic doctor) or BSc, BHSc, BNat or Dip.Nat, or some may have no formal training at all.

• There is no Government regulation of the naturopathy profession in the UK.

• The largest registering body is The General Council & Register of Naturopaths. Members will either have completed a three or four-year full-time course in a naturopathic specialism or a two-year, post-graduate Naturopathic Diploma (ND). For a list of accredited members visit www.naturopathy.org.uk.

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