IG: @helenpgarlik

My name is Helen Garlick and I have given up drinking alcohol on 18th January 2020—a day which I spent with my friend Barbara Mills QC at the Palm House in Kew Gardens London.

I have had two drinks thereafter—one when I had a bad time with the litter of puppies we bred and the last on 2nd October 2020 to celebrate my older daughter’s engagement. So my new sobriety date is 3.10.20. 

So imperfect with a strong and clear intention to keep going.

I am an ex-lawyer, who gave up family law and mediation in the UK to write my debut memoir No Place to Lie which is being published by Whitefox on 4.2.21. (See below)

As a lawyer I used to regularly be on radio and TV and I wrote divorce guides (the Which? Guide to Divorce - 6 editions) and I was the editor of a looseleaf textbook, the Butterworths Family Law Service. 

I trained lawyers too in talking solutions—mediation and collaborative law.

I always knew however that I needed to write a book about the true story behind my brother’s death and that it was not an accident as my father claimed. David died in 1981. I could not write the story until both of my parents died—my mother was the last to die in 2017. She then left a handwritten confession only to be found after her death—that she was gay. 

My parents used to give me wine at the table from being around 9 or 10 years old—and there was a lot of drinking around in the 1970s—it was considered smart and racy. I prided myself on being able to drink anyone else under the table in my teens and carried on drinking (apart from pregnancies) until well into my fifties. Wine was my friend—until I realised how much she lied.

In 2016 I was diagnosed with breast cancer—and had a mastectomy and reconstruction. I have read a lot about this and the links between alcohol and breast cancer.

Whilst I was drinking less, I didn’t stop until I was deep into the writing of the memoir and realised how so many of my family’s problems were linked to booze. My brother was drunk when he died. 

In terms of my recovery, I found the early days the hardest and for 6 months I would say I was still in the grip of a longing for a cold glass of Picpoul. That has eased, as has my anxiety. I used to suffer from vertigo - no longer do (which is weird). 

I feel that alcohol no longer ‘has’ me in its grip. I am present, I sleep so well, my tyre round my tummy is disappearing - slower than I’d hoped - but hey. 

I look after myself in other ways these days and have friends I can trust—like walking and talking! 

I am grateful for the gift of life, of clarity, of love and communication and connection. I am grateful for my family and our wonderful planet. I also love my dogs - and have a golden cocker spaniel puppy Ziggy Stardust whom we bred. See Insta account!

Any advice—it’s the people around you who most influence you so choose really carefully whom you have in your inner circle. Although my husband and family still drink, I have many good friends now who don’t. 

Debut memoir NO PLACE TO LIE unravels devastating family secrets and lies. Hailed “an exceptional true story of trauma, survival & hope.” 

On St David’s Day 1981, when Helen receives an unexpected phone call from her distraught father, she has no inkling that this will be the start of a maelstrom of family tragedy and painful realisations. Her extraordinarily compelling memoir NO PLACE TO LIE takes the reader on a vividly evocative, courageous journey through suicide, trauma and shame to find the truths behind the silence — and the startling secret her mother took to her grave.

“I am and always will be not the same but be different”. 

These were the first words Helen read from a white envelope — handwritten by her elderly mother to be found after her death. It turned out that her mum was gay — a blindsiding secret to her daughter and grandchildren, as well as her mum’s 79-year-old sister Judy.

NO PLACE TO LIE focuses on how her family’s secrets and their focus on keeping up appearances impacted on Helen and her sensitive younger brother David, who took his own life in a remote country mansion when he was twenty years old.

Formerly a successful family lawyer and mediator, Helen, 62, has since had to make sense of her childhood raised by a narcissistic mother and a brilliant, ambitious solicitor father and the reasons behind her brother’s tragic suicide, which was not, as her dad claimed, an accident. 

And how do you come to terms with the fact that your mum lived a lie — and, what’s more, had a relationship with a minor at the age of 19?

Helen, a mum of three and stepmum to two more adult children, explores what she has learnt from her mother, for whom she never felt good enough. Ultimately NO PLACE TO LIE is an amazing story about family shame and guilt and fighting to find healing, joy and love.

ADVANCE REVIEWS FOR NO PLACE TO LIE:

“I read the book in two days and loved it. I wish all of the emotional and behavioural lessons that you could take from it could be bottled and taught early on. The power to cause great damage (or great happiness) to others unwittingly by our behaviours or our desire to conform to social norms is huge. If only everyone could learn that sooner rather than later”. 

Matthew Syed. Author, journalist and broadcaster.

“NO PLACE TO LIE is an exceptional true-life story of trauma, damage, survival and hope. Read with care, the book gives us an honest, deep insight into a family’s tragedy, what and perhaps why it all happened”. 

Dr Shelley Gilbert. MBE, Founder and President of Grief Encounter.

“A sibling’s respectful, honest memoir of a lost brother and corroding family secrets”. 

Libby Purves OBE, radio presenter, journalist and author.

“Secrets hidden for decades are finally brought out into the sunlight and suddenly the past makes sense. A true story with all the drama of a well written novel”. 

Martyn Ware. Founding member Human League and Heaven 17.

NO PLACE TO LIE will be published by whitefox on 4th February 2021, price £9.99.  ISBN 9781913532185.

For images, a review copy of the book or to arrange an interview with Helen please contact her on helengarlick@icloud.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Previously a well-known family lawyer/mediator and author of various books and textbooks on family matters, including The Which? Guide to Divorce, Helen Garlick has appeared on TV, radio and podcasts. She has worked with thousands of clients to achieve amicable outcomes on separation and divorce. Helen has also trained thousands of lawyers in constructive talking solutions, focusing on the family’s best interests. Helen spearheaded collaborative practice training for Resolution (First for Family Law) until 2020 and ran bespoke dispute resolution courses. She was previously chair of the management committee of One Parent Families. 

Brought up in Yorkshire, Helen lives in Sussex on the South Downs with her husband Tim and is a mum of three and stepmum of two. Surprisingly sober since stepping back from legal practice to focus on writing (maybe that’s no surprise at all), Helen Garlick now writes and speaks about the healing power of talking and connection via her YouTube channel, Hello! It’s Better to Talk, launching in late 2020. 

Helen will walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats in 2023, fundraising for charities dedicated to suicide prevention and wellbeing, with Tim and their cocker spaniels Pippin and Ziggy Stardust.