VIDEO. Olivia Leray recounts her childhood with an alcoholic father

“When I was in high school, my dad went into a bit of a phase where alcoholism really started to be very, very important to him. So, it’s always been that way, but me, I realize it at that moment”. Here is one of the poignant passages that can be read in Olivia Leray’s novel. Initially, his book was to be titled Papa Cyranoin reference to the name of the PMU Cyrano bar where his father regularly went: “This is where I have my first childhood memories with my father, because he went there very often, he met all his friends there and they stayed there for hours.”. Finally, Olivia Leray opts for the title water in your winewhere she talks about her childhood with an alcoholic father.

A testimony of moments of life

In her book, Olivia Leray shares memories that bear witness to the heavy daily life of a child faced with an alcohol-dependent father. “When I’m in high school, I have to take care of him because I don’t want to lose him”. “I take an hour bus ride back and forth just to go and check that he’s okay and that he didn’t do what he wanted to do, which was ‘fuck himself up’, as he said. . It’s hard enough to come home at noon just to check on your dad.”. But she also evokes happier moments of life with her father where he was a father figure for her.

The journalist also shares her impression of the detoxification cures but especially the aftermath. “Even today, when I start to talk a little about the book in the media, there are comments that say: ‘Oh no, I’m sorry when you want to stop, you stop!’ For having lived next to someone who drinks, no. When you want to stop, you can’t stop”. According to the journalist, people coming out of a cure are not reintegrated into society and are, once again, confronted with “their demons“.“And until we give you back that dignity, I don’t think you can get away with it”, she continues.