Gin as a Cure for Your Existence
A Family History of Mother's Ruin
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My mother tried to abort me by drinking neat gin.
Don’t condemn her. She was in a terrible place. With two-year-old twin boys to look after, an unexpectedly affectionless marriage, and freshly moved to a city thousands of miles from her home, where she could not feel more isolated, she was barely keeping her head above the waterline. A brilliant woman, suffocating in domestic drudgery, with all the imagined “romance” of marriage evaporated. I get it, Mum. I have found myself drowning in a similar place.
This was pre-pill, pre-legalised abortion. What was a desperate woman to do, to keep herself out of the asylum, and still able to care for her dear boys? Drink “Mother’s Ruin”. Gin was a well-known cure for unwanted pregnancy. Sit in a hot bath, drink neat gin. The juniper b…
