Singer/songwriter Janet Devlin opens up about her struggle with alcohol dependency

Janet Devlin, from Gortin, Co Tyrone, was just 16-years-old when she competed in the eighth series of The X-Factor in 2011, where she finished in fifth place.

After shooting to fame, loneliness and social anxiety led to a downward spiral that was fuelled by alcohol and resulted in addiction, self-harm and attempts to take her own life.

In Northern Ireland, the number of alcohol-related deaths among women is at an all-time high and increasing faster than anywhere else in the UK.

Women – and particularly young women – are succumbing to alcohol abuse and addiction at an unprecedented rate.

In a new documentary, Janet Devlin: Young, Female and Addicted, the singer/songwriter, now 27, talks candidly about her alcoholism and mental health and speaks to medical experts about why young women are drinking more than ever.

The programme hears from a consultant psychiatrist, who considers addiction as a form of mental illnesss.

Now six years sober, the film also follows Janet as she embarks on a journey to try to understand the root cause of her addiction and how it impacted those closest to her, including her mum and her manager, who speak publicly for the first time about the effect it had on them and their lives.

Over the course of the documentary, she meets other young women from Northern Ireland who are recovering from alcoholism, or whose lives and families have been devastated by addiction.

Their deeply personal stories reveal the intrinsic link between mental health and addiction and illustrate how easy it can be to fall into alcohol dependence.

As Janet says in the programme: “Addiction to the most socially accepted addictive drug in the world can, and will, take every ounce of goodness from your life.”

Watch Janet Devlin: Young, Female and Addicted on Monday February 28 on BBC One Northern Ireland at 10.35pm. You can also watch the programme after it airs on the BBC iPlayer.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Ben Lowry

Editor