Lying on a sun lounger at a bustling holiday resort on Egypt’s Red Sea coast should have been the perfect place for Nikki Bradfield to relax.

But what no one would have known then was that the mother-of-three was struggling. 

As her sons enjoyed the waterslides and other families splashed nearby, Nikki’s thoughts were on cocaine – and how quickly after returning home from the sun-drenched break she could indulge her craving for the class A drug.

For Nikki, now 51, who had a happy expat upbringing with her parents and sisters in the United Arab Emirates, dabbling in cocaine had started a few years previously as a way to feel more confident after her divorce. 

The occasional line after a night out at the pub, on weekends when her children were with their father, gave her an overwhelming feeling of control during a difficult and stressful time, and eased her social anxiety.

Her life in Folkestone, Kent, quickly became ‘very compartmentalised’ – there were the normal school nights and weekends when she was a devoted mother to her boys, then aged between four and nine, and the ‘fun’ periods in between when she could let her hair down.

As she puts it today: ‘There were two versions of me. Those lines of cocaine gave me an amazing sense of confidence, far more than I got from alcohol.

‘There’s this middle-class culture where it’s okay to have a couple of glasses of wine, but with cocaine I felt so much more in control as I wouldn’t feel drunk or get the hangover.

‘As a single mother to three boys, working as a teaching assistant and doing a degree in childhood studies, life was busy and chaotic so cocaine genuinely felt like a better option.

‘I adore my children, and had turned myself into “Supermum” to give them everything they needed. But with cocaine, I remember thinking, “I’ve arrived. This is my life now.”’

For Nikki, those occasional lines turned into a devastating addiction which caused her entire life to spiral out of control. 

At one point, she was spending more than £200 a week and buying a gram of cocaine every day, staying up all night until the early hours and sleeping while the boys were at school.

At its worst, she found herself homeless – living in a tent, shoplifting food to eat, and hooked on crack cocaine, a powerful crystallised form of the drug which has faster-acting effects.

That Nikki has turned her life around today after a stint in a residential rehab centre, and has been clean for more than a year, is nothing short of astonishing.

Sadly, she is just one of many middle-class, middle-aged women whose lives are being destroyed by cocaine use.

The latest figures from The UK Addiction Treatment Group, or UKAT, the largest provider of residential rehab and addiction treatment in the UK, suggest that – while men still dominate cocaine admissions - there is a rising trend among women aged 36 to 49 seeking help.

About 10 per cent more women in this age group were treated for cocaine addiction last year compared with three years ago, UKAT’s figures show.

Dimitra Theofili, lead therapist at UKAT’s Banbury Lodge clinic, said: ‘We’re seeing a very big increase in female admissions for cocaine. Women often feel a loss of purpose and role in life at this stage which, coupled with huge changes like perimenopause, where women can lose their identity and their sense of control, they seek to fill a void. Cocaine can fill that void for a lot of women, especially those who are tired or burnt out as it can be a way for them to keep up.

‘It’s easy to access, and it’s an appetite suppressor so they can also use it to manage their weight, which can creep up in midlife. But it’s a sneaky drug, and addiction creeps up too.’

For Nikki, whose marriage broke down 17 years ago, the problems really started when her occasional cocaine use turned into a daily habit.

‘Before I knew it, I started having lines at home, during the day when the kids were at school,’ she says. ‘I left my job as a TA because my drug use had ramped up to a level that was affecting me quite significantly, and got a job in a bar where drug culture was rife and I was using it at work.

‘I was still doing the school runs and homework and cooking dinners, and no one would have known, but I was staying up late, going back to bed after the school run, and then doing lines at my pub shift before picking my youngest up.’

To Nikki’s shame, she started getting behind on the household bills and had to move several times before the family were evicted for unpaid rent. Things escalated only further when her eldest went to university and she inherited some money.

‘I spent about six months doing a lot of cocaine and my behaviour spiralled. I was burning through the money and taking us on nice holidays to Egypt and Gran Canaria to assuage my conscience. But I couldn’t enjoy them. I was thinking about drugs, tired and grumpy. I spent nights berating myself, hating myself, but quitting wasn’t that simple. The more guilt and shame I felt, the more it fuelled my addict behaviour.’

A toxic relationship during lockdown led Nikki to try crack cocaine for the first time, turning her addiction into a helpless spiral.

‘I started to lose hope. I thought there was no way out. I was starting to shoplift for food so I could keep money for drugs. My youngest son went to live with his dad so I had nothing left to cling to. I’d given up on life. My eldest even told me he was waiting for a phone call to say I was dead. My parents felt the same.’

Having isolated herself from her friends and family, things started to change when Nikki called her mum and dad one night while she was ‘high and miserable’. She moved back in with them in January 2025, aged 50, and started a daytime rehab programme at the Forward Trust in Dover.

But she continued to use drugs secretively, and it was only going into a residential rehab at the Recovery Lighthouse in Worthing, West Sussex, arranged by her parents, which enabled her to quit.

There, she followed the first few steps of the 12-Step Programme, a set of principles which originated from Alcoholics Anonymous but which are routinely used in rehab centres to help people tackle any addictions and compulsions.

It involved group meetings, therapy including sound baths and meditation, and facing up to the harm she had caused others.

‘It was in rehab that I found myself again,’ Nikki says. ‘I found genuine human connection with other addicts, and we laughed until the tears would run down our faces. Addiction is so isolating, and real connection helped more than anything. I put on about a stone and a half in four weeks. I can’t thank that place enough.’

Nikki also attended a post-rehab programme at the Forward Trust, which included workshops on relapse prevention and impulsivity, and regularly goes to Narcotics Anonymous meetings in Folkestone. She is also now a sponsor for NA, volunteers with the addiction charity Reach Out And Recover Kent, and is a lived experience ambassador for the Forward Trust.

‘Having routine gives you structure,’ she says. ‘I love life again – I swim in the sea and go to sober raves, and I’m repairing my relationships with my children and, of course, my mum and dad and sisters. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve lost a huge chunk of our lives together and I’ve got a lot of making up to do.

‘Apologies are meaningless without action, and the best thing I can do for those I’ve hurt or harmed in the past is by living a good, clean life.’

Confidential help and support for cocaine addiction is available 24/7. Visit www.ukat.co.uk/addiction/drug/cocaine/