Denise Welch feels happier than ever at 65.
Denise Welch is loving life
The actress has overcome her addiction struggles and she's now loving life with her husband, Lincoln Townley.
Denise - who married Lincoln in 2013 - told OK! magazine: "This decade has been one of the happiest in my life for two reasons. One is that I met my husband and I have an incredibly happy marriage that I love and I nurture. And two because I got sober.
"My life was a mess for many parts of a decade and more before. Not all the time, but I was dealing with an addiction which impacted my family and myself."
Denise has been through her fair share of ups and downs in recent years. But the veteran actress feels confident that she can overcome setbacks.
She said: "Even though I’ve been through my dad dying [in 2021], and we’ve all been through COVID and the stress and fear that was involved in all of that and my anger about it, I haven’t actually been clinically depressed. I’m not saying it won’t come back, but when you’ve lived with an illness like depression, which people can’t see and many people don’t understand, to wake up every day without depression is a good day.
"Getting older doesn’t matter. If they said to me, ‘Do you want to go back to being 45 still in your addictions with depression?’ I’d say you can keep 45."
Denise made "some terrible judgements" during her battle with alcoholism.
However, she's now free of her addiction struggles and looking forward to a brighter future.
She said: "Addiction is a horrible illness.
"There are never excuses for behaviour, but there are always reasons – that’s how I look at my life. I made some terrible judgements, I made some terrible mistakes, I hurt my family, but there were reasons and that was because I was medicating a terrible illness."
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