The Walsh Sisters’ Caroline Menton: ‘Addiction doesn’t discriminate. It can impact anyone’

“I think it hopefully will create a lot of conversation around our standards of the relationship we have to alcohol,” Menton explains. “As in, I think as an Irish person in Irish society and in the UK, the drinking culture is quite similar. And I hope that people watch this and they can… Two things. The first thing is they can look at it and go, ‘I drink just as much as Rachel, and I’m not an alcoholic.’ And Claire says it. She’s like, ‘I drink way more than her and I’m not an alcoholic.’ I mean, maybe someone could look at Claire’s drinking and go, ‘Well, I don’t know, that’s kind of problematic too.’”

She continues, “But it’s not about how much they’re both drinking, it’s why? Why, why, why? And also a massive thing is alcoholism and addiction doesn’t discriminate. It can impact anyone. It doesn’t matter your economic situation, it doesn’t matter your background or where you’ve come from. It can literally affect anyone. So I think that’s really important because I think we get fed this BS narrative of addiction that these images that we’re shown of people in an alleyway with a needle, and then you have someone who’s drinking a whole bottle of wine to themselves. But that’s acceptable. And I’m not judging that by the way, but I’m just saying… And alcohol is the worst drug. It’s the most harmful, which is mad, which I discovered through my research.”

PHOTOGRAPHER:,Enda Bowe

Rachel is, undeniably, a divisive character, something Menton clearly feels fiercely protective about. She speaks of Rachel with the affection and loyalty of someone describing a best friend or a little sister she would bury a body for, or shield from the inevitable fury of social media.

“But I think fundamentally, and I hope when people watch it, they can have some compassion for Rachel because the reason this is happening, the reason this behaviour is unfolding the way it is because ultimately there’s so much self-loathing going on,” Menton says. “There’s like a source of pain that is so profound that she can’t cope with it on her own, so she uses drugs and alcohol. And so I think that’s what was really important to start with her, like why is she in so much pain and why is she being so self-destructive and such a self-saboteur? So yeah, I hope that’s, when people watch, they don’t just write her off and think, ‘Oh, she’s such a nuisance. She’s such a burden.’ No, she’s suffering and she’s in pain.”