“It was horrendous how it affected me,” the actress said, while also emphasizing that ADHD medication can be beneficial for many people
“It was horrendous how it affected me,” the actress said, while also emphasizing that ADHD medication can be beneficial for many people
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Denise Welch. Photo: Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty
Actress Denise Welch is detailing how her ADHD diagnosis almost led to her breaking her sobriety after more than a decade.
The 66-year-old appeared on the Nov. 18 episode of the ADHD Chatter podcast alongside host Alex Partridge, where she opened up about receiving a late-in-life ADHD diagnosis two years ago.
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Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders and can result in difficulty paying attention and controlling impulsive behaviors, or being overly active, according to the CDC.
Welch admitted that she was caught off guard by the diagnosis because she thought clinical depression was her only mental health issue. She’s struggled with post-natal depression since 1989 when her son Matty Healy was born.
“Because depression has always been my illness… I never thought of having another thing,” she said on the show. “[Depression] was always my thing.”
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Denise Welch.ADHD Chatter Podcast/YouTube
Welch was ultimately prescribed medication to manage her ADHD. She recalled telling her husband Lincoln Townley that she didn’t “feel the need” to take medication because she didn’t want to “change who I am.” She said he reminded her how she advocates for antidepressants when necessary and told her it was a similar situation. She agreed to try it.
“Lincoln said to me, ‘If someone else was diagnosed with something and they were advised to take the medication, you would tell them they should,’ because I’m a huge advocate for antidepressant medication when prescribed for the right reasons.”
The Loose Women panelist said she took the medication for the first time in January 2023 before attending one of her son’s shows. Healy is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of The 1975.
“I honestly thought, because of the way that it had been described to me, that my head would be clearer. I would be much more focused. I wouldn’t be trying to multitask a million things, my head wouldn’t be scrambled,” Welch explained.
“I took the tablet and an hour later, I wanted a drink and a cigarette for the first time in 11 years,” she said. “And it was horrendous how it affected me. Had I not been so many years into and so secure and capable of managing my sobriety, it would have been a very very very dangerous tipping point for me.”
Welch said she wished she’d known about the potential side effect. “It was really quite frightening,” she added. “I made the decision, literally the day after, to not take it. My sobriety is just too important to me to ever risk that.”
The star noted that she concealed her craving for alcohol the entire night but her husband still noticed.
“Lincoln, he said the next day, ‘I never want you to take that again… because your energy was like when you used to drink.’ He felt that old energy coming back,” she recalled. “His observation of me was, ‘This is scary.’”
Despite not having a positive experience herself, Welch emphasized that medication can be extremely beneficial for many people with ADHD.
“One of the things I am always glad of the opportunity of being able to tell people is that, ADHD medication changes so many people’s lives for the better, but there are some people it is not good for and I was absolutely one of them,” she said.
