Denise Welch 'drank a lot' to take away isolation pain during Corrie days

Denise Welch used to drink "a lot" to "take away the pain" of depression and being on her own when she was working on \'Coronation Street\'.

The 62-year-old actress rented a flat "a long way" from her then-husband Tim Healy and her son Matthew, now 31 - who lived in Northumberland - when she was working on Manchester-based soap \'Corrie\', and she turned to alcohol to help her cope with depression and "lift the isolation and loneliness".

In an extract from her new book, \'The Unwelcome Visitor: Depression and How I Survived It\', published in the Daily Mirror newspaper, she wrote: "Because of my mental illness, there were times I didn\'t know if I was going to make it through.

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"Alcohol made things worse. I drank a lot, reaching for anything to take away the pain and keep me going ... to lift the isolation and loneliness.

"It put me into kind of a dead zone. For the two or three hours I was actually consuming alcohol, it obliterated my illness.

"That is why so many people with depression drink.

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"During the day, I often hid in my dressing room, sleeping or pretending I was asleep, so I didn\'t have to talk to anyone."

Denise was delighted to land the role of Natalie Barnes in \'Corrie\' - which she starred in from 1997 to 2000 - but found the schedule "gruelling and sometimes overwhelming".

She added: "In television there is nowhere tougher to work than a long-running soap opera.

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"So, while I was over the moon to be cast in \'Coronation Street\', I found the reality of filming four episodes a week quite gruelling and sometimes overwhelming.

"Viewers loved to hate Natalie and 20 million were mesmerised as she lured Kevin Webster (played by Michael Le Vell) into her web.

"I suddenly found myself at another level of fame. People would nearly faint when they saw me. I couldn\'t walk down the street."