DAVID BOWIE SAVED MY LIFE!

Carolyn Cowan, 46, is a yoga teacher, photographer and mother of two.
She lives in South London with her artist husband Jean Baptiste Hugo.
Her yoga DVDs have garnered her worldwide acclaim.

But Carolyn's life was not always so idyllic: she spent her 20s in a
whirl of alcohol and drug addiction as make-up artist to stars such as
Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. Here, Carolyn speaks frankly for the
first time about her extraordinary journey:

During the Eighties, excess was a way of life for me. As a make-up
artist to rock stars, I was in the right place at the right time, and
that meant spending a week on a Caribbean island with Duran Duran,
perfecting their decadent, glamorous look for the video of their smash
hit Rio.

One night, every member of the band demanded champagne -- a different
brand for each of them: one wanted Dom Perignon, another would drink
nothing but Cristal. Their PAs flew all over the Caribbean in private
jets in search of elusive bottles of Krug and Veuve Clicquot. I just
laughed and drank whatever was going, topped off with several lines of
cocaine. I was 25 and thought I was in heaven. Little did I know that
just a few years later, hopelessly addicted to drink and drugs, my
life would be in ruins.

Today, I'm a successful photographer, yoga teacher, wife and mother.
I've been clean for 15 years, and every day I'm grateful for the joy
life has given me. But it certainly has been a difficult and, at
times, dramatic journey.

Looking back, my addictions started very young. I took my first drug
at the age of 11. A school friend offered me a cannabis joint one
holiday; I smoked it and instantly thought: 'This is the answer to all
my problems. I must have more.' From that moment on, I was lost to
an ever-increasing cycle of drug-taking and addiction.

I had found life difficult almost as far back as I remember. I was the
oldest of three children growing up in Chelsea, London. My father was
the famous Sixties fashion photographer John Cowan, and until I was
four, I was one of his child models. I was Daddy's girl -- he was a
hero in my eyes. But at the age of four and a half, my life shattered.
My parents split up and my father, a maverick, simply disappeared from
our lives. He made no effort to stay in contact and I was not to see
him again until I was 17. Instead, he lived life to the full, mixing
with photographers such as Terence Donovan and David Bailey. The
iconic Sixties film Blow Up, starring Sarah Miles and Vanessa
Redgrave, was filmed in his studio.

My mother re-married and my stepfather, a broker at Lloyd's, took care
of us and supported us financially. But inside I was so sad, missing
my daddy and railing against the world for taking him away. Instead of
blaming my father for his desertion, I idolised him and dreamed of the
day he would reappear in my life. With my mother and stepfather,
however, I was rebellious, rude and always so angry. At the age of 11
I was sent to a convent school to board. My mother and stepfather
hoped it would be the making of me. Instead, I went from bad to worse.
I smoked cigarettes, drank alcohol and, when I could, smoked marijuana.

I would regularly abscond from the school in Sussex and take the train
to London to look for my father. I was so obsessed with tracking him
down that I would wander the streets of Chelsea, hoping to run into
him. I never did.

But it was on one of these sad, abortive trips that I got talking to
some older teenagers, went to their house for a party and had my first
line of cocaine. I loved the rush and the feeling of invincibility. I
was, in that moment, doomed to waste years of my life trying to get
back to that first, perfect high. I was just 15 years old.

At 17 I left school and moved to London to live with my first
boyfriend, a music composer. It was a deeply dysfunctional
relationship in which we both took drugs and drank too much. But my
mother and stepfather were powerless to stop me.

And then, finally, I found my father. Unbeknown to me, he had been
touring the deserts of Saudi Arabia, living in a Land Rover. But when
he returned to London, his friend Terence Donovan got word to my
mother that he was back.

I hatched a plan. I invented a false name and went to see my father at
his agent's office on the pretence that I wanted a job as his assistant.

I walked in and there he was. I hoped for so much from our meeting but
I was in for the worst possible disillusionment. He laughed in my face
when I told him I was his daughter and said he wanted nothing to do
with me. The meeting was over in minutes.

It was shattering. I had been longing for this man for my whole
childhood, and now he had rejected me out of hand. I came away feeling
that I was fat, ugly, worthless and stupid.

Just over a year later, when I was 19, I received a message from my
father's agent to say my father had died, aged 50, of lung cancer.
Instead of grieving or even trying to come to terms with what had
happened, I sought refuge in drugs and drink.

An average day would begin with a cannabis joint and a cup of coffee.
Mid-morning I'd have a couple of lines of cocaine, then I would
chain-smoke cigarettes until the evening when I took more cocaine and
lots of alcohol. Finally, I'd need prescription drugs such as Valium
to get to sleep.

Around this time, ironically, my career really took off. I split up
with my composer boyfriend and decided to become a make-up artist.

It was the early Eighties and I started doing make-up for people such
as the singer Steve Strange, whom I had met in a nightclub. One thing
led to another and by the time I was 28 -- in 1988 -- I was earning
UKP 45,000 a year and travelling the world with superstars like Elton
John and Freddie Mercury.

At first, it was all fabulous. I went to the South of France to film
Elton John's video for I'm Still Standing, and everyone on the shoot
was flying around in their own private helicopters -- including me.

I never saved a penny But despite all the money floating about, I
never saved a penny. I spent it all on designer clothes, the rent on a
tiny flat and drugs.

I was well-known for being a mad, drug-loving party girl. People
always expected me to be able to bring drugs along. I'd get off a
plane on location and manage to have huge amounts of cocaine and
cannabis before I'd even checked into the hotel.

I got caught a couple of times taking cocaine through Customs on my
way to shoots. But both times were in Italy, and the Mafia, who were
heavily involved in the film business there, simply got me out of trouble.

And, yes, there were good times. I was Freddie Mercury's make-up
artist for several years in the late Eighties. He could be difficult
but was essentially lovely and such a talent.

I remember being at the shoot for the video of his single Barcelona,
on which he did a duet with the opera singer Montserrat Caballe, at
Isleworth studios in Middlesex. Although we had a PA system the size
of the side of a house, Freddie and Montserrat sang so loudly they
drowned the PA out. The normally cynical crew stopped in their tracks
to hear the singing. It was incredible.

Until my late 20s, I didn't see any ill effects from my life of
excess. I was young, strong and must have been incredibly robust to
withstand the daily onslaught of chemicals to which I submitted my
body. But in my 30s, things became more difficult.

By then, I wanted to give up drugs -- but I couldn't. I was living
with a fellow drug-taking boyfriend in a horrible relationship. I had
become bitter and bitchy, had few real friends and little contact with
my family.

I'd try to give up one addiction -- alcohol or cocaine -- and the
other would rear up and take over my life.

At my worst, I can remember starting a day's shoot at 5am in the
lavatories at Shepperton Studios with a line of cocaine. And in the
evenings, I'd started to smoke crack cocaine, which was incredibly
addictive and had horrible side-effects.

I asked my boyfriend not to let me have cocaine or crack, but then I'd
physically attack him if he had some and withheld it from me.

At 31, I can vividly remember going to my younger sister's birthday
party. I looked in the mirror and was shocked at my appearance. I was
bloated, had bad skin and looked both exhausted and cynical. I can
remember thinking: 'I really hate myself.'

But that evening I could think of no other way of getting through that
feeling of self-loathing than by getting incredibly drunk -- again.

A month later, however, in July 1991, all that was to change
dramatically.

I was booked to go to Dublin to do David Bowie's make-up for a video.
The night before the shoot, I sat alone in the bar of my hotel
drinking whisky, chain-smoking cigars and watching, of all things, the
finals of the Miss Ireland contest. I didn't get to bed until 3am; by
5am I had to be up and working.

David Bowie took one look at me, hung-over, red-eyed and incoherent,
and told me I was in trouble. He was in recovery from drug addiction
and badly wanted me to get well, too.

But I was furious. I'd expected a fun, party time. Instead, every day
of the shoot, David asked me if I had managed to stay sober the night
before. And, of course, I hadn't.

By the third day, he had persuaded me to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous
meeting. Everything he'd said had finally got through to me and I'm
now so grateful for his intervention. For as I sat there in the church
hall, surrounded by old Irish drunks, I suddenly had what I can only
describe as a spiritual epiphany. I felt filled with the possibility
of getting clean and glimpsed a life beyond drink or drugs.

There and then, I admitted I was an addict and vowed to get clean. And
I have been ever since.

But it wasn't easy. For the first three months of being sober, my back
was covered with the most disgusting black boils as my body
detoxified. I later saw the boils as, symbolically, all the rage and
hurt from my childhood that I'd suppressed through drink and drugs. My
body and my spirit were cleansing themselves.

Turmoil But I was in turmoil. My boyfriend hated the clean-living me
and we broke up acrimoniously.

My career was another casualty. My drug-taking colleagues didn't want
me around as I was, to them, 'no fun' any more. So I lost all my
druggie contacts in the rock world and, ironically, no new clients
would take me on because I had such a bad reputation for abusing
drugs. I lost my flat and was penniless.

But I went to Narcotics Anonymous and AA meetings, rented a room in a
house and began to build a better life.

Just a month after I started going to AA, I spotted the man who was to
become my future husband in the same group. He was a painter and
sculptor who had left his native France in order to recover from years
of alcoholism. He was five years sober by the time we met. One look at
his extraordinary blue eyes and I was in love.

But I didn't see him again for six months, and when I did spot him in
a shop in Battersea, South London, he was with another woman. I was
devastated.

When next our paths crossed, a year later, it was at another AA
meeting. He told me his name was Jean Baptiste and it turned out that
the woman I had seen him with was his sister.

Looking back, it was just as well we didn't get together until I was a
year sober. I'd needed that time to recover. But from then on we were
inseparable, and he proposed later that year. At last, I was truly in
love and in a mutually caring, healthy relationship.

We married in 1993. My stepfather paid for the wedding and there was
an atmosphere of sheer relief that I was finally settling down with a
good man.

When I was 36, I discovered I was pregnant. But no sooner had I come
to terms with it than I miscarried.

I was knocked sideways by grief, but we tried again and Louis, who is
now eight, was born. Since then I've also had my lovely daughter
Isadora, who is four.

My children have brought us such delight. I know I'm very blessed. If
I hadn't given up drink and drugs, I'd never have met Jean Baptiste or
had the chance to have children.

Career-wise, my life has also changed so much for the better since my
days of excess. I've rediscovered my love of photography and now
specialise in beautiful nudes and family portraits.

I've also found a love of yoga that has blossomed into a career, with
bestselling DVDs on yoga for pregnancy, women and for people
overcoming addictions. Yoga is a wonderful way of uniting the body and
the soul, and has been a crucial part of my recovery.

These days, I'm a busy working mum but I'm astonished by my energy.
Now that I look after my body, I can get so much more done. I am also
a spokesperson for the charity Action on Addiction. I think it's the
least I can do.

I'm not perfect and I don't want to preach to people or tell them how
to live their lives. But after everything I've been through, I feel I
have something to offer. After all, if someone like me can turn their
life around, anyone can.