Scottish mum who spent £3,000-a-year on Irn-Bru cans kicks 25 year habit after being hypnotised

A mum who spent £3,000-a-year drinking 20 CANS of Irn-Bru a day has finally kicked her 25 year habit after being hypnotised.Show more

Carole Lamond, 57, first became hooked on the Scottish fizzy drink when she was a young girl is Glasgow before she moved down to live in London.

The HR manager returned to her home country around 25 years ago where she began swigging several cans of Irn-Bru a day.

But during lockdown her addiction spiralled out of control as she worked from home and she soon began guzzling down a staggering 20 cans before bed.

The problem got so bad that she would start hiding it around the house so her husband William, 52, would not find out the extent of her dependency.

During two years of lockdown she drank almost 15,000 Irn-Bru's - including 94,000g of sugar and 450,000mg of caffeine - as she splashed out £60 a week on 24 packs.

Carole said: "We could have bought several family holidays for the money I was spending. My recycling bin was overflowing each week with cans of Irn-Bru.

"I would even take secret trips to the dump to dispose of the empty cans. I was like a drug addict trying to conceal my problem. I was literally chain drinking it."

Mum-of-one Carole knew she needed to kick the habit when she was hospitalised in June this year after suffering dizzy spells, fainting and heart palpitations.

It was originally feared she had suffered a stroke and was even sent for CT scans to see if she had a brain tumour.

Carole, of Glasgow, said: "It was the wake up call I needed really. I knew the amount of Irn-Bru I was drinking had something to do with it.

"I'd had spells of dizziness and fainting and they couldn't find anything wrong although they suspected a stroke at first.

"I even had scans for a brain tumour which is pretty scary but I knew that drinking all this Irn-Bru was to blame.

"We always had Irn-Bru in the house when I was a little girl as my mum would drink it. It is the Scottish national drink afterall.