Home and Away Spoilers – Irene leaves after reaching rock bottom
Next week on Home and Away in the UK, Irene seeks help away from Summer Bay after a horrific accident.
It’s been a month since Irene (Lynne McGranger) fell off the wagon after 9 years of sobriety, and next week will finally see her reach out for help as she hits rock bottom.
As Irene struggled to cope after realising ‘terminally-ill’ housemate Bronte (Stefanie Caccamo) was a con-artist, John (Shane Withington) had been the first to realise that Irene was drinking again after he walked in and found her kneeling over a bottle of whisky she’d just dropped.
Irene subsequently agreed to attend an AA meeting, and John headed off to the city to visit son Jett believing that Irene was now on the correct path.
However, Irene’s only take away from the meeting was the belief that she was no longer like the other attendees, in that she was now in control of her drinking.
As such, Irene openly began to drink in front of shocked friends Leah (Ada Nicodemou) and Marilyn (Emily Symons), telling them it was time she stopped punishing herself.
Irene continued to drink wine socially, but was secretly knocking back the harder stuff whilst at home.
John was quick to see through Irene’s facade on his return, disappointed that she had given up on the AA meetings. When she threw a dinner party to prove that she had things under control, Irene caught John going through her kitchen cupboards in an attempt to find her secret stash.
As she made a toast, John couldn’t bite his tongue any more, and told Irene that she was lying to everyone, including herself.
John’s suspicions were vindicated the next day when he caught sight of Irene dumping a carrier bag in a bin near the surf club, which he found to contain several empty whisky bottles.
John confronted Irene, who turned on him and coldly stated that they were no longer friends.
“Now get out,” she spat at him. “I mean it John, you and me, we are done.”
Next week, Irene’s drinking sees her spiralling further out of control, as she resorts to taking a hip flask into work with her.
Taking secret swigs in the pantry, it doesn’t take long for Leah and Marilyn to realise something is amiss as Irene continually gets orders wrong throughout the day. Noting that she keeps disappearing, Leah follows Irene into the pantry and catches her swiftly zipping up her bag.
When Irene tells Leah that it’s none of her business what’s inside, Leah points out that it IS her business if she’s drinking at work. She can smell it on her, and there’s no doubt that the customers will be able to too.
Leah offers to take Irene home but she instead storms out, arriving back at the Beach House in a cranky mood and asking Harper (Jessica Redmayne) and Dana (Ally Harris) to clear out and give her some space.
Irene shuts the door behind them, and starts knocking back the whisky.
By the time Leah comes over to check on her, Irene is in a state as she staggers to the back door. She slurs her words as she accuses Leah of enjoying the feeling of superiority over her, before breaking down as she tells Leah she humiliated her in her workplace.
Leah’s devastated to see her friend like this, and pleads with her to let her find help—she just needs to say the word. But instead, Irene throws her out and continues to drown her sorrows.
When a drunken Irene later tries to navigate the stairs, she loses her footing and comes crashing down to the floor, leaving her unconscious with a nasty head wound.
Meanwhile, a concerned John approaches Bree (Juliet Godwin) for advice, asking her how he can help someone that doesn’t want to be helped. She informs him they they can’t, noting that the most reluctant patients are often the ones most frightened of feeling vulnerable.
With the sisters keeping their distance following Irene’s orders, Harper doesn’t return home until late that evening, where she finds a groggy Irene sat on the sofa with a dressing clumsily applied to the wound on her head.
Irene claims that she slipped on a wet patch in the kitchen, but seeing the discarded bottle on the stairs, Harper quickly deduces what really happened and insists on taking Irene to the hospital.
Bree checks Irene over and concerned that she may have concussion, organises a CT scan. Although Irene begrudgingly admits to having had a couple of glasses of whisky, she denies there to be any problem.
Leah, Xander (Luke Van Os) and Rose (Kirsty Marillier) all gather at the ED, but Irene isn’t appreciative of Leah’s presence when she pops her head through the curtain. When Bree asks Leah if there’s anything she needs to know from a medical perspective, Leah quietly explains that Irene is a recovering alcoholic who has recently relapsed.
Irene quickly realises that Leah has been blabbing when Bree offers to help her with alcohol withdrawal, and refuses to acknowledge the fact that she needs any help, telling Bree that this isn’t her first rodeo.
But when Bree later catches Irene swigging from her hip flask, the shame suddenly hits her.
Bree points out that she’s clearly not handling things if she still needs alcohol whilst on a drip in hospital, and after she confiscates the hip flask, Irene breaks down.
Having hit rock bottom, Irene finally admits that she needs help. She apologises to Marilyn for being drunk at work, who in turn tells her that John is thinking about her.
Irene can’t believe that John would still care after everything she put him through, but sure enough he later turns up with a huge bunch of flowers, causing Irene to burst into tears.
The two reconciled, Irene admits that she’s been lying to everyone including herself, but is seeing things clearly now. Knowing that she cannot trust herself to go home, Irene explains to John that Bree has arranged for her to go to a rehab centre. Irene asks if John would take her there—“Of course,” he replies.
John takes Irene to the diner en-route so she can say goodbye, and apologise, to both Marilyn and Leah. Everything is forgotten the pair tell her, and all that matters now is that she takes care of herself.
As John and Irene leave, not knowing when she’ll be back, he asks if she’s okay.
“I will be,” Irene replies, with a newfound confidence.
This will be the last we see of Irene on UK screens until approximately April 2025, with Lynne McGranger having taken a six-month break following the filming of this storyline.
Following a holiday to the UK, Lynne returned to Australia and went straight into rehearsals for a theatre production, The Grandparents Club, that toured NSW, ACT and Victoria from May to August.
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