Article: The new Black ; Singer Frances Black talks to Barry Egan about her battle with alcoholism and how she plans to open her own treatment centre to help other addicts

Across the face of the celebrated chanteuse, there spreads a look of sadness. Frances Black is remembering the bleakest of times: when she entered an addiction clinic at her doctor's request.

On the journey to Talbot Grove in Kerry from Dublin, Frances was, she recalls, "in and out of reality". It was a wet and suitably stormy October night in 2002 as Brian (her second husband whom she married in 1995) drove her in their green Ford Mondeo. She remembers dozing off and "waking up in a nightmare". Going into a treatment centre was scary because she didn't know what was ahead of her.

"It was this horrible thing of: 'Am I mental? Am I a nutcase?' I didn't know whether I was going into a place ...

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