Kicking the habit: How Prime Minister's former lover kicked drug addiction and became a nun
Laura Adshead dated the future Prime Minister for more than a year but turned her back on a successful career to become Sister John Mary. A former lover of David Cameron became a nun after beating an alcohol and drug addiction, it emerged today. Laura Adshead dated the future Prime Minister for more than a year but turned her back on a successful career to become Sister John Mary. The 44-year-old was Mr Cameron’s lover when the pair were working together at Conservative Party HQ in London in 1990. Oxford-educated Laura was then-PM John Major’s correspondence secretary before moving to New York to join an ad agency. But the stress of her high-profile job saw her plunge into a world of drink and drug addiction. And now the former society girl has found her unlikely salvation in God along with 36 other nuns at an abbey in Connecticut, US. She said: “I did think my life would progress on the normal tracks of meeting someone, marrying, having children, but that’s not the path that God has led me. "I feel like I tried most things in life that are supposed to make you happy. “That journey took me down into alcoholism and drug addiction.” By 2008 Laura declared her hard-partying days were over and announced that she had decided to become a nun. She recalled: “I remember having to tell my mother, ‘I’m going to join the abbey,’ and she said, ‘Yes, I can see this world has no real meaning for you any more.’ I looked at this place and saw women who had what I wanted. You decide to surrender your life to God.”
Laura has swapped her bouffant blonde hairstyle for a closely cropped cut and wears a long serge habit and traditional wimple. Her day at the Abbey of Regina Laudis begins at 2am when a bell rings to announce night-time prayers. Then it clangs at first light, again at 8am for Mass and then at regular intervals until sunset prayers at 5pm. Her jobs include caring for a herd of cattle on the abbey’s land and mopping the chapel floors. She said: “There’s no way out. You don’t get to leave and go to a movie. You don’t get distraction from all the human emotions.
"It’s like this hothouse where things get worked out.”
Laura took her vows four years ago but her “formation” – a nun apprenticeship – lasts for as long as five-and-a-half years. Only at the end of this apprenticeship will she be eligible to take holy orders and assume the title of “Mother”. She is now the star of a new film – God Is The Bigger Elvis – documenting her life from a hopeful in British politics to a Catholic nun.
The title is a reference to the convent’s Prioress Mother Dolores. One-time Hollywood starlet Dolores Hart appeared with Elvis Presley in two of his films, Loving You and King Creole, before entering the order in 1963. Laura said: “This is the only place I could see myself being – because this is where it’s at.”
How lucky those who realize the real meaning of life and work towards achieving their goal of uniting with God.
Courtesy of: Daily Mirror. Article by Martin Flicker
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