How cleaning helped me rebuild what alcohol had ruined

They say cleaning is detoxing - it's not, but it was part of my recovery from addiction

If you've ever done a real detox off drugs and alcohol to get clean, the whole notion of cleaning your flat as a way to some sort of psychological Nirvana seems suspect. Yet this is exactly what the new cleaning gurus, like Marie Kondo, Mrs Hinch (2.4m Instagram fans and counting) and Lynsey "Queen of Clean" Crombie, would have us believe.

They say that chucking everything out and sterilising what is left is a way to put order back into our messy lives. An abundance of videos featuring confessional cleaning tutorials show bright-eyed and often beautiful young women extolling the virtues of cleaning in the reverent terms usually reserved for religious conversions, spiritual awakenings or the moment you receive your yoga name in India. Eat, Pray, Clean. They have seen the light - and it smells like Ecover.