EX-PREMIER LEAGUE wonderkid Aaron Connolly has bravely revealed his alcohol addiction fight.
The Irish international forward, 24, completed a free transfer to Championship promotion chasers Sunderland last month as he looks to resurrect his career.
Connolly famously burst on the scene in the top-flight aged 19 with Brighton with a brace against Tottenham.
He left the Amex, following disappointing loan spells at Luton, Middlesbrough and Italian side Venezia, four years later having featured more on more gossip pages than sport ones.
Connolly did score eight times for Hull City last term but that was not enough to stop him from getting released.
Now he has decided to tell his story to coincide with World Mental Health Day on Sunderland’s website.
Connolly had left home for the South Coast aged 16 but he says everything changed after that day against Spurs.
He said: “I remember it – 5th of October, 2019, it was a 12.30 kick-off. I’m never going to forget that day. It was one of the best days of my life, but also one of the worst because the following five years was from that.
“I just stopped working, stopped doing the things I should have kept doing. I started to believe the hype, and I just didn’t turn into a good person after that. I was tough to be around.
“I didn’t know how to deal with it, if I’m being honest. My parents tried, but they weren’t living with me. I was living with my ex-girlfriend at the time, and it’s hard because I didn’t ever feel like I had that authoritative figure to keep me grounded.
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123.
“My parents did try, but I just let myself believe everything people were saying online and it just took over. I always say to my parents, I started to live the life of a footballer without the football side of it.
“That was the hardest thing to admit at the time, that I wasn’t doing all the things that had got me to the position where I could go and get my house and treat my family, and do all that sort of stuff.
“It hurts to look back and speak about it because I know if I had done everything right, maybe I would still be in the Premier League. Maybe I wouldn’t, but at least I’d know I’d given it all I could to try to stay at that level.”
Connolly explained how both his on and off field life began to spiral as alcohol became a bigger and bigger problem.
He said: “It was obvious I had a problem with alcohol for a good few years.
“I had my parents, who never drank before and were always telling me when I was younger to stay away from alcohol. That was always their thing because of addiction to alcohol in my family.
“I didn’t listen, clearly. It got me into a lot of trouble and a lot of problems, and it just became something that I relied on. It felt like my buzz used to come from football, and winning games and scoring goals, and it got to a point where the buzz was more from drinking alcohol than going out on a football pitch.
“I used to look forward to the games finishing so I could have time to go and have a drink and socialise. I say socialise, but it was just an excuse to go and get drunk, to go straight to alcohol, and that was where I got my buzz from, whereas before, it was always the buzz of football and being around an environment like I am now. For three or four years, that just wasn’t there.”
Connolly managed to rediscover some form at Hull despite his “life being a mess” but he finally realised he needed to take drastic action after he was released in June by the Tigers.
He explained: “I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t live the way I was living. It was killing people round me, to be honest. My family, my friends. Mainly, it was killing me, really.
“I had one of my best seasons last year at Hull, but off the pitch, my life was a mess. The manager at Hull, to be fair, always looked after me, and always tried to help. But it just got to a point where, it wasn’t like life wasn’t worth living, it wasn’t a big dramatic thing, but it was just that my life was so unmanageable and I couldn’t control what I could do and couldn’t control my alcohol.
“It just got to a point where I had to make a decision where I needed to go to a treatment clinic, and I spent a month there in the summer. I just said to my agent, ‘I don’t want you to contact any clubs. I’m not doing this for football, I’m doing this so I can get my life back, and if stuff in football comes with that, then that’s a bonus’.
“It wasn’t even the football that was taking the biggest battering in the end, it was my life, my relationships, my friends. Everything was just failing and falling apart. When your parents are calling you and you’re not answering calls because you know you’re breaking their hearts, it’s time to realise that you’ve got a problem.”
Now after sealing himself an opportunity at Sunderland, Connolly wants to tell his story in the hope that it might help at least one other person struggling.
He added: “It’s an addiction, and the toughest thing I ever had to do was go in there. The PFA helped me pay for my treatment, and I know some people might not be able to afford it, but it’s important to know it’s not just park bench, vodka bottle. Anybody can get affected by it.
“There’s no price tag or no amount of money in the world that can cure it. It’s a disease, an illness. But going to the clinic was the best and worst month of my life.
“I just hope this might help people. I had everything every young boy would dream, but I couldn’t get hold of my addiction without that help.”
