Ireland's Aaron Connolly bravely opened up about his struggles with alcohol while playing football for World Health Mental Health Day
The Galway native broke onto the scene with Brighton & Hove Albion and scored on his debut against Tottenham Hotspur. It seemed like Ireland and Brighton had another star on their hands, but his career went sideways.
Loans to Italy and a couple of loans to second-division teams in England meant that Connolly has struggled to find his feet in football since making his debut in 2019.
However, a successful loan spell to Hull City last year was Connolly's most productive period, resulting in a move to Sunderland.
This week, Connolly sat down with Sunderland's media team to speak about his issues off the field caused by alcohol.
Firstly, the Ireland player admitted that scoring a brace for Brighton was both the best and worst day of his life because he started to believe the hype. He added that he became hard to be around because he lived a footballer's life without playing the game.
“(The game against Spurs) was one of the best days of my life, but also one of the worst because the following five years were difficult,” he told the Sunderland club website to mark World Mental Health Day this week. “I just stopped working and 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."
The Ireland forward explained further in the video that the buzz of winning and playing games of football evaporated and that the dopamine effect came from drinking copious amounts after games.
"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," he said.
"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."
It all became too much for Connolly, who was then at Hull City and admitted that the problem was bigger than he could handle.
"For three or four years, that just wasn’t there. I couldn't do it; I couldn’t live the way I was living. It was killing people around 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 felt 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."
Connolly then admitted himself to an alcohol addiction clinic and has since signed for Sunderland. His goal was not play football but to get his life back. The football would have been a bonus in his eyes.
"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,’" added Connolly.
"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. 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 benches and vodka bottles. Anybody can get affected by it."
The full video of Connolly's experience can be found here.
