Aaron Connolly reveals he underwent month-long treatment for alcohol addiction this summer – The Irish Times

“What the hell is wrong with Aaron Connolly?” is a question Irish football fans have asked many times in recent years.

Now we know.

If the Galway man had tapped into the potential he showed seven years ago when he made his Brighton debut aged just 17, he would have been in Helsinki on Thursday evening, leading the Irish attack against Finland.

Instead, he is trying to rebuild his career at Sunderland, his sixth club in as many years: Brighton, loan spells at Luton, Middlesbrough, Venezia, Italy’s second division and Hull City, and now a move to Sunderland. The day he scored twice at Brighton against Spurs on his first Premier League start is a distant memory.

“It was one of the best days of my life, but also one of the worst because for the next five years I stopped working, doing the things that made me feel so comfortable on the biggest stage.

“I started to believe the hype. I didn’t become a good person after that. That’s probably when my career started going downhill. People always say that hard work beats talent. I didn’t never bring up, but it’s true.”

The confession came in a candid interview on Sunderland’s YouTube channel on Thursday, with Connolly admitting alcohol has been at the root of his problems.

“And it was obvious that I had a problem with alcohol for quite a few years. My parents always advised me to stay away from it, but I didn’t listen. My buzz seemed to come from football, ​​of winning games and scoring goals, but it got to a point where the buzz was more about drinking.I really wanted the games to be over so I could have a drink.

“It was difficult to be around. I didn’t know how to deal with it, if I’m honest. I started living the lifestyle of a footballer, without the football side. I wasn’t doing all the things, the hard work, that it got me to the position where I could go buy my house and treat my family. It hurts to look back because I know if I had done everything right, I might still be in the Premier League.”

“But I started living a lifestyle that wasn’t me and I lost the notion of myself, I lost the notion of why I was playing football. The only reason I started football was to go score goals in the Premier League, I never thought about buying a big car or a big flashy house or anything for it. But then it clicked in my head that this was all I was after. Not chasing anything.”

It was during the summer that Connolly decided to face his addiction to alcohol. “I couldn’t live the way I lived because it was killing the people around me, my family, my friends, and mostly it was killing me.”

“I just got to a point where life wasn’t worth living, it was so out of control that I couldn’t control my alcohol. I had to make the decision that I needed to go to a treatment clinic, so I went – there is a month in the summer.

“I was doing it to get my life back, not for football, but for my relationships, my family, my friends. Everything was falling apart. When your parents call you and you don’t answer and you know you’re breaking their heart, it’s time to realize you have a problem.”

“I had everything any kid could dream of, but I couldn’t get my addiction. It’s not just ‘park bench vodka bottle’, it’s not that, anyone can get affected and there’s no price, no there is no amount of money in the world that can cure it.

“It is a disease. It is a disease. Going to the clinic was the best and worst month of my life, but it was the most important thing I’ve ever done because it was getting to a point where everything was a dark, dark place.

“The way it was, it’s not the way I was raised. It was never about the money, fame, social media influence or anything like that. It was for my family, for my friends, and it’s good to know that they are proud again, proud of the person who has come out of all this.

“I feel refreshed. I feel like that 15-year-old who went to Brighton and was just chasing a dream. I’m that boy again.”