Sunderland player Aaron Connolly opens up about the impact of his alcohol addiction and tells his story in his own words.
In February 2021, he deleted his social media accounts in the aftermath of abuse sent his way after Brighton’s weekend win over Tottenham.
He was in a bad place back then, he’s come a long way since then, and after getting help, he’s back raring to go at the Black Cats.
Here’s his story…
Interviewer: Aaron welcome to Roa Park a beautiful place in our city how do you reflect on your first weeks at Sunderland
Aaron: A whirlwind really obviously I’ve signed for a massive club I know that I’ve known from being around the city and obviously seeing everybody I’ve seen Sunderland crest tattooed on people so it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, play for a club of this size and I’m grateful that I’ve got the opportunity on the field.
Interviewer: On the field, how much have you enjoyed being back and in and around your team
Aaron: It’s been honestly I can’t describe how good it’s been after the last few months obviously it’s it’s great to just be back playing football, I’ve had a tough few months so to be around a good group of people good gaffa good coaching staff and just in general good people and obviously with the football at my feet, yeah I couldn’t be any happier
Interviewer: Played for the under 21s early this week scored a goal how did that feel
Aaron: Yeah if the people close to me know exactly how much that meant to me it’s listen an under 21’s game it’s not the first team game but I still had to show the right attitude coming down play there players they’re young players that if they see a first team player coming down that you’ve got to have the right attitude I know when I played academy football if a first team player came down didn’t really try or anything like that you’d think it’s not not my type of person so yeah it’s good to show good attitude and obviously to get the goal it means a lot you feel
Interviewer: You’re feeling good you’re ready it’s been a long road to this point and it’s not an easy story for you to tell but I know it’s one that you think it’s an important one to tell how did you reflect on the last five years
Aaron: It’s a tough question and it’s uh it’s something that it’s racked around in my head as well I’ve gone from playing under 23 football getting a lot applauded to being shot straight into the biggest league in the world, scoring two goals and I’ve said before and like we’ve spoke about it before, that’s probably the start of when my career started to go downhill, when really it should have been carrying on upwards, I just stopped doing the things that that got me to that position where I felt so comfortable on the biggest stage, just stopped working, stopped working hard and you can’t do it people always say hard work beats talent when when talent doesn’t work hard and I never ever like really thought about it, but it’s true, and in my case it was
Interviewer: When people hear the name Aaron Connolly what do you think they say, what do you think they think?
Aaron: I think a lot of people would say he’s arrogant, waste of potential, I’d also like to think that they’d say a goal scorer as well but I’m not too sure there’s many that’ll have too many positive things to say, but the people close to me they know what I’m like and that’s the main thing but I know the perception of me isn’t the best I’m not blind to that
Interviewer: Do you think that’s fair?
Aaron: I wouldn’t say fair um it to be honest with you, it did bother me before people’s perception of me, people that I don’t know, but now as I you grow into the game and you understand football it’s not really them opinion that matter it’s the people like the gaffa here for example the football club the people like yourselves the people that I’m seeing every day, that’s the opinions that matter, you get pundits people fans the lot everyone talking about you but that’s just comes with part of part of football doesn’t it, but yeah I’ve obviously contributed to a lot of things myself that’s given me that perception but there’s also things that have been out of my control as well and yeah it’s tough to look back. I look back with a lot of regret over some of the things but then also I have to be easy on myself as well because some of it wasn’t in my control
Interviewer: Take us back to the start of your career you mentioned that game against Tottenham, Premier League debut first start two goals and you look at that as the moment where things started to go wrong from the outside looking into here that that seems incredible tell us about the point after that that’s how things kind of escalated from that point
Aaron: You go from under 23s like I said um and I was I was getting plaudits, I think I’d won the Under 23s player the the year the season that had just ended and I got shot into that and my phone was blowing up social media for I remember it the 5th of October like 2019 it was a 12:30 kickoff like it’s I’m never going to forget that day, it was one of the best days of my life, but also one of the worst as well because the following five years was from that but I just stopped working I stopped doing the things that I should have kept doing I started to believe the hype and I didn’t turn into a good person after that. I was tough to be around nobody could tell me, anything I’d done it all myself, nobody else helped me get to where I got to, that’s what I believed, it’s obviously not true but that was genuinely what I thought at the time. I didn’t know how to deal with it if I’m being honest, my parents tried 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 like keep me grounded even though my parents did try but I just let myself believe everything that people were saying online and it just I don’t know it just took over and I stopped. I always say to my parents like I started to live the lifestyle of a footballer without the football side of it and that was the hardest bit to admit at the time that I wasn’t doing all the things that that got me into the position where I could go and get my house and all that sort of stuff and I could treat my family, but I stopped doing the stuff that got me paid for that, and that was working hard every day so yeah it hurts to look back and speak about it because I know that if I’d done everything right I’d maybe I’d still be in the Premier League maybe I wouldn’t but at least I know that I gave it everything I could to stay at that level
Interviewer: Talk to me about that lifestyle, you obviously had loans Luton, Middlesbrough, Venezia, Hull, talk about your lifestyle during that period
Aaron: I think it’s like you mentioned them clubs and I’ve don’t think it’s much of a secret to any of the fans at any of them clubs had I had problems off the pitch and it was highlighted a lot because of where I was at, to where I ended up in this second division in Italy not being able to get a game of football and that was in the space of two years after I think the Tottenham game and like I said it goes back to the lifestyle but I started living a lifestyle that wasn’t me and I just lost track of myself I lost track of why I was playing football I was always chasing things that before that Tottenham game, I was never chasing I was never chasing money, I was was never chasing social people on social media talking about me, I didn’t I didn’t start football for that reason the only reason I started football was to go and score goals in the Premier League, I never thought about buying a big car or flashy big house or anything like that, it never popped into my mind once when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 and then for some reason it just clicked in my head that that was all I was chasing, I was chasing nothing, and before that I was chasing everything to get to that level and yeah the loans were a sign of what I was doing wrong at Brighton, because realistically I should have been playing for Brighton week in week out not that’s not me being arrogant or anything like that but from where I was to where I ended up something just went obviously clearly wrong
Interviewer: We’ve spoken a lot in the last few weeks about role alcohol played during that period told to me about facing that challenge was trying to be a professional
Aaron: It’s… I don’t know how to put this bluntly, it was obvious I had a problem with alcohol for good few years, I had my parents who never drank before, always telling me when I was younger when I would go out or anything like that they’d always advised me to stay away from alcohol, it was always their thing, because of addiction to alcohol in my family, and yeah I didn’t listen clearly and it got me in a lot of trouble and it got me a lot of problems and it just became something that I relied on, yeah 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 and I used to sorry I used to look forward to the game’s finishing so I could have time to go and have a drink go and socialise I say it wasn’t it was 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 the buzz of being around an environment like I am now and feeling the way I am now excited to play football whereas for 3 four years that just wasn’t there
Interviewer: This all led to a breaking point earlier this year, what was that realisation like was there a moment where you just said I can’t do this anymore
Aaron: Yeah there’s so I decided in I think it was the end of June end of July sorry that was just it was too much I couldn’t I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t live the way I was living because it was killing people around me to be honest with you my family, my friends, and mainly it was it was killing me really, I had my one of my best seasons last year at Hull, but off the pitch my life was a mess like and the manager I whole to be fair always looked after me and always tried and tried to help but I just got to a point where it wasn’t like life wasn’t worth living it wasn’t a big dramatic thing it was just my life was so unmanageable and I couldn’t control what I would do or I couldn’t control my alcohol, and it just got to a point where I had to make a decision that I needed to go to a treatment clinic and I spent a month there in the summer and I just said to my agent I don’t want you contacting any clubs I’m not doing this for football I’m not doing this for anything else I’m doing this so I can get my life back and if stuff in football comes with that then that’s a bonus but it wasn’t even the football in the end that was taking the biggest beating or battering it was my my life, my relationships, my family, my friends everything was just f and falling apart and when your parents are calling you, you’re not answering calls because you know you’re breaking the heart, it’s time to to realise that I’ve got a problem
Interviewer: You made that brave call this summer Brave call for anybody to make you know including professional footballers in our conversations over the past few weeks you’ve been adamant you wanted to talk about this you want to tell your story why is that so important to you
Aaron: It’s important to me because and I really wish that there was someone or a player or a person that I could listen to an interview or listen to a podcast which I always do and they an active footballer could have come out and just said listen I just took a break from my career, I need to go will do this for me and I always listen to podcasts and there’s players who have retired and said that they’ve gone into to treatment center and I just feel like this will help people if I’m being completely honest I had everything that any young boy would dream of and I just I couldn’t get hold of my addiction that’s what it is an addiction and it was the toughest thing I ever had to do was to go in there and this isn’t just to help just footballers, like I know there’s people out there that could be people in the Sunderland area, Brighton area, Hull area, I’m just saying them for examples of clubs I’ve played at and I know I was obviously grateful that the PFA helped me out with the cost of the treatment center and I know some people might not be in that position to be able to afford it but I just wanted to speak about it to know that it’s not just park bench vodka bottle, that’s not it, anybody can can get affected by it and there’s no price tag or there’s no amount of money in the world that can can cure it, it’s a disease it’s an illness and I never thought of it like that until I decided that I needed to go to the clinic and it was the best and worst month of my life if I’m being honest, I learned so much stuff because I always thought when I was going in there and I decided to go in there in the two weeks leading up to it I thought am I being dramatic do I really have a problem, and I’m not going to go into a detail about the stories and the stuff like that that’s stuff that I don’t need to go into detail about, but if people knew the stories they’d understand why I went in there because it was getting to a point where it was just a dark dark place if I’m being completely honest and I didn’t know how I didn’t know where else to turn apart from professional help
Interviewer: Talk to us about the here and night three weeks into Sunderland how do you feel?
Aaron: I feel refreshed feel like that young kid who came to England again I’ve got a purpose I don’t have I don’t have the weight of everything on my shoulders again like I feel just like that 15 year old who came to Brighton and was just chasing a goal and my goal again is to get this club to the Premier League and I feel like it’s a Premier League ready club and the fans obviously backing that as well so I’m just excited, I’m just refreshed and I’m just ready to go.
Interviewer: Your family have been there every step of the way, how much does it mean to them to see you comfortable happy, you again?
Aaron: And that’s yeah the last bit, me again, cuz it wasn’t me for the last three or four years it wasn’t the way they raised me up, it wasn’t the way they had brought me up to be as a person and it’s a good feeling knowing that they don’t need to be calling my phone constantly to check where I am, check if I’m okay I mean it’s fine three or four times a day now whereas before it used to be 10, 12, 15, but my mum’s always going to worry but she’s… when I sign for something and I brought my dad in and it was my dad wouldn’t say it to me but my mom called me later that night and she said it meant the world to him to be there for this the pictures for me signing and that’s the bit, that’s the reason why I do it, it’s not for the it’s not for the money it’s not for the the fame or the social media clout or anything like that it’s for them, it’s for my family, it’s for my friends and I’m starting to understand that again and it’s nice it’s nice to know my parents are proud again they’re proud just of the person that I’ve come out of all of this