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THE DAY BEFORE I was released from Loughlin House prison in County Cavan, I watched some tennis tournament. One of the Williams sisters had just won it. She was standing on the court with her trophy, taking the applause from the crowd. All I could see was the words, “Stella Artois”.
I was released the following afternoon and given a bus ticket back to Dublin. Having no one to go to, no family that could trust me, not a friend in the world, I was drunk by 5pm. I slept rough on the streets around Dublin City centre for a period and found myself in a Salvation Army homeless hostel where alcohol and drugs were a very evident and real issue. I drank daily and spoke fondly of sport with the other residents as we drank on the streets.
I often recalled an under 21-game I’d played in as cornerback. Playing alongside someone who is now a GAA legend – my claim to fame. I played well that day and indeed that season. However alcohol was certainly taking control as the season progressed. And so, my behaviour around my football club worsened and I was no longer welcome there, actually missing out on the under 21-league final, which we won.
Looking back now I remember mentors and club mates speaking to me about my drinking but at the time I was blind to their opinion – theirs, my friends and, sadly, my family’s also.
However shortly after presenting to the Salvation Army hostel, I was in a place where I could ask for help in stopping drinking. I asked, and two hours later I was at my first AA meeting. Almost eight years later, I haven’t drank since.
Through that time and indeed from my early recovery days I thought of my time playing GAA. Good times in a club where for the only time I felt “part of” something. I was too frightened to go back, my behaviour had been totally unacceptable and I couldn’t bring myself to face up to my wrongs. As time went on and recovery continued I needed to move forward. I’d made many amends to my wrongs and had regained friendships and family. I was also working for the Salvation Army, having returned to education.
I still had a fondness for GAA and a longing to be part of my club again.
Family members and club members I’d met all encouraged me to go back. I checked the club website and took down the former chairman’s phone number, a number that was in my phone for two years. Early 2010 I made that phone call. To my surprise, my call was met with a welcome and surprise on his part as rumour had it I had been killed. I asked if I would be welcomed back and I received a honest welcome and we spoke of the opinions that had been voiced when I was 21.
Help had been there for me if I’d have been in a place to take it. Concern was felt throughout the club for me over the years and I could honestly feel that from the tone of his voice. So, I bought some boots and some gear and I went back. As I entered the hall for pre-season training, I was met by some strange looks, but also met with a few handshakes and generally I was welcomed back.
That was three years ago and as time went on I earned, I think, the trust of the club again. It is one of the most positive moves in my personal development, bar none.
I have achieved personal wins (player of the year) and team awards captain to a promotion winning junior side and promotion the following season to that. All of which were enjoyed in our club house bar. I took part but did so without having to need to drink. My team mates though, well, you can imagine there was a pint or two had. Which brings me to the filling of cups with alcohol. Since man first crushed grapes, “victory on the field” has always been celebrated with “wine and women”.
I see people these days concerned around alcohol advertising in GAA and indeed other sports. I can say, however, that certainly in GAA clubs there are officers in place to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol to young people in general – a system that wasn’t in place in my day. If it had been, then who knows what may have happened in my life. Although I do say that what did happen, happened.
It is true that such programmes are funded by such alcohol advertisements. I also believe that the ‘safest’ way for a youth to drink is to not drink at all, however we were all young once and that’s on the whole not a possibility. Raise the issue with them, inform them, make them aware of the dangers that way their choices and decisions are educated.
Some media commentators think this idea ironic, but if these ideas where in place when I was 21, who knows.
To be part of my football club means the world to me. The GAA means the world to me. My dad told me recently the worst thing I did was disconnecting with the GAA. My club like many others rely on bar revenue and sponsorship from alcohol companies. I, like many others, rely on my club.
Should there be alcohol advertising in sport, in the GAA? As a recovering alcoholic I should say no. I was blind to choice at one time in my life, but I think in today’s economic climate sport maybe isn’t blind to choice – but has very little options either.
The GAA needs it, the clubs, the grass roots need the GAA to make such decisions and more importantly, to me, I need the GAA. I need Croke Park. I need days like the September 18 2011, standing on Hill 16. Most of all I need my club to keep its doors open.
The writer of this article wished to remain anonymous.
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If the PC brigade get their way & are successful in their plight to ban drinking advertisement what will they move onto next??? The sooner people take responsibility for their own actions in this country the better. “Drink Responsibly” should be changed to “Take responsibility for your own actions”
The Heineken cup will be nothing. Just the cup. No good.
Since alcoholism is a medical condition, should we take responsibility for their cancer or diabetes?
Advertising makes you choose what brand it doesn’t make u drink
Nonsense.
Smoking is legal too….
Why not !
Advertisements don’t turn people into alcoholics ,
Advertising does work thats why they spend millions on it. Cop on.
You’re exactly the deluded fool they target. You don’t even realise you eat, drink and listen to whatever you’re told. Cop yourself on.
Hang on ,I have a drink about once a week ,am I not entitled to know what new or different products are available .Cancer is a disease , alcoholism is a life choice .you might as well blame Arnotts for shopaholics and Ford for speeders .
“I have a cut leg ,I stab it every day but it gets worse” an alcoholic my any other name
So Johnny Tell me why all the money is spent on advertisment and your the fool for calling some one a fool you never met
I didn’t say that advertisement doesn’t work every donkey knows it works,
What I said was that advertisement doesn’t make you an alcoholic,
An alcoholic becomes an alcoholic from drink, like a junkie becomes a junkie from drugs not from advertisements ! Your a complete SAP
Worse, it turns people into consumers.
If we take alcohol advertising out of sport then people will forget alcohol exists and the world will be saved! Pfft, nonsense.
Cognitive ,well written piece Anonymous
Alcoholism is a terrible addiction. Seen a close friend go through it but thankfully he came out the other side and hasn’t drank in 5 years. Well written article and glad you are doing ok.
Good article I don’t drink and think that if someone is going to drink then there going to drink regardless of an ad or no ad and its a social thing Also. I still have a good evening with my friends and family without a drink and I don’t mind if there drinking as its up to them and we still have a brill evening.
Alcohol is by far the worst drug in Ireland today. Normalizing it by constant advertising through sport and music will only exasperate an already dire situation.
So mac donald’s should be banned from sports sponsorship because the make people fat! When everyone knows mac donalds dont make people fat, people make themselfs fat by not knowing when to stop eating. Same argument cant apply to the drink sponsorship.
Apologies if this seems harsh,but the truth sometimes is…
So the author has a problem with drink,although they are taken partial responsibility,it’s still someone else’s fault.Now that they are conquering their addiction, it’s time to stop everybody else whether they have a problem or not.As the old saying goes “there’s none purer,than a reformed hoor”…I’m speaking now as someone who has lived with 2 generations of alcoholics and the overriding thing is selfishness.Here the author is being selfish once again because they have a problem,we are all expected suffer as a result…Now using the authors logic,you are far more likely to become an alcoholic when standing close to the alcohol aisle in your local supermarket or seeing a pub, ridiculous.No as I said the problem belongs with the author and now they are projecting it onto other people.
Alcohol didn’t destroy the author,the author destroyed alcohol for themselves.Some people just can’t handle alcohol and the author is one of those people.
Ru, I think if you had read the article properly you would see that the author is not against drink manufacturers sponsoring sports teams and events, in fact he acknowledges how much some clubs benefit by the sponsorship.
Eh no “I think if you had read the article properly” what he said was “Should there be alcohol advertising in sport, in the GAA? As a recovering alcoholic I should say no.”
So yes,he is on one hand saying they shouldn’t be there but recognizes if they weren’t,there would be no club.
The average person that goes to the pub on the weekend to watch a match is not the one binge drinking and causing trouble.
And who will pay for the sport . Our government
As long as there is a banner below the advert showing a diseased liver or one of alcohol poisoning due to too much alcohol consumption like they do with cigarettes then yeah I wouldn’t mind.
Then you must have a picture of a mangled child on your steering wheel ,a huge obese person on your fridge and Jimmy Saville’s portrait on your tv !
Or just Shane McGowan!
No but what does bother me is when you are at an event or venue and they only sell one brand of beer because “They” bought the rights to the bar!!
What happened to my right to choose what I drink???
Really excellent article
No.
Joe,I agree No.
What a shit hole of a country. Right to choice, not Ireland. This will result in minimum pricing, the hike in price will be a tax. Guaranteed
HSBC were fined $1.9 billion prior to Christmas for knowingly aiding the money laundering of heroin and cocaine traffickers (indirectly) resulting in social problems that are difficult to fathom given the length of time they were doing it. Should they be the sponsor of the Lions tour? Probably not. Should McDonalds be the title sponsor of the FAIs ‘Future Football’ scheme? Probably not but many sporting bodies wouldn’t exist without it. Ditto with alcohol sponsorship in sport. Personal responsibility. Don’t bank with HSBC. Don’t feed your kid McDonalds every week and….well you get the point.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/gangster-bankers-too-big-to-jail-20130214
How about alcohol companies do the same as cigarette companies in F1? Cigarette companies took a major blow in the 90s by having nearly all means of advertising removed. Have people stopped smoking? No. However, it has deterred a larger number of young people from taking up smoking.
I don’t see how alcohol is any less dangerous than cigarettes – some very abusive people after taking alcohol, impaired judgment. cyrrhosis and other problems that also require the taxpayer to pay up for the fools in the Dail and murder. Vomit on the streets every Sunday morning, men and women falling around the place could end up in a person falling in front of a car. Though it may not be an illness, the effects are quite sickening. I have never seen anybody with a cigarette go out and stab or shoot somebody because of smoking the cigarette (second-hand smoke v violence), throw up or fall in front of a car.
The controlled consumption of alcohol is ideal but since we live in a society full of the extreme, we need to limit access to it until we develop a normal drinking culture, i.e. no binge-drinking Friday and Saturday or no need for every single occasion or night out to be a piss-up.
The GAA should keep the clubs open and people should pay for the clubs like the local golf clubs.
Whatever brings in the cash! McDonalds sponsored the FA cup that brought in needed revenue to put back into grass roots, the formerly named carling cup didn’t drive anybody to drink themselves stupid!
Armed robbery brings in the cash. Gambling websites bring in the cash.Heroin brings in the cash. Prostitution brings in the cash. Cigarette sales bring in the cash.
I think companies that market alcohol should start contributing funds to cleaning up the social mess their products create.
Whatever brings in the cash for clubs. In football so many clubs are below the breadline that whoever they should be allowed to accept sponsorship from whoever is willing to pay.
Armed robbery, heroin and prostitution are illegal so therefore would not be an option for football clubs to receive sponsorship from…
Who gives a shit
Just take a walk along O’Connell Street on any afternoon and tell me why Ireland needs any alcohol advertising.
Looks like about half the population have alcohol issues.
Lovely story.
Let’s compromise and have no advertising anywhere.
There are adverts for horse racing and gambling all over the country but very few game compulsively
Meh
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