Treacy gets candid about his battle with the bottle

KEITH TREACY has revealed that therapy sessions over the last three years have helped him fight alcohol dependency and get his life back on track. The former Republic of Ireland international laid bare the personal demons which tortured him throughout his career and explained how the pressures of professional football, along with the abuse he suffered from supporters, led to him suffering from depression. In an absorbing interview with the Keith Andrews Show on Off the Ball, Treacy, 30, confirmed that he is now almost 12 months sober since parting ways with St Patrick’s Athletic. A left winger who joined Blackburn Rovers from Belvedere as a teenager, he also had spells with Burnley, Preston North End and Barnsley. Treacy earned six Ireland caps with his debut coming against Argentina in the opening game of the new Aviva Stadium seven years ago. However, it was former Burnley teammate and PFA chairman Clarke Carlisle, who has suffered his own mental health issues, and fellow Dubliner Wayne Henderson that helped him turn things around. ‘I see myself in Clarkey a lot now. The way he spoke to me really opened my eyes but there was still a blip after Clarkey that I had to get over and I think you really have to hit rock bottom and say “am I going to get straight and live my life?”,’ Treacy said. ‘I remember Wayne Henderson, he came into my house crying one day after a game, he slammed a whiskey bottle down and said “I don’t think I’ll be able to pick my kids up when they’re born”. He hasn’t got any kids but because his back was so bad, he started sobbing. ‘This was a grown man crying. Picking up your kids is more important than playing game of football, so when I saw Hendo doing that I was thinking and thinking that if I keep drinking and playing here… But I couldn’t stop at the time so I kept drinking and playing,’ added Treacy (below). ‘Eventually I got to a good enough place where I haven’t drank since November. This is three years of therapy to get all this stuff out. I like talking about it now because a lot of people need to hear this. ‘It’s not a battle [with alcohol] anymore, it was at the start but I didn’t realise I was trying to give up drink. I just thought “ah, I’ll give it two weeks if I can” and you sort of stretch it. Before I knew it I’m nearly a year off it and have no ambition to go back to it.’ Treacy also recalled the incident playing for Barnsley at Preston which prompted him to leave England for good with his wife and return to Ireland in 2015. ‘I woke up on St Stephen’s Day and there was blood all over the sitting room floor. The taxi driver who went to get me to bring me to the game wanted to ring my Ma and Da. I got dressed, cleaned myself up and went to do the warm-up. The manager put me on the bench, thank God, I thought I was due to play. ‘We were doing little sprints [in the warm-up] and as I turned to sprint the stadium turned black. I couldn’t see. I made some excuse that I had flu so the manager told me to sit behind the bench. I rang my wife on the sly and we went home that day. I actually didn’t tell the club. They sent me a letter six months later saying “you’ve been sacked”. That’s the life of a footballer.’