50 ways YOUR TO LEAVE LOVER
Declan Lynch’s tales of addiction
“Now, whether Rooney is or is not an alcoholic is not the point here at all”
When Wayne Rooney was arrested recently at Washington’s Dulles International Airport for “public intoxication and swearing”, my mind drifted back to another scene of public intoxication on Wayne’s part, the night in 2017 when he was charged with drink-driving.
I noted at the time that apart from giving the tabloids a massive opportunity to explore his relationship with his wife Coleen, who was on holiday in Spain and pregnant with their fourth child, it also gave rise to one of the all-time great lines in the history of what we might call drink awareness.
It was in the Daily Mail, of course, in a reflective piece about the “occasional bouts of stupidity” which have characterised Wayne’s career, these bouts being attributed to “one thing: drink”.
And the great line was set up by a quote from someone who has “followed his career”, the quote going something like this: “He’s always been a drinker, and he just can’t shake it off. When he gets drunk, goes on a bender, he will do silly things. That’s how he ends up sleeping with hookers and in places where he shouldn’t be… and why he was arrested this week.”
So it was all building up to some kind of a verdict on Rooney, on the part of this person who has ‘followed his career’, and when it came, it was a classic of the genre: “Rooney is certainly not an alcoholic, but it has had a huge impact on his career. It’s damaged his fitness, which has also suffered because he has a long-term problem with cigarettes...”
Ah, it is a marvellous moment, and so perfectly timed, the way that the speaker assembles all this information about Rooney’s drinking, and how he keeps getting into bad situations as a result of it, and then hits you with the classic: “Rooney is certainly not an alcoholic...”
Now, whether Rooney is or is not an alcoholic is not the point here at all. To the best of my knowledge, he has made no statement on the subject himself, and usually it is better to leave these things to the individual in question, as very little good will come of it otherwise — but this ‘follower’ is not so reticent.
No, he has weighed it up, he has looked at it from all sides, and has formed the conclusion that Rooney is not an alcoholic — “certainly not”, indeed.
Though it is claimed that Rooney can’t shake it off, that alcohol has caused this “huge problem” in his career and in other parts of his life, apparently the only reasonable inference to draw from this is that he is certainly not an alcoholic.
Like I say, it works best if a person declares him or herself to be an alcoholic, rather than having it declared for them — but by the same token, it is not much use to anyone to be heading off in the opposite direction. To be insisting that someone is not an alcoholic, particularly in the course of a lengthy description of all the trouble they’ve been getting into, with drink taken. That’s no good to anyone either, to be fair.
It invites a question, as to what exactly a drinker would have to do in order to qualify for the elusive title of ‘alcoholic’? And does it matter?
Rooney, according to his biographer Hunter Davies, never cursed in his presence. Which suggests he is a more sensitive to the use of language than the popular press might allow.
Then again, the Daily Mail can be calling you anything it damn well likes, but you still have a situation on your hands which would probably best be resolved by taking a long and leisurely break from it all. Because eventually, if your drinking is bringing you such grief, will anything but not drinking make it any better?
Certainly not.