Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
NUGENT: I WILL AVOID MAKING SAME MISTAKES
ANTRIM’S Domhnall Nugent is determined to push on in life and hurling as he steps up his recovery from alcohol addiction.
The 24-year-old dual player came on for the Saffrons in December’s Joe Mcdonagh Cup final win at Croke Park.
The cameo came 18 months after entering an addiction treatment centre in mid-2019, where he stayed for 12 weeks.
Speaking on Inspire wellbeing’s Little Inspirations podcast, Nugent said that at his lowest point while drinking he ‘wanted to be dead’ and admitted his life was ‘chaos’.
The St John’s clubman has made a strong recovery, with progress in both his day job at Homefit in Belfast and on the field with Antrim too.
Powerful Nugent said of the Mcdonagh Cup success: “It was a full circle moment. When that final whistle went I just took a look up in the sky and it was like, ‘You know what, life’s good, it is’.
“I was just so happy and so relieved, so many mixed emotions. It was a great, great feeling. It’s given me medicine for more, I want more.
“It’s that single mindedness, I don’t want to be coming on next year. I want to be there from the start. I’ve been working hard over the winter to get there, to get everything right.
“I’ve got my (injured) elbow right again and stuff like that. It was definitely a great moment winning the Joe Mcdonagh Cup. At the same time, what I used to do was rest off it and live off it and things like that.
“I’m not going to make that mistake again. It’s parked now. My granny has the photo in a frame in her living room and that’ll do. I’ll just keep going.”
Darren Gleeson’s
(inset) Antrim side were promoted to the Liam Maccarthy Cup competition for 2021 and will compete in the Leinster championship. Nugent believes it’s the start of a productive period for the county.
He said: “It has to be, we have to build on it. Antrim hurling is in a very good place structurally. It’s up to us, everything has been in place for us to go on and push on and to bring more happiness to families and bring more happiness to clubs and to be role models.” Nugent also drew national headlines in 2020 for his remarkable one-armed performance against Loughgiel Shamrocks in September’s Antrim SHC semi-final.
He dislocated his elbow early on but played on and scored 3-3 in a match that went to extra-time.
The positive vibes are a world away from the difficulties of 2019 when he entered treatment at around 19 stone.
He said: “I had only about a tenner in my pocket. I literally didn’t know what I was going to do.
“You have two options; you go ahead with this and you kill yourself or you try to get a bit of help. It’s the first time that help even sort of came into my head.
“I was always in denial that I had a problem or that there was something wrong with me.”