Sleeping pill and painkiller addictions are a major and widespread problem across football, and Dele Alli’s admission is just the tip of the iceberg.
Retired footballer Ryan Cresswell has commended the Everton star for opening up about his struggles and has told talkSPORT about his own – saying pressure he felt from fans drove him to abusing prescription drugs.
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Cresswell came through the Sheffield United academy and enjoyed spells at Bury, Southend United, Fleetwood Town and Northampton Town, making over 250 Football League appearances, before dropping into non-league football due to persistent injuries.
Now 35 and manager of Sheffield FC, the former defender is passionate about sharing his story and told talkSPORT about his battle with prescription drugs throughout his playing career, saying it’s a bigger problem than many people realise.
And he hopes by speaking about his issues, along with Alli and other former players, it will help those currently going through the same trauma seek help.
“I can definitely resonate with what Dele said,” Cresswell told Tony Cascarino and Mark Pougatch on talkSPORT’s Weekend Sports Breakfast.
“He’s trying to hide suppressed feelings. Taking them, as he said, from 11 o’clock in the morning, that’s something that I did and it’s for that sole purpose of escaping reality.
“For myself, I couldn’t deal with grief, with my emotions. And if you ask any of the players that I played with, I was always the loudest, bubbliest, funniest character in the dressing room, but it was a mask. Deep down inside, I was suffering.
“In a football dressing room, there’s no room for weakness. It’s a very macho environment.
“And the sleeping tablets, as Dele said, to start with, to sleep after games when the adrenaline is rushing, it’s perfect for that case. But you have to be careful that you don’t become reliant on them.
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“For me, it was painkillers and sleeping tablets that I became reliant on early on, which then also led me into drink and other things, which took me into rehab.
“I’ve been into rehab twice. The first time I did it to please other people, I didn’t really think I had a problem but the second time, I crawled in there begging for help.
“It was through grief, trauma. I suffered with injuries, and when you get the fans calling you injury-prone and, ‘He’s made of chocolate’, you want to prove them wrong.
“I threw my body on the line – I shattered my collarbone, I got prolapsed discs in my neck, I had four knee surgeries, all through impacts from playing. And then when someone is giving you a stick saying, ‘He’s never fit and he’s unreliable’, I tried to make sure that I didn’t feel the pain that I was going through, to make sure I got on the pitch at all costs. In the long run, that ended up affecting me.
“I was taking painkillers quite a lot and then the sleeping tablets to make sure I was prepared for games, but then I became reliant on them.
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“What the sleeping tablets do, they take you into a place where you’re completely numb. You don’t feel reality and you think that you’re acting normal, but your loved ones around you can see that you’re not. And it’s a vicious cycle.”
Asked if he suspects that sleeping tablet addictions are a major issue in the game, he added: “I absolutely do. Yeah, I do.”
“I think that you take them for the right purpose when the club give them to you, but then when you feel the numbness and the escapism of what a sleeping tablet does to you, it’s quite easy for a footballer to fall into an addiction with them.
“Imagine, these players are in high-pressure situations, they’re being watched 24/7, so taking a couple of sleeping tablets and just feeling alone and feeling at peace, it can become quite an attractive proposition, which really, in the long run, you suffer with drastically.
“I can’t believe that I did what I did. And I think a lot of footballers will agree with that, because it just creeps up on you and then it’s got you. You’re in its grasp.
“In Dele’s case, he’s got the whole nation absolutely nailing him for his lack of performance, that he’s got no drive… I’m not surprised the kid had no drive with his body full of sleeping tablets.
“It numbs you, it masks you, it makes you feel like you’ve slept in a foggy room, and it takes you 12 hours – if you use it for the right reasons – to actually start feeling normal again.
“So I think it’s fantastic that he’s come out and said this because he’s such a high-profile player. There’s a hell of a lot more in the game who are struggling with sleeping tablets, and hopefully this will help sort it out.”
