Aaron Connolly: The footballer who is rebuilding his life and career after rehab
Aaron Connollywill always have a reason to remember the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League defeat against Englandlast month. The type of fixture in which the Galway-born forward used to feature was watched on TV from an alcohol rehabilitation centre in rural Hampshire.
“I thought, maybe because I was an active footballer, they might not let me because it could be a trigger, but it was probably quite a relief to be able to watch it,” says Connolly, whose last international cap for Ireland was in 2023. “That’s the level I want to get back to.”
It promises to be a long road but Connolly has at least found clarity at its start. A month in rehab confronted the demons he attempted to drown and led to the frank admission he has lived much of his football career trying to hide an addiction.
“I wouldn’t know when to stop so I know I can’t drink alcohol again,” he says. “I go to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings now. I have to. That’s what I need to do. It might be three, four times a week, might even be one every day, it depends how you’re feeling.
“But the meetings are going to keep me sober. The day I stop doing them, that’s the day I’m not sober. I know that. I know I need to be there.”
Connolly could have continued to hide his problems from the public eye, but he decided to begin a fresh start as a Sunderlandplayer with full disclosure. An in-house media interview broadcast last week told the world of his struggles and the 24-year-old has felt a weight lifted.
Connolly is smiling again, content and focused. There are ambitions of getting back to the Premier League, where he announced his burgeoning talent in 2019, scoring twice on his debut for Brighton & Hove Albion in a 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur, and repaying Sunderland’s faith in his ability.
The first steps are small but offer Connolly promise he will cling to.
“I would have to drink to feel comfortable in myself before,” he says. “Now I’m so comfortable in myself when I’m sober. I love it. And I wish I’d done it five years ago, but there’s just come certain points where you just have to be honest with yourself. I was and I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”
Connolly knows the date of his last drink. “August 7,” he says without pausing. It was two days before the start of the EFLseason and a point when he remained without a club following his exit from Hull Cityas a free agent in June.
The decision to seek professional help, he says, had been years in the making. “I decided that enough was enough and I wanted to stop,” Connolly tells The Athletic.
“It got to that breaking point, where it’s not about football anymore. My life was spiralling. I went back to Ireland in the summer and there were times when you’d be drinking, you’d go home and the next day I’d wake up and I’d look at my parents and I’d know I was breaking their hearts.
“My personal life has been a mess. When you’re so deep into an addiction to alcohol, you can’t really see it. You just can’t… everything that everyone’s saying to you, like, ‘Oh, you might have a problem’ — I thought they had the problem. Like, they’re judging me. You get so far in denial.”
Connolly can see now that team-mates at Hull had attempted to help him last season. He cites club captain Lewie Coyleas one of the most supportive figures he has encountered along with Jacob Greaves, the centre-back who moved to promoted Ipswich Townin the summer. Alfie Jones, Sean McLoughlinand Andy Smithalso get his thanks. It is unlikely, he believes, that news of his addiction will have come as a surprise.
“They knew I was struggling,” Connolly says. “There’s not much people can say to you when you’re in denial of the problems you have. I have so much respect for all of them, but at the time I didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me.”
Connolly’s problems had planted roots long before he arrived in East Yorkshire to play under his one-time Brightonteam-mate, Liam Rosenior, in the Championship. The dynamic young forward who had once made his full Premier League and international debuts inside seven days had lost his way, promise gradually dimming with failed loans at Luton Town, Middlesbroughand Italian club Venezia.
Connolly does not look for excuses but admits he struggled to cope with the off-field distractions that came his way, first when breaking through into senior football as a teenager. The good days in football brought adulation. The bad ones led to scrutiny, shaping perceptions he knows became increasingly unfavourable.
“I was 14 when I had my first drink,” he says. “I remember it, of course you remember it, because it’s something that’s been a big part of my life. Not intentionally, but it gradually just gets hold of you. I moved to England a year later and it was like a kind of freedom, with no real authority figure.
“My parents stayed in Ireland obviously and they didn’t know the half of what went on over here because you’d only tell them over the phone a certain amount of what you want them to know. So there was lots of lies, lots of dishonesty in there which seeped into my personal life.”
Connolly was a full international at 19 and a teenager who Graham Potter, his then Brighton manager, said would need to be “looked after” to ensure he had a long career ahead. His Premier League appearance tally, though, remains on 45, unmoved since his final Brighton outingin December 2021.
“I enjoyed (the attention) at the start when you’ve never had it before,” says Connolly. “If anyone says they wouldn’t enjoy people showing you attention, they’re lying. But once that fades off and the goals stop coming, the games stop coming, then you start looking for other things to give you that kind of feeling. And that’s what happened to me with the alcohol.
“Then it takes over and that becomes your buzz then.”
Connolly can look back now and see a point when his football career became secondary. No sooner had he realised his dreams of becoming a Premier League footballer — that dangerous, alert centre-forward — there was an abandonment of ambition.
“I remember one game clearly, we were playing Liverpoolaway and it was a 3pm kick-off,” he says. “I couldn’t wait for the game to finish because I wanted to switch off and come away from all that and do what I was doing.
“Looking back now, it’s just crazy but that was how sad my life had become. I’d been the boy who must have watched Premier League Years (the TV programme) over and over again. That’s all I’d ever wanted to do growing up, to play in the Premier League.”
Connolly does not sound much like a 24-year-old and laughs at the fact he was comfortably the youngest of his group to undergo residential treatment at Tony Adams’ Sporting Chance clinic this summer. The decision was made to park his football career for a month, with instructions given to his agent not to chase leads during Connolly’s month of rehab.
“I loved it in there because I learned so much about myself that I’ve never even dreamed of,” he says. “It wasn’t like everything you think it is in like a movie, where people are sitting on a bench staring out into the lake and they’re in this big five-star resort.
“You have a house where you stay with three other people and you’re continually, like, working on yourself, understanding your addiction, understanding why you are the way you are and what sort of coping mechanisms you can build.
“It was the best and worst month of my life. It was the best because it’s given me the life I have now. I know it’s only been two, three months, but it’s given me this chance.”
It comes with a Sunderland side exceeding expectations at the top end of the Championship. A bright young side has improved under the guidance of Frenchman Regis Le Bris and Connolly’s addition gives another attacking option in a squad that desperately struggled for goals in the second half of last season.
Sunderland got the full story of Connolly’s summer before a 12-month deal was agreed with the free agent.
“When we sat down in the meeting, I said, ‘Open and honest’ because that’s what I wanted to be,” Connolly says. “I told them what I’d been doing in the summer, that I’d been to rehab. They were brilliant with me. I’m going to be grateful to them for a long time and hopefully, I can repay that.
“I just want to be part of it. I want to get back to the Premier League, playing international football. That’s the aim. It always has been the aim to play in the Premier League and for Ireland.”
The opening weeks on Wearside have been encouraging enough. Appearances in the under-21s have shown a trimmed-down version of Connolly, who weighs eight kilograms (18lb) less than he did with Hull at the back end of last season. Goals have come, too, including a couple in Tuesday night’s Premier League Cup win away to Huddersfield Town.
Now, by chance, it is Hull away in the Championship and a possible first-team debut for Sunderland on Sunday afternoon. A cameo off the bench would appear to be his best hope but that would be another marker for his progress. Day by day. And this is No 74.
“People are going to think that I’ve done this (speaking out) for an excuse or something like that,” he says, unsure of the reception that awaits him at Hull.
“I just felt it was quite an important thing to speak about because addiction is a struggle every day for myself, for people out there.
“A lot of people don’t want to admit it or come out and speak about it because, obviously, the stigma around it. I’ve got a platform to speak about it and show that it’s not something you should be ashamed about.”
Aaron Connolly: The footballer who is rebuilding his life and career after rehab
Aaron Connollywill always have a reason to remember the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League defeat against Englandlast month. The type of fixture in which the Galway-born forward used to feature was watched on TV from an alcohol rehabilitation centre in rural Hampshire.
“I thought, maybe because I was an active footballer, they might not let me because it could be a trigger, but it was probably quite a relief to be able to watch it,” says Connolly, whose last international cap for Ireland was in 2023. “That’s the level I want to get back to.”
It promises to be a long road but Connolly has at least found clarity at its start. A month in rehab confronted the demons he attempted to drown and led to the frank admission he has lived much of his football career trying to hide an addiction.
“I wouldn’t know when to stop so I know I can’t drink alcohol again,” he says. “I go to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings now. I have to. That’s what I need to do. It might be three, four times a week, might even be one every day, it depends how you’re feeling.
“But the meetings are going to keep me sober. The day I stop doing them, that’s the day I’m not sober. I know that. I know I need to be there.”
Connolly could have continued to hide his problems from the public eye, but he decided to begin a fresh start as a Sunderlandplayer with full disclosure. An in-house media interview broadcast last week told the world of his struggles and the 24-year-old has felt a weight lifted.
Connolly is smiling again, content and focused. There are ambitions of getting back to the Premier League, where he announced his burgeoning talent in 2019, scoring twice on his debut for Brighton & Hove Albion in a 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur, and repaying Sunderland’s faith in his ability.
The first steps are small but offer Connolly promise he will cling to.
“I would have to drink to feel comfortable in myself before,” he says. “Now I’m so comfortable in myself when I’m sober. I love it. And I wish I’d done it five years ago, but there’s just come certain points where you just have to be honest with yourself. I was and I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time.”
Connolly knows the date of his last drink. “August 7,” he says without pausing. It was two days before the start of the EFLseason and a point when he remained without a club following his exit from Hull Cityas a free agent in June.
The decision to seek professional help, he says, had been years in the making. “I decided that enough was enough and I wanted to stop,” Connolly tells The Athletic.
“It got to that breaking point, where it’s not about football anymore. My life was spiralling. I went back to Ireland in the summer and there were times when you’d be drinking, you’d go home and the next day I’d wake up and I’d look at my parents and I’d know I was breaking their hearts.
“My personal life has been a mess. When you’re so deep into an addiction to alcohol, you can’t really see it. You just can’t… everything that everyone’s saying to you, like, ‘Oh, you might have a problem’ — I thought they had the problem. Like, they’re judging me. You get so far in denial.”
Connolly can see now that team-mates at Hull had attempted to help him last season. He cites club captain Lewie Coyleas one of the most supportive figures he has encountered along with Jacob Greaves, the centre-back who moved to promoted Ipswich Townin the summer. Alfie Jones, Sean McLoughlinand Andy Smithalso get his thanks. It is unlikely, he believes, that news of his addiction will have come as a surprise.
“They knew I was struggling,” Connolly says. “There’s not much people can say to you when you’re in denial of the problems you have. I have so much respect for all of them, but at the time I didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me.”
Connolly’s problems had planted roots long before he arrived in East Yorkshire to play under his one-time Brightonteam-mate, Liam Rosenior, in the Championship. The dynamic young forward who had once made his full Premier League and international debuts inside seven days had lost his way, promise gradually dimming with failed loans at Luton Town, Middlesbroughand Italian club Venezia.
Connolly does not look for excuses but admits he struggled to cope with the off-field distractions that came his way, first when breaking through into senior football as a teenager. The good days in football brought adulation. The bad ones led to scrutiny, shaping perceptions he knows became increasingly unfavourable.
“I was 14 when I had my first drink,” he says. “I remember it, of course you remember it, because it’s something that’s been a big part of my life. Not intentionally, but it gradually just gets hold of you. I moved to England a year later and it was like a kind of freedom, with no real authority figure.
“My parents stayed in Ireland obviously and they didn’t know the half of what went on over here because you’d only tell them over the phone a certain amount of what you want them to know. So there was lots of lies, lots of dishonesty in there which seeped into my personal life.”
Connolly was a full international at 19 and a teenager who Graham Potter, his then Brighton manager, said would need to be “looked after” to ensure he had a long career ahead. His Premier League appearance tally, though, remains on 45, unmoved since his final Brighton outingin December 2021.
“I enjoyed (the attention) at the start when you’ve never had it before,” says Connolly. “If anyone says they wouldn’t enjoy people showing you attention, they’re lying. But once that fades off and the goals stop coming, the games stop coming, then you start looking for other things to give you that kind of feeling. And that’s what happened to me with the alcohol.
“Then it takes over and that becomes your buzz then.”
Connolly can look back now and see a point when his football career became secondary. No sooner had he realised his dreams of becoming a Premier League footballer — that dangerous, alert centre-forward — there was an abandonment of ambition.
“I remember one game clearly, we were playing Liverpoolaway and it was a 3pm kick-off,” he says. “I couldn’t wait for the game to finish because I wanted to switch off and come away from all that and do what I was doing.
“Looking back now, it’s just crazy but that was how sad my life had become. I’d been the boy who must have watched Premier League Years (the TV programme) over and over again. That’s all I’d ever wanted to do growing up, to play in the Premier League.”
Connolly does not sound much like a 24-year-old and laughs at the fact he was comfortably the youngest of his group to undergo residential treatment at Tony Adams’ Sporting Chance clinic this summer. The decision was made to park his football career for a month, with instructions given to his agent not to chase leads during Connolly’s month of rehab.
“I loved it in there because I learned so much about myself that I’ve never even dreamed of,” he says. “It wasn’t like everything you think it is in like a movie, where people are sitting on a bench staring out into the lake and they’re in this big five-star resort.
“You have a house where you stay with three other people and you’re continually, like, working on yourself, understanding your addiction, understanding why you are the way you are and what sort of coping mechanisms you can build.
“It was the best and worst month of my life. It was the best because it’s given me the life I have now. I know it’s only been two, three months, but it’s given me this chance.”
It comes with a Sunderland side exceeding expectations at the top end of the Championship. A bright young side has improved under the guidance of Frenchman Regis Le Bris and Connolly’s addition gives another attacking option in a squad that desperately struggled for goals in the second half of last season.
Sunderland got the full story of Connolly’s summer before a 12-month deal was agreed with the free agent.
“When we sat down in the meeting, I said, ‘Open and honest’ because that’s what I wanted to be,” Connolly says. “I told them what I’d been doing in the summer, that I’d been to rehab. They were brilliant with me. I’m going to be grateful to them for a long time and hopefully, I can repay that.
“I just want to be part of it. I want to get back to the Premier League, playing international football. That’s the aim. It always has been the aim to play in the Premier League and for Ireland.”
The opening weeks on Wearside have been encouraging enough. Appearances in the under-21s have shown a trimmed-down version of Connolly, who weighs eight kilograms (18lb) less than he did with Hull at the back end of last season. Goals have come, too, including a couple in Tuesday night’s Premier League Cup win away to Huddersfield Town.
Now, by chance, it is Hull away in the Championship and a possible first-team debut for Sunderland on Sunday afternoon. A cameo off the bench would appear to be his best hope but that would be another marker for his progress. Day by day. And this is No 74.
“People are going to think that I’ve done this (speaking out) for an excuse or something like that,” he says, unsure of the reception that awaits him at Hull.
“I just felt it was quite an important thing to speak about because addiction is a struggle every day for myself, for people out there.
“A lot of people don’t want to admit it or come out and speak about it because, obviously, the stigma around it. I’ve got a platform to speak about it and show that it’s not something you should be ashamed about.”
