Form by Kieren Fallon

Author:Kieren Fallon [Fallon, Kieren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

CHAPTER 18

Aiséirí

In January 2003, I took a radical step. I checked myself into an addiction treatment centre called Aiséirí in Cahir, County Tipperary, and admitted that I had a problem. Aiséirí is Gaelic for ‘resurrection’. I had reached a point in my life and my career where I knew something had to change.

It sounds very simple but part of the reason for checking myself in was just to get away from everything. I had started to get sucked into a cycle in horseracing where everything revolved around alcohol. If you were celebrating with each other, you had a drink. If you were commiserating with each other, you had a drink. I realised that I was the one who was choosing which Newmarket pub we would drink at if there was a night out with some of the other jockeys. Even if I went away somewhere on holiday with Julie and the kids, the way I relaxed was by having a drink. I wanted some time away from that kind of social pressure.

I wasn’t sure I was an alcoholic. I gave an interview to David Walsh of the Sunday Times, who was someone I trusted, around that time which shocked a lot of people because I was open about the way I felt about alcohol. David had said to me that he thought I could be an ever better jockey if I didn’t drink and it had made me think.

‘How do you define an alcoholic?’ I asked him as part of that interview. ‘We imagine the alcoholic as the guy with the wine bottle in a brown paper bag, sleeping on the bench. You can drink once a month and be an alcoholic, you can be a binge alcoholic or a social alcoholic, many different kinds.

‘I was a serious social drinker, a few drinks after racing, a few in the house that night, and eventually it started to tell on me. But I’ve never had a craving for a drink. Does that make me an alcoholic? I don’t know. I do know I have a problem with alcohol.’

This was the kind of thing I’d do: if I got to a pub and the bar was busy, I’d have a couple of double vodkas straight away just so that if I did have to wait to get served the next time I came to the bar, it wouldn’t matter. If I got a couple of quick doubles in, I wouldn’t resent a little bit of time without a drink in my hand.

I also knew I had a problem with food. We all did, didn’t we? Flipping was just a way of life for a jockey, but the battle with weight took its toll, too. Being sick, taking diuretics, pills for appetite suppressants, pills for everything. In lucid moments, I realised I had lost track of what was healthy and what was not.

My life had become a whirlwind. It was a hurricane. I had no time for anything except racing. It was Lingfield,

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