Jimmy White: Second Wind, My Autobiography by Jimmy White

Author:Jimmy White
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: The Crucible, Sheffield, Jimmy White, Snooker, Mosconi Cup, Pool, Whirlwind
Publisher: Trinity Mirror Sport Media
Published: 2014-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

8

Dark Days

“Come here boy, come here,” I shout after Splinter as he races around Streatham Common. It’s Christmas Day and I’m at my lowest ebb. Me and Maureen have split up again and I’m spending the day in a flat in Streatham – one of the 20 I must’ve furnished over the last 15 years. The Queen’s Speech is on, families up and down the country are enjoying themselves, opening presents, sharing the day with each other – just as it should be – and the highlight of my day is taking the dog for a walk, on my own. My life feels like a fucking joke.

I have four kids, a big house and I’m one of the world’s most popular snooker players and yet here I am with a two-day hangover following a three-day coke and vodka binge.

I miss my kids and I’ve got to sort myself out.

It was spending Christmas, 1994, on my own in that flat that convinced me to finally try and kick my coke habit. The crack problem had disappeared a long time ago but coke was still a big part of my life – apart from when we played at tournaments.

Like I say, I’d evaded the testers for years, mainly by being a step ahead, well prepared and absolutely terrified of getting caught out. It wasn’t really the game’s fault and snooker did its best to catch rogues but you just had to time it right. Weed used to take longer to get out of the system and there was this old wives’ tale that used to go around about orange juice cleaning it out of your system nice and quickly. I didn’t know if it was true or not but I used to down litre after litre of the stuff coming up to a tournament.

Put it like this, if Lance Armstrong can get away with everything he did without a positive test, simply by making sure he timed his drugs at the right time, then a snooker player tested every now and then had no trouble. Half the time back then, just walking into the test room should’ve set alarm bells ringing but I suppose I just got really lucky.

I didn’t miss coke or weed at major tournaments because I could get as much fun from just getting pissed and playing poker until the early hours and, up to now, they’ve not designed a test for that. Maybe they should’ve done – they’d certainly have found me bang to rights on that score.

I was very lucky to get away with it for so long and I knew that wouldn’t last forever but my main motivation to get clean was simply the fact I fucking despised cocaine with a passion I can’t begin to describe.

I’ve said elsewhere that it ruined my game and I mean it but now was the time to forget that and get my game back to where it should be. Unlike the crack, which I gave up in one horrendous fortnight of cold turkey, I weaned myself off cocaine gradually, over a period of quite a few years.

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