Tony Adams has always been a contradiction. He led and captained an elite Arsenal dressing room for 14 years but struggled to care for himself. The epitome of bravery on the pitch and “a scared little boy” off it. A career full of drive and determination but also weak will. These days, the contradictions are softer. An East End boy living in the Cotswolds, a recovered alcoholic happily married to a member of the Teacher’s whisky dynasty. A snappy dresser with a messy haircut. The difference is that, unlike the old days, everything seems to fit.
“I’ve got no angst of the past any more,” says Adams. “I’ve cleaned that up – I’m 28 years without a drink or a drug. I’m comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my life. I’ve grown up. There are no tentacles from the past now.”
In the hour that we speak, the only tears fall for a man known only as James W, hailed by the 58-year-old as his “hero, therapist, sponsor, mentor”, who started Adams’ road to recovery in 1996 after years of addiction, and ran Adams’ charity, Sporting Chance, for 20 years as the clinical director. There must be few people who mean more to Adams.
“I’ve sat with him for the last six months but he’s died of lung cancer,” says Adams. “Oh, there you go, I’m getting a bit emotional. I’m getting a bit of closure around it. The funeral [was] on Wednesday. He saved my life, and got hundreds of other people clean.” The road to meeting James W in 1996 was bleak. Despite Adams’ continued excellence on the pitch, his drinking escalated out of control. One fall down some stairs required 29 stitches in his forehead (the same forehead that weeks later would score the winner against Tottenham in the 1993 FA Cup semi-final).
“The blackouts happened more and more,” says Adams. “I met my first wife [Jane Shea] in a blackout. I put her into rehab because she took crack and I surrounded myself with sick people to prop me up. I thought all my problems were her fault – I had the banner of being England captain. But I was the one wearing myself out. I was the one being unfaithful.
“In 1996, I was 29 years of age and didn’t want to be on the planet, so it was a very dark period of my life. When I didn’t play football, I didn’t want to live. I couldn’t do life. I knew I was completely trapped and that’s the worst place I’ve ever been in. In February of that year, football was removed as I got injured. In March, my kids were removed. I didn’t drink around them but passed out one Sunday evening. I drank seven bottles of chablis. So the mother-in-law took the kids.
“My father-in-law then was Frank Shea. He used to drive for the Krays; Frances was his sister, who married Reggie Kray. So that was the kind of background for my first wife’s state. But Frank, all of a sudden, he’s 10 years without a drink or drugs, and he’s got his self-respect back, and he’s got his dignity back. All the things that I’d lost. So Barbara, my [first] mother-in-law, gave me James W’s number. She slipped it in my pocket. She saved my life.”
Adams first met James W in April 1996, drunk. “Then we had the Euros, and I managed to stay clean and sober using football. But as soon as Gareth [Southgate] missed that penalty, the booze was in my hand again, a 44-day bender. At the end of my drinking, I’ve seen things come out of the cupboard. I was paranoid. I thought someone was in the house. I thought I was killing people.
“When I came around 16 August 1996, James guided me and I went to Alcoholics Anonymous, went through the 12 steps with him and it changed me as a human being.”
This has been a big week for Adams. The day after James W’s funeral he was named as the chair of the national addiction and recovery charity The Forward Trust. His connection with the trust goes back to 1996, when he first visited its rehabilitation clinic in Wiltshire.
The trust’s work, particularly in prisons working with offenders, resonates with Adams, who was given a four-month sentence in 1990 for drink-driving. “I was in there because I was four times over the legal limit. I went straight across an A road, doing 80mph, out of control for the length of a football pitch, and rightly so, ended up in prison because of that.”
The reaction to his sentence did little to help. Family and friends refused to condemn Adams’ behaviour. “I got pats on the back,” says Adams. “I was Arsenal captain and my manager [George Graham] said: ‘Oh, they’re making an example of you. It’s 19 December. You’re the best advert out there for not drinking and driving this Christmas.’ It’s all bullshit, to be honest with you.”
After two months inside, fans and teammates celebrated Adams’ return to Arsenal, who would go on to clinch the title that season, backing up their championship victory in 1989.
“I was talented and I kept getting away with it,” Adams says. “My ego was going up and up and up and my self-esteem was coming down and down. After prison, I kept on drinking for six years. The insanity is not to go into the prison and drive over a wall and into someone’s front garden. The insanity is getting your licence back and then within days, drinking and driving again. I didn’t need prison; it didn’t touch the sides. I needed rehab. There was no 12-step programme in prison. There were no education programmes, no nothing. Chelmsford prison was a bucket in the corner.”
Adams stopped drinking just before the arrival at Arsenal of Arsène Wenger, for whom he remained a stalwart. Adams was so devoted to his new sobriety that he drank 27 cappuccinos at a Christmas party, matching his teammates’ pints, drink for drink.
Adams captained Arsenal to the Double in 1998, the abiding image of that season coming on the Premier League’s final day when Adams made a rare foray forward before smashing a left-foot shot into the corner to seal a win over Everton and the title. His iconic celebration has been immortalised in a statue outside the Emirates. In a stadium of noise and clamour, he is a picture of tranquillity. “I saw the serenity in James W, and wanted that,” the former defender says.
Adams signed off his playing career in 2002 with another league title and FA Cup before brief stints in management at Wycombe, Portsmouth, Granada and Gabala in Azerbaijan, where he nearly had a fatal heart issue. “My main artery was 99% blocked. I’m only here because the Ukrainian doctor there put a couple of stents in.” But battling addiction is Adams’ sole purpose now.
“I walk the walk today. I’m fully recovered but still go to regular meetings, and go to three, four prisons a year, passing the message on to the newcomer that help is out there.”
• For more information about The Forward Trust please visit https://www.forwardtrust.org.uk/.
• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
