Davy Glennon travelling with hope again

The launch of the GAA’s new gambling awareness campaign, ‘Reduce the Odds’, is the latest move by the Association to protect the wellbeing of its members and the integrity of its games.

The campaign reinforces the recent ground-breaking decision by GAA Congress 2018 to prohibit the sponsorship by a betting firm of any GAA competition, team, playing gear, or facility. It aims to inform all members of the Association’s rules relating to gambling. It also highlights that research has identified athletes as an at-risk group when it comes to problem gambling, and lists warning signs and identifies how to access help or assist someone in doing so.

Elements of the campaign include the distribution of awareness posters to every club in Ireland. Also being issued is an awareness presentation designed to be delivered to a squad by a coach or Healthy Club Officer.

By Cian O'Connell

Davy Glennon’s journey continues. Tough times have been endured, Glennon doesn’t want to portray himself as a hero for trying to deal with a gambling addiction. All he craves is for people to know that there can be hope, damage can be repaired; that brighter days may await.

Glennon recently sat down with GAA.ie for an extensive interview discussing gambling awareness and how families and friends can try to assist those in need.

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Q: Three years on from a very tough 2015 how is life at the moment?

DG: In general things are very good, I suppose life for the past three years has been a little bit easier than my previous eight years of my addiction which was gambling. I got into such a hole through years of gambling, that I felt I wasn't able to get out. I felt I couldn't tell anybody, the hole got bigger and bigger. Financially I was broke, mentally and physically I was deteriorating.

It became a time where you could go one way it is suicidal thoughts, you go the other way you cry out for or ask for help. There isn't that many people who go the road asking for help. You get massive tragedies in families over addiction, whatever it is. It wasn't me alone in the addiction, obviously there were a lot of people I affected.

Q: Is that one of the hardest things, you might feel you don't want to burden people? Is that something you felt at the time?

DG: You are so selfish, you are such a compulsive liar, you have no conscience that you don't really care about anyone else only yourself. All you want is money and the cash flow wherever you can get it from - beg, borrow or steal to fund your addiction. You don't care about anybody else, you don't care about your own life, you don't care about school or education.

The only thing I did care about was the little bit of talent that I had which was hurling and sport. That was carrying me a long way until the cracks started opening. Bigger and bigger they got because gambling was taking over from my life and taking over my talent. It was a matter of time before it took my life basically.

Q: In a strange way was hurling a help and a hindrance by postponing dealing with everything?

DG: Exactly, it was covering over the cracks. One incident I can think of which was obviously closer and harder to deal with was being on and off the Galway team. In 2015 that was the case. There are so many stories I could tell.

We played against Laois in a Leinster Semi-Final and it was between myself and I think, Niall Healy, to actually start that game. We were both up for the corner forward position. I remember not starting that game, but coming into the game as a substitute and getting 1-2. I was at the height of my gambling at that stage, I was really under serious pressure financially and physically broke. The adrenalin of being inside them white lines hurling for your county, living the two lives.

Living the life everyone else wanted to see, I got 1-2, played great, it kept me sane. It kept the adrenalin rush up, it kept my life ticking over. There was one day when that wasn't going to be. Obviously I got named at corner forward in the Leinster Final against Kilkenny. After 24 minutes I was taken off. That day was probably the day where I felt my life was gone. I remember to this day and I still have photo of me out in Croke Park on my knees looking up at Kilkenny receiving the Cup. It wasn't basically a photo of that guy being disappointed or being disappointed getting taken off.

It was the whole environment outside in my personal, what I had done, what I was doing. Nobody knew the extent. My family obviously had an idea because I was doing a little bit of counselling for my addiction, but they didn't realise the amount of trouble and the amount of destruction I had caused and I was causing until a few days later. It was serious. My life was going one way or another and thankfully I'm the lucky one that I went to ask for help and that I felt there was light at the end of the tunnel somewhere. You needed a little bit of hope, I suppose, and this is where I'd like to give back by talking about it. In life everyone needs hope in whatever career you want to take. Whether it is in business or sport you need a bit of hope, you need someone to look up to. Someone like Oisin McConville, who I could relate to.

He was a GAA player, he was a footballer, I was a hurler, but we had similarities in terms of he was gambling, he got himself into serious difficulty. It didn't matter the amount of money or what he had done, but I could relate to him. When I was able to relate to him I found someone that I could relate to. I had met him once or twice. My parents brought me up to the Spa Hotel.

They bundled me into the back of a car and drove me to meet him a bit before that, two years before to try to talk a bit of sense into me. I was only telling him what he wanted to hear. One thing I remember him saying to me was if you are not going to accept the pure addiction and how bad it is, he can't and nobody else can't help.

Until the day I put my hand up to say I either have a serious problem and I want to do something for myself and not to make anybody else happy is the only day I can make progress in life. It is like anything, anybody who comes to me, I'm not a saviour, I'm not a hero, I can't give you the treatment or the exact ways to go about it. I know myself through talking to people a problem shared is a problem halved. Obviously there is help out there if you are willing to want to help yourself.

Q: You talked about hope, and you did a really good piece and revealing interview with John Fogarty in the Irish Examiner when you spoke about other Galway players coming in to you in Cuan Mhuire before the All Ireland in 2015 that it kept you going. If you feel that a few people still believe in you, is that crucial?

DG: Absolutely, it is. When you are with the GAA it is such a community, you have such a broad circle of friends. It isn't just in your club, it is in the county, outside the county you meet different people. Going into treatment the shame and the guilt, whatever is going through your head. It is awfully negative.

The one positive I always had was that if I was willing to do something to get back on track and willing to do something for myself and for my life, I suppose, one thing was they were going to support me and basically by them coming into Cuan Mhuire while I was in treatment and saying we have respect for him and that everyone makes mistakes, but everyone deserves a chance.

Them coming in and knowing I had so much support from them, while they were on a successful campaign after coming back to beat Cork in an All Ireland Quarter-Final. When I came in I actually wrote a letter to them and my mother handed it over to Anthony Cunningham at the time to read it out to the players while they were on a training camp. It was just to say my disappointment at having to leave the panel and exactly the extent of my problems.

With their support I was willing to one day get back to wear a jersey with Galway and I wished them luck to win an All Ireland Final that year. I was only going to be holding them back, if anything. It is a team sport and if I was caught up with my addiction and the handbrake was on I wasn't going to be any good to the team. I felt I needed to do it for myself first of all. The campaign they had winning an All Ireland Semi-Final, going into an All Ireland Final, the first weekend in September.

The day before the All Ireland Final 10 of the players came in to support me, to see how I was knowing that I was obviously finding it hard looking at them getting into an All Ireland Final, having the world at their oyster. That gave me a little lift and it gave me that hope as well to say if you are willing to do the work it will be paid back in time. If you want to do it for yourself and not anyone else.

Q: In the tough times for you personally would they, and you shared a house with Joe Canning, have seen signs that things weren't going well for you away from the hurling field.

DG: They did. They saw the way my moods would change, if you are around someone for long enough you'll know the way they will react. He knew that obviously I was gambling and he knew that if I didn't answer my phone or if I was gone away, or people know if a lad is lying.

People are for your own good, they are not trying to annoy you or anything. When I was gambling I was isolating everybody, I thought they were all against me and that these people were only annoying stopping me from what I wanted to do.

Obviously you'd have a falling out, you'd ignore them or you wouldn't answer them. Relationships were affected. If I wasn't willing to talk about it or wasn't willing to tell them the actual truth and the circumstances they didn't know how bad I was. I suppose there wasn't much of an experience. They probably never had dealt with something like my situation before.

Q: That is very hard for people to adapt?

DG: Yeah, what do you do? You don't want to step on anybody's toes or upset anybody. Did I want them to help me? No I didn't. I kept myself from them to an extent, I remember the day Annie Power did fall where I had an amount of money where I was standing to win 58 or 60,000 I came in the door after coming into the house.

I didn't even go into the sitting room to them, I went straight up the stairs into bed. My head was gone, it was fried, I cried. I remember Joe coming into the room asking what is wrong, am I in trouble after today basically with Annie Power falling. I denied it and that was the truth, but I didn't want to hear that or to accept that. It obviously comes with the addiction and being in denial with everything.

Q: Were guys generally sound when you were going through this tough stint?

DG: Everybody has learned a lesson, they have seen the way I went on. Everyone is there to help, but how to help is the thing. It was me more than them and I was keeping myself away from people like that. So it was literally a case of I could go into a bookies for eight hours in a day, my diet was gone out the window.

Q: Would you travel far from home?

DG: Yeah, I would go to Ennis, Dublin, I could go to Athlone. I could go down to Clare, Limerick, you name it, I went. Ballina, Swinford. Just to get out. People see you handing cash over the counter, they would be watching you and obviously you'd be known through the hurling circles as well.

People were going to be talking so I tried to get away so people couldn't be talking. Near the finish when I was in the depths of my gambling I tried to get away as much as I could so people wouldn't see me. I was hiding from it all.

Q: Oisin McConville said to you until you were willing to get help and that could be a different path for different people. Some people can't accept help. How would you advise people to help those in bother? What did it take for that day to come? Does it have to be a day like the Leinster Final when a bad day for you in sport makes everything cave in?

DG: Something has to snap or something has to break. It isn't just a day where you think to yourself I need to get help. Something has to happen where you get caught out at work with money for stealing money. Relationships break down. You could get thrown out of a house, divorce, banks close in.

Whatever circumstances a person is in I think it takes a breaking point in someone's life. It doesn't have to be financial, it can be relationships. It has to come to something where you feel you are at rock bottom. Basically the job was one part of it, hurling was a second part of it, but mostly it was the job where I was gambling money.

Financially I was trying to get loans from the Credit Union to cover up my tracks at work. Everything crumbled in. The adrenalin of the hurling kept me going, but when the hurling collapsed I gave in to everything at work. Finally on a Wednesday or a Thursday morning I broke down mentally. I said this is what I have done and I owe money, I was handing in cash to the office that I wasn't able to come up with. I had lost it.

The extent of what I had gambled on the company over the course of a few years that obviously came out in the next few weeks that I was in treatment. I was able to sit down myself to go this is what I have done, this is the destruction I have left. That is the point where you need to say to yourself I need to go for help fast.

Q: Was going to Cuan Mhuire a beneficial stint just getting routine back into your life?

DG: Exactly, Cuan Mhuire when I went in I had pictures. Everyone has pictures of different things in life and I suppose the treatment centre in Cuan Mhuire, and first of all I wouldn't have known it was a treatment centre there, only for my father said when I first started gambling he said to me you will end up where Oisin McConville was. I would say I'm not that bad, but in actual fact I was worse. The day came where I had to pass them gates to go into Cuan Mhuire.

The first thing you'd think that you'd be going around in bathrobes and slippers, but in Cuan Mhuire it is a place where you are isolated from everyone and the people in there are the exact same as you. A normal person with a problem. Everyone in there is willing to accept they have a problem and willing to help themselves. Some people are worse than others.

Some people drink, some people gamble. When I walked in them doors I felt a sense of relief. Eight years of literally chaos and destruction had been left at the doors.

Q: You were suddenly on a road again?

DG: Yeah, straight away when I went in there I met a counsellor and a nurse. I had to detox, to sit down in a room for two weeks with people to break down everything that I had done.

The destruction I had caused had to be put out on the table, to be written out to show the truth of what I was doing. My problems were left at the door, but they were left at the door for a reason. When them few months were up them problems weren't gone away. When I left there they were coming with me.

Q: By then, though, you maybe felt you were able to tackle them?

DG: When I went out the door I was physically and mentally able to deal with the problems. They weren't gone, the financial worries weren't gone, not camouflaged. You were able to go out to stand in front of someone and admit you owed money and say you've done this and that and that you are willing to put my hand up to say I made a mistake and I want to make amends.

That is recovery. That means recovery is making amends, it is going somewhere to show someone the respect of paying back their money, the day of saying sorry is over. It is showing that you're sorry. How do you show you're sorry by doing the right things and building trust back in people.

To be able to do that I needed to be well myself. Through the three months in Cuan Mhuire it was a massive learning curve for me. Bascially it teaches you how to live. You'd see after car crashes people have to learn how to walk, but in Cuan Mhuire it is a place where you learn how to live.

You learn how to get up in the morning at a respectable time, being able to wash your teeth, being able to eat a breakfast, which I never did. Being able to meditate, being able to look yourself in the mirror to say I'm living a normal life doing a day to day living where you go out on the farm, they grow their own vegetable. Go to the bog, go to mass, just do normal things in normal day to day living, and be able to sit down with people, who you can relate to about your problems.

Share your stories. Obviously there is stress and anger inside you that you have to get out. Being able to communicate with someone the same as you and relate with makes it easier to speak, to help to understand someone. When I did speak to John Fogarty it was on a Croker to Cuan Mhuire walk that we did. A group was set up in our club. Mentally they were after retiring, they wanted to get out to do a bit of exercise.

Q: Mullagh has a good reputation for doing work in the community with walks and other initiatives?

DG: Yeah, they do walks. These people were training, but then they wanted a goal, they wanted something to achieve. They said to me you were playing in Croke Park on a Sunday and that you signed yourself into a treatment centre on a Thursday.

That was four days so they said they would like to walk from Croke Park to Cuan Mhuire in four days, to raise funds for a well needed cause, to give back someone. Everyone knows someone with an addiction or someone with a problem. People could relate to it in a sense.

I felt it was the right time to be able to share my story. You have to take the good with the bad. Social media can be so good to get good stuff out there, but obviously it can be bad when there is bad stories.

Q: Is that hard, though, Davy?

DG: 95% of social media is great, but you have that other 5%. I'm strong enough to be able to blank myself from the negativity to be able to stick with the positive. Any negativity I have I try to change it into a positive to drive me even further in my life.

By coming out with this it had to be the right time for me and it helped me burst that bubble inside me. People were able to talk to me, they felt comfortable and secondly if my story helped one person or people I would love that. Thanks for sharing your story, I can relate to it or my brother or a family member can relate to it. The amount of calls, Facebook, Instragram or Twitter messages I got with different stories. Horrifying stories. I wasn't going to be able to cure them, but I was able to give back some of my experiences.

Q: Just to give a pointer?

DG: Exactly, just to give them what you could do, it may help someone or they may be able to relate to. At the end of it all they mightn't have got exactly what they wanted out of it, but if they were thinking there was hope from my story where I could relate to Oisin McConville.

He gave me that hope, that light that was way down that tunnel, but I could see it to keep me going. If I could give someone that bit of light that they needed I felt it would be well worth coming out to sharing my story. Obviously by sharing your story you are putting yourself out there in the public domain. It does come hard and you are giving your whole private life to people, I felt I was willing to be able to do that. To do that you have to be able to take the good with the bad.

Q: How did your family relationship suffer. Were they very supportive through it all?

DG: Absolutely, my mother and father, and I have a younger brother, who is hurling as well. At times it is very hard and to this day I feel a little bit of guilt. What I have done is my problem, it has affected me, but I am strong enough now to be able to take that.

When comments are maybe fired at family or friends about me it is tough. My younger brother does get it a bit and it is tough knowing I have caused that hurt to him. The only way I can make amends to him is to support him the best way I can, to be there for him. A word of advice to do with sport and to be his best friend for what I have done, that is the only thing I can do to try to make amends in the best way possible.

Q: Mullagh, doing the walk, captured what a good club it is?

DG: A real community. Basically it all worked around having a very strong community that are able to gather around each other, to support each other. The walk was massive. The amount of money it raised, 75,000euro. To do that walk was tough, to give up time with your family and friends, the kids you have. It wasn't easy to walk for four days, to sleep at night in camps.

GAA clubs down the canal, down through the counties gave their support and dressing rooms for the lads to sleep in. So it wasn't just Mullagh, it was a whole team of Ireland to support this cause. They knew it was for a great cause. Everyone can know someone in a project and there is nobody perfect out there.

The response was massive. Coming back into Mullagh that day we were training, but from what I have seen and heard it was absolutely massive. You had people crying with joy, it wasn't sadness. People did something good, it was a tear of joy.

Q: With the changes that were passed at GAA Congress the Association has been proactive dealing with gambling issues. Health and Wellbeing are hot topics in the media, but the GAA does seem to be willing to help people, is that something you have noticed?

DG: Absolutely the GAA were the first to take action to say there is a serious problem in Ireland with mental health. With GAA players themselves with addiction - gambling, alcohol, and drugs. One of them gambling is something that has grown in the last number of years and since the Celtic Tiger.

The online stuff is massive, it is so hidden and easy to do. A GAA player can't drink or take drugs because it is going to affect performance, but the gambling online and in bookies it is easier to do than the other two addictions.

I suppose it is growing so they took the opportunity to do something about it by stopping the advertising of betting companies on teams and facilities. That is one great step and it is showing support to the players.

Where I have came on board is with the Gambling Awareness campaign the GAA are rolling out all over Ireland to clubs and counties. Just to basically to prevent and show people where you have to be aware of how it can affect somebody.

One thing they wanted was someone that had experience in that side of things and who has experienced the addition itself and the hope you can maybe getting into trouble. There is hope to get out of it, maybe not to be totally cleared, but enough to work your way out of it, to be able to deal with the problem in a good way. It has stopped lives being lost from gambling and the mental health issue that is out there.

Q: Will you be asked to give talks or how will it work?

DG: Now since the GAA have jumped on it and done something about it the Government has passed a legislation a new Gambling Control Bill to create awareness. They have really put their foot down. With the GAA in terms of meetings and being there able to talk to someone and being an ambassador if there is someone in trouble, to give them some light at the end of the tunnel.

To be able to give them a little guidance to say I think you may go this way because it could help you. Just to be there for someone who needs help a bit of a chat.

Q: Some former GAA players have gone down the counselling route, is that something that might interest you eventually?

DG: In time. My addiction is helping people and the adrenalin rush is helping people. Obviously my phone does be hopping with sisters and mothers ringing, brothers asking is there anything I could do to help or recommend.

I can try to share my experience and if it helps, it helps. I wish I could help everybody, but you have to realise you aren't going to be able to help everybody. If you can give them a pointer on the way it is a good day of work done. That is basically the type of stuff I'd like to get into in time. When I'm hurling myself I'm busy and I'm trying to control my own personal life first before I can deal with someone elses problems. So at the minute I'm just trying to keep a balance.

Q: Did you did a Personal Training course?

DG: I wanted to get into the environment of fitness, not just physically, but mentally it is good for the mind as well. It gets you out there feeling fit and better. I qualified as a fitness instructor and I have part time work in a gym, 37 Degrees in Loughrea. It is great. I'm able to get up in the mornings early, I'm able to get out and actually have positive chats with people in the gym. People in the gym after a few months they have lost weight, it feels good that you have helped someone in that environment.