I think a short blog is in order today, after yesterday’s talk on alcohol. Since my appointment yesterday and on the recommendation of my doctor, I have to find things to do that will keep me busy, make me feel good or get out of the house. I have cut down on the PlayStation, with only 30mins last night and none today. I was spending my days on it prior to this and it cannot have been good for me. So I am back to doing something I love and makes me feel good about myself, reading. I have just one chapter to go on the ‘Kenny Egan Story’ and I must say that I really enjoyed it and despite what opinions some people may have of him, he endured a difficult time post Olympics, especially with alcohol. Which is a fitting book to be reading after what I talked about yesterday. And though our stories are of a very different nature, I can relate to his book and to him. I have great admiration for him, firstly for all the hard work and dedication he put into achieving his goal of appearing at the Olympic Games and winning a silver medal and secondly for the different battle he fought after all the fame, his battle against alcoholism, a battle he won and still remains to beat as I write. Yes, reading is a main hobby of mine so that is one of the things I will be doing to give my life a sense of purpose. My doctor said I should really try and get back to work, even if it is only for a morning or two a week. This in turn, he says, will help with my other problem of not sleeping at night. It will tire me out and also give me a great sense of achievement. Exercise is another thing I must try and do, even if it is just a short walk during the day with Kiwi to get some fresh air in. I can take all the tablets in the world but if I do not want or try to get better, it will most likely never happen. So it is time I push myself out of the house even if I feel I really can’t. This is probably one of the hardest thing for someone with depression to do. This along with no alcohol and the medication, should hopefully see me start to improve in time. Say a prayer to your angels for me. I know I have been.

A Small review on the book: with thanks to independent.ie

Some people who become famous overnight take the change of fortune in their stride. It’s almost as if they were tailor-made for celebrity, perfectly equipped to cope with its rewards and demands.

But Egan was not ready for the media glare, the financial opportunities his new-found brand offered or the hero status he was suddenly afforded. Instead, Kenny Egan went off the rails.

Those of sensitive, conservative disposition would surely balk at Egan’s frank discussion of pornography, prostitutes and one-night-stands. And then there’s the utterly callous manner in which he treated his family and a long-term girlfriend.

The Kenny Egan that emerges is both a vainglorious, misogynistic lout who did his best to drink away his talent and a sympathetic figure brought up in boxing’s brutal world who was unequipped for life post-Olympics. The book documents his stuttering rise through the ranks of the sport that shaped him, taking the reader inside the ring for those lonely moments where there truly is no hiding place.
where there truly is no hiding place.
Boxing aficionados will appreciate this insight and the accounts of harsh training regimes in grim settings such as provincial Russia. But it’s Egan’s battles off the canvas that captivate most and elevate the story of a man whose career has largely stalled since Beijing. And looming large is his very own annus horribilis — 2009 — the year he almost lost everything.

My Story begins in March of that year when Egan and a friend went on a bender in Dublin that culminated in alcohol marathon on the other side of the Atlantic.

That he was supposed to fight in an international contest that weekend didn’t register with him — he simply disappeared, much to the distress of his mother Maura and to the intrigue of a media he had quickly come to despise.

His “lost weekend” was rife with farce. Leaving his Olympic medal behind the bar of a city-centre Dublin pub for safe keeping, he walked into his bank and withdrew €5,000, then high-tailed it to the airport with no luggage and no destination in mind.

Fast forward some hours and Egan and his friend found themselves coatless in freezing, snowy Manhattan, but with their back pockets stuffed with notes.

It was one of several escapades the boxer enjoyed/ endured that year. One day, he had been supposed to take his father to the hospital, but shirked this responsibility in favour of a trip to Malaga. Once again, Kenny just disappeared. He barely stopped drinking as soon as he hit Spain pausing only to have sex with a 40-something Liverpool woman he had met in the bar.

Egan’s description of the encounter is laced with nastiness. “She wasn’t great. I was exhausted and I genuinely didn’t want anything from her, but I got bored and ended up giving her a lash anyway.”

It mirrors his descriptions of other sexual encounters including the one, several years earlier, when he had intercourse with a Filipino prostitute: “She had a head like 100 miles of bad road. I’d paid up though so I went ahead and did the dirty deed anyway.”

Not surprisingly, his long-suffering partner Karen walked away. Egan now realises how shoddily he treated her.

Sober for 14 months and a regular attendee at AA meetings, Egan says he is trying to put his life back together again. He attributes his rehabilitation to his parents, figures in the boxing world and his current girlfriend, Sharon. There’s clarity now, where there was none before.

“Sometimes I wish Beijing never happened,” he writes, “because it seems cheap to sell yourself for just a single piece of silver.”