"I definitely abused them" - Tearful Dele Alli opens up on sleeping pill addiction and nearly retiring from football at 24
Dele Alli has revealed that he was addicted to sleeping pills during his loan spell at Besiktas. The midfielder claimed that he checked himself into rehab for six weeks after he started taking pills in the morning on off days.
Speaking to Gary Neville on The Overlap, Dele opened up about his issues off the pitch and admitted that he was going through a tough time.
Opening up about his addiction and his rehab, a tearful Dele Alli said:
"I got addicted to sleeping tablets, it's a problem not only I have. It's going around more than people realise in football. Hopefully me coming out and speaking about it can help people because don't get me wrong, they work, I think. With our schedule, you have a game, you have to be up early in the morning to train, you've got all the adrenaline and stuff so sometimes, you know, to take a sleeping tablet and be ready for the next day is fine, but when you're broken as I am, it can obviously have the reverse effect because it does work for the problems you want to deal with."
He added:
"That is the problem – it works until it doesn't. So yeah, I definitely abused them too much, and don't get me wrong, I'd stop sometimes and go a few months without them, but I was never really dealing with the problem you know. It got really bad at some points and I didn't understand how bad it was, but I was never dealing with the route of the problem, which was when I was growing up and the traumas I had, the feelings I was holding onto and I tried to deal with it all by myself. I didn't want to tell anyone."
Dele Alli went on to admit that he was not self-aware of how bad things had got in terms of his addiction and needed rehab to recover. The midfielder also added that he considered retirement at the age of 24.
Dele Alli had a tough loan spell at Besiktas
Dele Alli was not getting game time at Everton and thus decided to move to Besiktas on loan. However, things did not go his way and he ended up playing just 13 matches.
He also cut short the loan spell and returned to England in April after getting dropped from the squad. He had not played since the end of February and had issues with the manager, Senol Gunes.
The Besiktas manager claimed that they had given permission to the midfielder to take a break. However, he claims that Dele Alli did not return on time.