Galway hurler is back from brink of gambling addiction

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

IT is less than a year since the walls of Davy Glennon’s world came crashing down around him, although listening to the Galway senior hurler you could argue that by the time the self-confessed gambling addict admitted himself into Cuan Mhuire in July of last year he was already buried underneath the rubble.

Yet, the Mullagh native has tunnelled – clawed – his way out and now in the clear light of day, he is ashamed of the way he has lived his life over the past six or seven years and contrite about the hurt he has caused so many people.

“I was living a life of fantasy and I was deluded,” he says. “I had no conscience. I was a compulsive liar and a compulsive gambler and I was in denial. It brought out the worst in me. I was a totally different person. I didn’t want to know anyone. Everyone was against me, I thought. That’s what it brings out in you.”

He pauses for a second. “I get emotional sometimes when I think about it. To see what I was doing. As I said, I had no conscience; I was just selfish. I didn’t care about anyone. And I didn’t care about myself.”

It all started to go wrong for Glennon in his mid to late teens, just as, coincidentally, he was beginning to make a name for himself with the Galway minors. He always had an interest in the horses but when gambling was added to the mix his perspective and place in life was altered. Drinkers binge. Drug addicts pop pills. And gamblers?

“I was chasing and chasing and chasing. You would win some days but would lose more often so you would keep chasing and when that addictive personality that you have kicks in, there is no stopping you,” says the Galway sharpshooter.

As the losses outstripped the wins, it affected him so badly that he began to think the whole universe was against him and he would yearn to be alone. To gamble. Always gamble. “You were going off on your own and doing your own things and separating yourself from your friends and family. And deeper and deeper you got into it.”

Just as scoring the winning goal in an All-Ireland final – as he did in Galway’s U-21 victory over Dublin in 2011 – the adrenalin that coursed through his veins when hard cash was being exchanged at the bookies was equally as intoxicating.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.