Chris Kirkland: ‘I didn’t know who I was, couldn’t remember where home was’

Chris Kirkland does not hesitate in pinpointing the moment when he knew things had to change. It was in February this year when, struggling with a secret addiction to painkillers that had previously made him consider taking his own life, he found himself lost in Liverpool, the city where he once became English football’s most expensive goalkeeper. “I took them and,” he says, puffing his cheeks, “I thought I was going to die. I just didn’t know who I was. I couldn’t remember where home was. I only got home because I put ‘home’ into the sat-nav, and it was already preset, otherwise I don’t know where I would’ve ended up. I got home … then I was violently sick. I slept for about 18 hours. I woke up, got the tablets out of the car and flushed them straight down the toilet.”

It has been a difficult path to this point but Kirkland, at ease in his living room at home in Lancashire, feet resting on the pouffe, is no longer interested in hiding. He knew he was in trouble in 2013, a few months into a three-year contract at Sheffield Wednesday, when tablets took hold after his mental health nosedived and depression kicked in. Over an hour of raw conversation Kirkland tells tales of lies and deceit, how developing sneaky habits – hiding supplies in his car or sock drawer – helped conceal his addiction. “I’d ring the doctors: ‘I’ve lost them, I need some more,’” he says. “I’d get them off the internet, any way I could. There were times I was meant to be at places and I’d not be in the right frame of mind or taken too many tablets and I’d have to ring and say ‘I’ve had a puncture’ or other excuses and not turn up, which is terrible.”

Kirkland remembers hearing eye-opening stories from other addicts – alcohol, cocaine and gambling –