Mother begged Egan to quit booze

The mother of Olympic boxer Kenneth Egan got down on her knees in a cemetery and begged him to give up drink, he revealed yesterday.

In a brutally honest contribution to a workshop in Cork on addiction, Egan, who has been sober for two years, spoke openly about that being the moment he realised he had to seek help.

Flanked by his mother, Maura, whom he credits for his recovery, he said she took him to a cemetery in Dublin where she had buried two other sons.

“She got down on her knees next to the graves and started crying and told me I’d end up in a grave too if I didn’t stop drinking,” he said.

He praised her for standing by him on the road to recovery.

“She’s been great through the whole thing. She told me about the nights she’d wait up at home for the blue lights of a Garda car to pull up outside the house, and for a guard to tell her that her son had been found dead somewhere.

“That’s not good. That’s not healthy.”

He said he drank once more after the cemeteryincident before it clicked.

“My mother walked through the pub doors and said ‘Kenneth come home’,” he said.

“I haven’t had a drink in two years. I’m good now and I love being sober.

“I love being able to get up and have a proper meal, and not let people down.

“I let so many people down over those two years, but I’m making amends.”

Egan was speaking at an addiction forum in the Glen organised by the Cork-based Traveller Visibility Group’s (TVG) support project on drugs and alcohol about his recovery from addiction to booze, porn, and escort girls.

Egan hit rock bottom after captaining the Irish boxing squad and winning silver at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

“It was bad at rock bottom. I was too sick to drink and too sick not to drink. I didn’t care about anything other than alcohol.

“I loved the craic, the banter in pubs. But there is no fun in alcohol for me anymore. It’s not a bad thing for everyone. It just didn’t agree with me.

“I’m glad to be able to come here and share my story with people who are going through similar issues.

“If I can help one of them today, I’m happy.

“I’ve hit rock bottom but I’ve come out the other end. If I can pass on any message, it’s that there is help out there.”

He urged people struggling with addiction to talk about it and to seek help.

“There is plenty of it there. But you have to want to give it up,” he said.

Ann Jordan, a community drugs worker with TVG’s Traveller support project, said Egan and his mother put a public face on the fight against addiction.