‘Those years with Louth, football was a welcome distraction. I was using gambling to escape reality’

Former Louth man Jimmy Murray recounts depths of despair and how he won his life back

That was then: Jimmy Murray of Louth catches up with Dublin's Paul Casey during the 2008 Leinster football quarter final at Croke Park. Pic: INPHO/Caroline Quinn

The last time Louth faced Cork in the championship, Micheal Shields’ fists pierced into James Murray’s ribs as he received a ball under the stand in a riproaring qualifier encounter at Portlaoise, back in 2007. A lot has happened since.

Cork reached an All-Ireland final that season and then eventually went on to win the Sam Maguire three years later. Murray had finished playing with Louth by that stage, and 15 years later after facing up to his demons, he has eventually won his life back.

“I didn't want to live,” Jimmy as he is affectionately known, revealed when broaching the pressures of his gambling addiction that plagued him for well over a decade. “I wasn’t a nice fella when I was gambling. I was a prick, very manipulative. I wouldn’t have blinked an eye saying to my mother, 'if you don’t give me the money I’m gone'.

“Those years with Louth, football was a welcome distraction. Escapism from gambling. I was using gambling to escape from reality. I didn’t want to live in reality.” 

Jimmy said that the escapism very nearly became a reality as his mind spiralled into suicidal thoughts.

“You’d go to bed wishing you wouldn't wake up, or wishing somebody would give you a little pill that you could take to go to sleep and it would all go away."

Fear, and "a beautiful daughter and good people around me" stopped Murray.

“Looking back, I would have said to close friends of mine: 'If you could look inside me and see what was going on, a world of pain and frustration and the inability to stop something.' The likes of addiction and gambling and not being able to say no and longing to do that next bet.” 

Addiction took hold of Jimmy during his teens, and got considerably worse in the years to follow affecting every facet of his life.

“Gambling consumed me," he revealed. “I remember getting a bike on the back to work scheme, I can laugh about it now, but I’d say if I was asked to fill out a survey and fill in the number one sport that I hate? I’d say cycling. But I got a bike through the scheme anyway, a fancy bike and I sold it a month later, for half its value. I drove to Omagh and sold it and I think before I got back into the Republic, I had no money.” 

This month will mark the two-year anniversary since Jimmy made his last bet, an extensive counselling stay in rehabilitation centre followed and a tight support network allows him to live in the moment and take a look back at the past.

“That game was a lifetime ago,” Jimmy exhales when reminiscing about that day in Laois.

“I was actually talking to Shane Lennon and Colm Judge during the week about the game. And my initial reaction to it, thinking back is what a panel of players we had. The likes of Mark Stanfield, Martin Farrelly, Paddy Keenan, and Aaron Hoey.

“We went down there with the jubilation of beating Kildare in the round before and then going down to the last 12 with a strong chance of beating Cork. We only lost out by two points and Cork went on to greater things.

"I was in Templemore at the time, and I remember after the game I swapped jerseys with Anthony Lynch because there was a fella living next door to me called Donie Collins, and he was hardcore Cork, a Cork man to the bitter end, and I gave him the jersey the next day."

Not one for sentiment, bar bruised ribs, Jimmy is putting it back in with his county, coaching players who were born in 2007, this year's under 15 crop, who played Cork recently.

Off the field, he says not a day goes by where someone isn’t calling him about seeking help about their own or a family member's gambling issues. Jimmy welcomes those calls, and through helping people they act as reminders for himself to take it day by day.

“I still have some personal battles ahead that will shape my future. I have lost relationships through gambling. All the stuff that I have to face is a lot easier when I’m not gambling.

“I am far from the finished article. I need to learn to sit with myself. There is a fear that if I ever went back I wouldn’t stop, and that keeps me grounded.

“The relationship with my daughter is better, I see her three days a week. When she was 2 or 3, I wasn’t present. I was there, but I wasn’t there mentally. It’s great to be there mentally now. 

“It’s a simpler life now, not perfect, but simpler.”

You can listen to Jimmy Murray's interview with Dan Bannon on the LouthandProud podcast: https://www.patreon.com/posts/67000459