Sir Bradley Wiggins has detailed the addiction to cocaine that he battled in the years since retiring from professional cycling — admitting that he “had a really bad problem” and it got to the point where his kids were “going to put me in rehab”.
The former Tour de France winner and five-time Olympic champion was speaking to The Observer ahead of the release of his latest autobiography ‘The Chain’, which is expected to be published later this year. Wiggins explained how there were times his son Ben, who is now pursuing his own career in cycling with UCI Continental outfit Hagens Berman Jayco, thought he was going to find his father dead in the morning.
“I was a functioning addict,” Wiggins explained. “People wouldn’t realise. I was high most of the time for many years. I was doing shitloads of cocaine. I had a really bad problem. My kids were going to put me in rehab. I was walking a tightrope.
“I realised I had a huge problem. I had to stop. I’m lucky to be here. I was a victim of all my own choices, for many years. I already had a lot of self-hatred, but I was amplifying it. It was a form of self-harm and self-sabotage. It was not the person I wanted to be. I realised I was hurting a lot of people around me.”
Thankfully, Wiggins says he was able to quit cocaine a year ago and managed to beat his addiction without external assistance. He did however also detail the importance that Lance Armstrong has played in his post-cycling journey, explaining how Armstrong, himself and Jan Ullrich, the winner of the 1997 Tour who has battled his own addiction post-retirement, have bonded in something of a support group.
Armstrong was “worried about” Wiggins “for a long time”, having “been through a similar thing with Jan”.
“They’d try and get hold of me, but couldn’t find where I was,” Wiggins continued. “My son speaks to Lance a lot. He’d ask my son, ‘How’s your Dad?’ Ben would say, ‘I’ve not heard from him for a couple of weeks, I know he’s living in a hotel.’
“They wouldn’t hear from me for days on end. I can talk about these things candidly now. There was an element of me living a lie, in not talking about it. There’s no middle ground for me. I can’t just have a glass of wine. If I have a glass of wine, then I’m buying drugs. My proclivity to addiction was easing the pain that I lived with.”
The British cycling great’s post-retirement struggles have been well-documented, recent documents suggesting that his unpaid debts have doubled to almost £2m. However, in March the 2012 Tour de France winner suggested his financial situation is “all resolved now” and it “has all turned around” in the last eight months.”
Wiggins alleged he had been “ripped off left, right and centre by the people looking after me” during his career but is now “on the front foot”.
He added: “The people who are responsible are paying a heavy price for it. Fortunately, it’s all good. My life’s in a good place. I regret I never paid attention to my financial affairs when I was racing. It’s one of the things that happens to athletes – you make a lot of money and, if you haven’t got your eyes on it, people take advantage. I was getting ripped off left, right and centre by the people looking after me. Accountants as well.”
Last June it was revealed that Wiggins faced having all his assets, including the numerous trophies and medals he won over the course of his 15-year career, seized after being declared bankrupt.
Another part of his life that is reportedly explored in the upcoming autobiography is the sexual abuse Wiggins suffered from a coach who abused him and other young riders at the Archer Road Club during their childhood racing days.
18 thoughts on ““I was doing shitloads of cocaine”: Bradley Wiggins says he became a “functioning addict” during post-retirement struggles”
There’s a very old article by
There’s a very old article by George Mombiot where he considers the morality/hypocracy of taking cocaine. Every year there are tens of thousands of deaths, in addition to suffering, in Columbia as a result of the trade in this drug. Many of those suffering are not involved in this trade. What Bradley did to himself is one thing but he should also face up to the damage he did to others.
I completely agree with this
I completely agree with this point – however it does open up the whole debate on prohibition. The rise of ‘the mob’ in the US was vastly assisted by the banning of alcohol in many states. The ‘war on drugs’ has never been won – and never will be. What it does is create cartels, corruption, death and a shady mix of (mostly) US foreign policy with the so called ‘war on drugs’. Cigarettes are probably the single biggest killer on the planet. But with a steady and intelligent policy of control (price rise, smoking bans in buildings etc) what was once a ubiquitous habit is more controlled. It is a dilemma – but one thing is certain, if you want cocaine you can go and buy it. Wouldn’t it be better if the supply was not controlled by criminal gangs?
I think the argument is that
I think the argument is that legalising it in the UK, for example, would probably be better for the UK but might not be better for countries that still prohibit it. If rich western countries continued to legalise it then the criminal gangs will just target poorer countries to possibly more devastating effect.
Legalising it just means more
Legalising it just means more violence, more crime (dealers still deal – stronger stuff for less – fighting increases over a declining market) and for anyone on two wheels a massive uptick in the level of risk care of drug drivers.
evidence: many American cities that have focussed on harm reduction from drugs instead of prohibition and turned into urban wastelands within just a few years (san Francisco, Portland, others).
open_roads wrote:
I’m not sure about drugs, but I’m not sure the biggest ban / legalise experiment to date (prohibition in the US) saw that happen? (Of course … “it’s complicated” and it probably depends on the path taken to get there in the first place).
Not been to the US for a couple of decades but … is this actually true? Or is this in the “Birmingham is a no-go zone” category of generalisation (EDIT: that one was even more “fact free” than I remembered…)?
I googled this – in San Fran what used to be the more “hippy” districts are now pretty unsavoury – and more like “Skid Row” in Los Angeles (but … that’s not new at all). Portland though? There was a thing which developed from protests a couple of years back but it seems that’s past.
In recent years lots of US cities have seen issues. Reasons seem complex: lots seem to revolve around “vulnerably housed” or “homeless” populations – which speaks to more to economics, than any progressive social policy… The opioid crisis likely contributes. But that wasn’t due to “harm reduction” but just corporate greed, a lack of regulation and perhaps the “fewer safety nets” approach of the US.
Applying an overly simplistic “let’s just stop any enforcement tomorrow and done” would see at least some problems. But I think harm minimization is usually a good idea, given that AFAICS in practice it seems to run a distant second priority to “discourage them with the big stick” policing measures.
(Except … when it comes to driving? But the way around that “gotcha” is “sustainable safety / safe system” approaches – it should be easy and safe for all different modes to be used appropriately).
I don’t know if San Fransisco
I don’t know if San Fransisco and Portland could exactly be described as wastelands. I believe the housing market in SF has very high costs and demand, popular for a mad max world. Those tech firms must like the dystopian nightmare, well some do, but rarely for headquarters…
Well, internet says San
The Portland reference I don’t really get. But again haven’t been to the west coast in a couple of decades…
Internet says San Francisco has some areas which have some pretty in-your-face homelessness, open drug dealing and use, street prostitution, gang violence etc.
(Looks almost as bad as parts of Stoke-on-Trent *).
Seems – again like Skid Row – it is historically slightly seedy or at least louch neighbourhoods (some of which may have recently gentrified a bit) which have seriously tanked.
US opinion seems to be that the extent of this is genuinely a new thing. And people seem to split: either people aren’t getting enough help / aren’t getting the right kind – or they’re getting too much and in general the authorities / society are being too lenient with wrongdoers and facilitating addicts.
* Apologies Stokies, I just googled for spice and monkey dust and some articles about Stoke popped to the top of the search. Plenty other places have some areas where some folks are ravaged by some or other drug.
Ahh, the Trumptard made up BS
Ahh, the Trumptard made up BS merchant continues his gibberish 🤡💩😂
The Portuguese policy of
The Portuguese policy of decriminalising personal possession of drugs and spending the money previously spent on prohibition and enforcement on treatment and rehabilitation certainly seems to be one worth considering.
Not least the terrible toll
Not least the terrible toll taken on kids by the drugs trade supply chains. Even in the Uk the estimate of children forced into county lines drug gangs is in the thousands.
A good start would be for all class A drug finds / usage to result in a criminal conviction.
It would immediately stop the regulated profession middle classes (lawyers, doctors, accountants etc) from doing it as they would not just lose their jobs but their whole careers.
It would send a very strong signal to wider society.
open_roads wrote:
Hmm… well, it would have changed the political make-up of the ministers of yore!
And we’d be down a few judges, barristers, and maybe police. And it presumably won’t get a good write-up as word is journalists aren’t immune from this. And apparently they would have a lot fewer places available to discuss that over a good lunch or after work as I believe the entertainment and hospitality trades include users of this.
We’d be much better without of course . The last analysis I saw it was rated worse than alcohol overall (but similar in terms of “social harm“). But the criminal route seems only to be a partial brake on this.
Perhaps we could just grow and refine the stuff over here? I don’t know if purity is a particular factor in harm here. But if it was sufficiently cheap it might lose some of its attraction to the elites and not be profitable for the criminals (no doubt they’d just switch to some other ways of making cash though).
chrisonabike wrote:
As far as I know the coca plant only flourishes in high-altitude jungle environments; it could be grown over here in greenhouses but presumably that would be prohibitively expensive.
Hmm… this all started from
Hmm… this all started from a story about a former pro cyclist’s habit – thinking about this it’s probably a bad idea to have both the coca plants and a potential high altititude training facility in one place.
I do know that there is evidence that harm minimization strategies for some particular types of addicts (e.g. this highly counterintuitive type – still controversial but there’s a very small project in Glasgow) have benefits both to the addicts and significant cost savings to society in general.
I remember reading that BBC
I remember reading that BBC report on the Glasgow project at the time, definitely seemed worthy of a trial. Still seems to be running as well, which is great.
The use of the term
The use of the term “Functioning Addict” is misleading. It trivialises the likely long term effects of the drug. His life was falling apart.
From what I’ve seen of people using cocaine, it would be better if some addicts described it’s use with phrases like “I became an overconfident arsehole, that talked utter shite, couldn’t stop talking and only looked cool to other users”, may discourage people from taking it.
Mr Blackbird wrote:
“Functioning addict” is the recognised term in the field for a person who manages to maintain the facade of living a normal life whilst addicted, e.g. holding down a job, enjoying apparent commercial and social success, raising a family and so on. It in no way trivialises the seriousness of the addiction, in fact functioning addicts can be some of the worst addicted and crash harder than anyone; it’s just a way of describing the way certain addicts behave.
I’m not so sure that hiding
I’m not so sure that hiding from your family in a hotel for weeks on end can be described as “functioning”
As I said, when they crash,
As I said, when they crash, they crash hard.