280 days sober today. Some days are still really tough especially with the weather and the players drinking with social media glorifying it.
With that in mind I have to to say the coverage around grealish and his drinking habits sums up the issue we have with alcohol in the country imo. The fact he is seen as a bit of a lad and is celebrated for being smashed out of his face I just find sad tbh. It’s almost like he is encouraged to play the clown. I just hope he doesn’t have issues with the booze after his career like so many before him.
A problem is the media will encourage people to play the clown and people will like them momentarily because they seem like a bit of a lad and just you see a human and normal element, see that they're just young lads enjoying themselves
But what the media really want to is there to be a problem down the line and then they can absolutely slaughter you and bring you down. They want to build you up and then steer you right into a car crash because what they really want to report on is the aftermath.
When I think that's partly of the media glorifying certain behaviour and people early on. Look at Gazza, obviously he's done things that didn't help himself but I think part of the way ended up is also down the media, they build you and destroy you. You could say the same for young people like Amy Winehouse, young people with a problem that maybe could have dealt with their problems better without the media hounding them every day.
Obviously Jack Grealish is not in that category and he just does seem like that he enjoys himself when it's the moment to do so but you have to be careful in these situations because you don't want to end up playing the character that the media want you to play because life seems good, and then it blurs the line between who you're really are and who you are perceived to be and you end up becoming that and that's when the problem starts.
I won't do a name drop but through a mutual friend got to know a famous/infamous musician with an infamous heroin and crack addiction that was in a relationship with a world famous model, probably not too hard to work out who l...but for quite a long time he never truly come to terms with his addiction because he was basically the "cool" poster boy of that music scene/era, he had critical acclaim as a musician and he was shagging a super model and adored by fans. All this was completely glorified by the media, so why would he wanna change? Life must seem good when you are in your 20s and laid in bed with a famous model, and youre not gonna take notice of peole saying you need to change. The perception of a heroin addict is some skinny lad wandering around the streets like a zombie scraping some money together. But he had all this going for him, and glorified by fans and media.
Because of that, it probably took him years to fully acknowledge he's just a man with a crippling drug addiction. It wasn't really until he was no longer big news that he started to really try to seek recovery. Obviously all these people have personal responsibility and make their own choices, but you wonder without the British press if they might have addressed their issues earlier, or still be alive in the case of Amy Winehouse.
But like i said, the media want the car crash, that's what sells. They're never gonna take a step back and suggest these people seek help.
Young famous people like Grealish need to understand that's the kind of people they're dealing with and the media is not your friend at all. You dont wanna become the character they're building you up to be, that's not the end destination for the media, the downfall is.
