On the afternoon of August 16 1996, Tony Adams reached rock bottom. Arsenal would start their Premier League season the next day and Adams, injured, was sitting alone with a pint of Guinness at a social club — soiled jeans, dishevelled, desolate — when he broke down in tears. He walked out of the pub, picked up fish and chips to eat on the way home, got back to his empty house, crawled into bed and cried himself to sleep, shivering, shaking and sweating as he did so. Three days later he found the courage to walk into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Fulham and say, “My name is Tony … and I’m an alcoholic”. “Was I trying to drink myself to death? Looking back, I think I was trying to. I didn’t want to drink more, but I was still getting pissed. I couldn’t do life. Everything had stopped working for me. Sex had stopped working, football had stopped working. At 29 I didn’t want to be on the planet anymore.” From there began the long battle— painful and immensely challenging — that helped Adams, the formidable captain of Arsenal and England, find what he was born to do. He speaks to @OliverKay 25 years on from founding the charity athletes past and present say has changed and saved their lives. 🔗 nytimes.com/athletic/6756901…