It’s remarkable to think of what Wambach achieved in her career – she scored an global soccer record 184 goals and won a Women’s World Cup and two Olympic gold medals – and unsettling to think of what else she could have done if not for her addictions. Wambach’s marriage was in trouble (she is now getting a divorce), she was struggling with retirement and had started a new job.
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In the book, Wambach also discusses her marriage to fellow soccer player Sarah Huffman.
Wambach said that night was the culmination of a hard period in her life.
In an interview with the Associated Press, global soccer’s all-time leading goal-scorer said she struggled with substance abuse up until her arrest in April for driving under the influence.
After her arrest, Wambach allegedly told police she “first used marijuana by the age of 24”, according to the Multnomah County Motion for Release document. “Because if I don’t get so publicly shamed and publicly humiliated, I don’t think I wake up”, she said as she prepared for a book tour. “This is something I’ve been dealing with for years now”. “I think I was asleep for a lot of years”.
In addition to the book, Wambach is busy at her new job at ESPN as a podcast host and occasional studio analyst. In it, the AP reports that she “tells of her bouts with vodka and pills, which included Vicodin, Ambien and Adderall”. She married her former teammate, Sarah Huffman, in October 2013 and the couple’s kiss following the United States’ World Cup triumph past year is one of the lasting images of the tournament. This was a pivotal moment in reckoning with her substance abuse problems, she told the Associated Press on Monday. “So that night I was humiliated enough to wake up”.
“This isn’t something that just snuck up on me when I retired from soccer”, she said. But she says much of her work these days is focused on her recovery- and mending relationships with her friends and family. It also states that she has “no prior use of heroin or meth”. She has spoken regularly since then of wanting to make a difference in other areas as well, and has campaigned for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. With her admission, she will further help to destigmatize alcohol and prescription drug dependence and, with her prolong success in the public eye, help to tiresome some of the wrong assumptions made.
Wambach capped her illustrious career with the sport’s most prestigious championship when the United States defeated Japan 5-2 in Canada last summer for the Women’s World Cup. “I’m proud of where I’m at”.
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In her interview with the AP, Wambach was far less guarded than she’d been in past conversations.
