‘It can suffocate you and it can grab you’ – Clare Shine on depression and alcohol addiction

Footballer Clare Shine has spoken about her attempt to take her own life and how she has turned her life around in the latest episode of the Eurosport show, The Power of Sport.

Shine is one of the best strikers in the Scottish Women’s Premier League but she had a difficult path, telling the Power of Sport of her struggle with depression.

“It’s like being swallowed whole into one of the darkest oceans and not being able to come out of it,” Shine said. “You feel so lonely all the time, but you’re surrounded by people you love. It doesn’t make sense.

“It can suffocate you and it can grab you. I wish that there was a cure for depression and anxiety and addiction problems, but there’s not.

“I was always someone who liked wearing tracksuits or shorts or wearing my hair up, no make up. And I feel like I was left out a little bit. It caused a lot of self-doubt. My self-esteem was low, my confidence was low. I’ve always had anxiety.

“I lost my friend when I was 15. Two years later, my uncle passed away and I feel like it was something that I never actually grieved properly. It brought a lot of mental health issues to surface within me and it was around that time as well that I started drinking.”

In October 2018 Shine tried to take her own life after a turbulent spell that saw her leave home and move to Glasgow City in Scotland, only to move back to Ireland a few months later.

“It was a good year for me actually, but I think I jumped into something too soon,” Shine said. “I didn’t look after myself. I was still drinking quite heavily and I wasn’t sleeping properly, I was having panic attacks all the time. I kind of started to rebel against football because it was taking me away from the drinking that I could do and the party life that I had wanted at that time. I was letting everybody down. I was hurting people closest to me. And then in October 2018, I tried to take my own life.

“I didn’t want to die. I just couldn’t sit with myself, I couldn’t handle my emotions, I couldn’t handle my feelings, my behaviour, the things that I had done to me, and it completely destroyed me as a human being.

“When I was in recovery the first time, I fully didn’t believe that I was an addict or I had addiction problems. So, when I did give up drinking the first time, I thought that I was in a really good place. I thought I had found myself. It wasn’t the case.”

Shine returned to Glasgow City but later attempted to take her life a second time, which led to a massive change through recovery and the support of her family and friends. Shine is now clean and sober for two years and is back to her best for her club and country.

“There were still underlining issues that I needed to address and until I had my relapse back in 2020, I really had to accept that I was an addict,” Shine said. “Recovery breaks you down into a million pieces to put you back together a completely different way. I have completely changed as a person, and I had to. I needed that lifestyle change for me to finally find who I actually am and who I really am. But it’s been really, really difficult.

“I am really proud of myself. To be able to come through all that and go out and play in the Champions League is something that I never thought that I would be able to experience again. And to be able to speak so openly and so freely now is an accomplishment in itself and I am proud that now I’m able to be so open and to help as many people I can.”

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