The fear of looking back on his life as he breathed his last and realising that he had not lived it being true to himself was one of the main reasons why Adrian Varley (33 ) stopped drinking. That fear was far greater than giving up alcohol, says the former Galway Senior footballer.
That was November 2023 and the Cortoon man was closing a chapter in his life which would lead to greater freedom, fulfilment, and a new sense of purpose.
He had his first drink as a teenager before going to a disco in Castlebar. “It was probably Bulmer’s cider because it tasted like Cidona. You’d think you were drinking apple juice!” However, unlike some people who feel relaxed and happy after consuming alcohol, Adrian mostly felt the opposite. This was particularly the case as he got older. For him, whatever positive feelings he initially had after having a few drinks, quickly gave way to negative effects. Alcohol brought him to a dark place.
“It wasn’t like I was an alcoholic or drank more than anybody else,” he clarifies. “It was the impact alcohol had on me, that was the problem.”
He was a shy youth and drinking gave him a false confidence, he says. “I was confident in a sporting environment but I had no confidence socially, like at discos. There were a lot of comparisons at that age, pressure to look a certain way, I wasn’t comfortable in my skin.”
He quickly discovered excessive drinking was not mentally or physically good for him. “At times, I drank in moderation, at times excessively.” Invariably, afterwards, came the lows.
“There was the mental fog, the anxiety, and fear. Alcohol enhances what mood you’re already in. If you’re in a good mood, you feel great. But if something is bothering you, if you are upset or angry, it feeds it. I hated the way alcohol changed the way I felt. When I’d drink too much, I was more irritable and contrary. At times, I was the life and soul of the party, at other times, I wasn’t, and I didn’t like that uncertainty.
“I knew drinking wasn’t good for me so I avoided it a lot. Sport was my excuse, because I was playing inter-county football. Sometimes, I’d end up drinking when I didn’t want to, I’d be under pressure to drink and have a couple more than a couple. It was beer, or pints of lager, or spirits, such as vodka. I was trying to keep up with friends who could drink.”
Feeling down
After a night’s drinking, Adrian would wake up feeling down. “I was always an anxious person, overthinking, and sensitive and for people like that, alcohol can become more of a depressant. It exaggerated problems for me. My sleep would be affected for three nights afterwards and I’d be as pale as a ghost. I’d be catastrophizing, questioning who I was and my integrity. I’d be overthinking, ruminating, having intrusive thoughts. This could go on for days and the older I got, the worse I was. Alcohol was a misalignment for me, a mismatch. I should never have drank.”
He woke up on November 3, 2023 after a night out. He was to attend a college workshop in Dublin (a former primary teacher, he was now studying for a Masters degree in sport and exercise psychology ) but did not feel well enough to go. “I wasn’t able to get up, I couldn’t face it… it’s like when you look in somebody’s eyes and you see the sadness. You are a shell of yourself. It brought me to that breaking point where not living a life true to myself was much scarier than living the life I was living.”
Adrian, the youngest of a family of three boys, rang a friend and said: “‘I know I’ve said this to you many times before and you won’t believe me but I will [give up alcohol].’ He believed me. That morning, I hit my lowest point. But within that was a feeling of bliss knowing I would never feel that way again. Anytime before, I tried to give up alcohol, I thought of it as a big sacrifice rather than looking at it as if it were gifting me something.”
Determination, drive, and intelligence, which were the hallmarks of his academic and sporting careers, helped him carve out a new life for himself. Gaelic football had been at the heart of it since he was a child, playing on the under-5 team for Cortoon Shamrocks. He was born in Kent – his parents had moved there to work in their twenties and returned to Galway when Adrian and his twin brother, Paul, were four years old – and grew up in Cortoon, near Tuam. He was always obsessed with football and had his sights firmly set on success. This determination grew as his football career progressed. His dream was to play for Galway and win an All-Ireland final.
A key moment in his life was in 1998 when Derek Savage brought the Sam Maguire back to his home club, Cortoon Shamrocks. “I was only six but I developed a real core belief and created this dream to do the same. I wanted to play for Galway and win an All-Ireland.”
A dream come true
In 2013, Adrian played on the winning U-21 Galway team which beat Cork in the All-Ireland Final, he was at full forward, his twin brother, Paul, at wing back. Most of the team went to Boston on J1 visas afterwards but Adrian decided to stay at home.
“I didn’t have a huge desire to go,” he says. “I wanted to stay around and play for my club. I always hoped I’d play for the Galway Senior team.” That dream soon came to pass. “I got a call to make up the numbers for an in-house game. I went in and I played well and I was asked to join the panel. That was a dream come true, all I had worked for.
“I was going in with huge confidence after winning an All-Ireland at age 20. I went in with my chest out! I made my debut in a qualifier game against Armagh in Pearse Stadium. I came on for Michael Meehan, my idol, one of the best footballers who ever played. Pearse Stadium was full and it was a sunny day. It was a really positive start.”
But his football career with Galway was to be beset by injury, something which had dogged him since he was 16. Shoulder, hamstring, and groin problems continued to hold him back despite countless visits to physiotherapists and doctors.
“A lot of my injuries came from the pressure and stress I put on my body. I would be so uptight and stressed and not sleep well. I’d worry about letting the team down. My mother and father saw that pressure and tried to relieve it. I would be wound up after a game, too. Being prone to injury gets you down as well. You don’t have the consistent playing time to get to maximum fitness levels. Then, your confidence takes a hit. I feel I never reached my potential through injuries and the pressure I put on myself.
“That’s why I was so interested in sports psychology (he got a first class honours Masters degree in it but modestly put that down to hard work rather than intelligence ). I knew the mental side of my power let me down. If I was mentally stronger and more confident and knew how to deal with the pressure more…. I was a very emotional person and was not able to regulate my emotions. I was so fixated on the result, on performing well, the external validation… ‘if I play well, I feel good’. My self-confidence was so tied to that.”
His competitiveness and high ideals on the pitch put him under immense pressure. “I had very high standards that were unrealistic for myself and those around me. I was difficult and cranky on the pitch, at times my teammates didn’t enjoy playing with me, I was like that ’til my late twenties.” He says he was too obsessed with results, winning, and playing well rather than with growth.
Mentally drained
In 2020, when Adrian was almost 28 years old, he decided to step away from Gaelic football and the team he had dreamed about playing for all his life. He was mentally drained and felt he had nothing left to give. In the end, it was a relief to walk away.
“It was becoming more of a struggle and a burden. I was probably playing my best football but I was still not playing as much as I’d have liked. I was not starting or playing enough. I felt I was good enough. I had a very strong self-belief but I didn’t have enough freedom to express myself because of the fear of making mistakes. The injuries kept knocking me back, too. For what I was putting into it, I wasn’t getting it out of it. I felt that way for years but I was reluctant to detach myself from it. It raised questions like who am I away from sport? But who is anybody before they become anything, before they get a degree or job or is that all they were supposed to be? I needed to find who I was before sport.”
Travelling, (he lived in New York for six months before going to Mexico and Colombia, and later Bali, New Zealand, and Australia while on a career break from primary teaching ) helped him find some of these answers. And returning to football, albeit in a different country, helped, too. In 2022, he played championship football in New York. This time he was enjoying the game, no longer under pressure to prove himself. He returned there in 2023 to beat Leitrim and win an All-Ireland with the US team.
Helping young people navigate life’s challenges and look after their mental health is his mission. “I’m here to help people in whatever way I can, that’s my purpose and my passion.”
Through his work, both as a Gaelic Games development officer at the University of Galway, and through his sports performance and wellness company “Brave like Bison”, (he gives talks and workshops in schools as well as doing corporate work and performance coaching ), he is in a perfect position to achieve this.
His company’s name was inspired by a video he watched. “The bison is famous for its bravery. Instead of running away from the storm, it turns into it because it knows the quickest way out is to go directly into the eye of it. I thought maybe we should all be brave like the bison, wouldn’t that be a great approach to life? I thought to apply it to sport, work, and relationships. We all have fears and challenges but we often run away from them because we don’t want to deal with them. But that can make things worse and prolong the suffering.”
