War and Peace

by Ricky Hatton

  Jen’s upstairs. Everything is quiet and it’s just me. I quickly reach for one of the carving knives in the holder on the island in the middle of the room, grab it and hold it at my wrist.

  They might think I had been the life and soul of the party in the pub earlier but they could not see this torment. Nor can they feel my hurt.

  I lift the blade in my hand and terrible thoughts come to the front of my head. How could I have let everyone down? Why does it have to end like this? If there is not going to be a happy ending, perhaps I should end it sooner rather than later.

  This has not happened overnight. This ‘thing’ has eaten away for a long time, no one thing happened to make me think I would go and slit my wrists. No.

  I try to make sense of what happened. The more I try, the harder it becomes. The more I drink, the worse it is. I look at the knife in my right hand and look at my left wrist. I perform that several times, wondering which hand will blink first before they meet. I cannot see beyond tonight, I am living this nightmare in the moment. I am not thinking about a funeral, nor about what I will leave behind.

  ‘Come on, Rick. Come on, Rick. You can do it. No one gives a fuck about you. Do it. Do it. Do it,’ repeats a voice. I try to reason with it but seem to be losing the argument. The ongoing debate sees me totter to the sofa, and I plonk myself down, knife in hand. I’m comfortable. It’s quiet. The serenity is restricted to the setting, however. My overactive mind is in turmoil. I feel it is made up, too. I raise the knife to my wrist, and begin the act of committing suicide.

  The cold blade makes contact. I break the skin, pierce the flesh of my wrist. I just want to die. But I can’t go ahead with it. I don’t know why I can’t do it. I don’t know what stops me. I’m millimetres from slitting my wrists and then, for some reason I can’t explain, I back out. I can’t do it and do not have the courage to do it. Then I drop the knife and burst into tears.

  Along with being so pissed, everything goes dark. Whether I’m in a daze or asleep I don’t know.

  Jen comes down and there I am. I am not moving. There is a knife on the table, blood on my wrist and the sofa now has blotches of crimson on it. She tries to stir me but I do not respond at first. She shakes me by the shoulder, panicking. I mumble something as I come round. ‘Rick, what are you doing? I didn’t know it would come to this. Come to bed.’

  I don’t think anyone saw this coming. While I was out, my friends still thought I was happy. ‘What a laugh Ricky is,’ they’d say, not able to tell it was a smokescreen.

  Even Jennifer doesn’t really know how I am actually feeling. I hide it from her too. She marshals me upstairs, and I pass out in the bed, still fully clothed. I have survived.

  Until next time.

  The suicide attempts happened on four, five, six occasions. I can’t remember exactly how many times. They aren’t exactly nice memories.

  I have since spoken to relatives of people who have been in the same position. Their loved ones had times like I went through, nearly doing it, getting close, getting closer and then, one day, they’ve done it. If they hadn’t been able to do it at first they kept trying, kept trying and then they’ve done it. That’s all it takes. Some people have done it straight off. Others have been a work in progress, getting closer each time – and that was me. I was drinking more and more and getting more depressed, and the more depressed I got, it seemed the closer I got to going that extra yard. It only takes that one night, but thankfully it never happened for me – I just could never finally do it.

  Sometimes Jen would go out shopping, come home and I’d be sat there stone-cold sober just crying, with the knife. ‘I want to do it, Jen. I want to do it.’

  Saying it and doing it are two different things, I know that. I’m sure there are a lot of people who say it and don’t really mean it. I did mean it. I’m just glad that I did not have one of those nights where I finally did go through with it. Thankfully I never had the courage to.

  Jennifer ended up saying, ‘You need help, Rick. You need help. I’m sick of coming downstairs and finding you here with a hang-over and a kitchen knife next to you.’ It must have been horrendous for her, but even then her pleas were falling on deaf ears. I was self-destructing, one day at a time. By now it wasn’t just the highs and lows I’d experienced, nor was it Pacquiao, retirement or drink. I’m sure cocaine was not helping, either.

  I turned to drugs, hoping they might make things better, shortly after the Pacquiao fight. The first time, I didn’t even realize what I’d done, I was that bladdered. I was massively drunk. I’d been out drinking from about noon, and by teatime I was legless and said I was going home. I was knackered. Then I went into the toilets and just said to two random lads, ‘Ah, give me some of that.’

  My friends told me I was stupid and the next day I didn’t even know I’d done it until they said, but I was in that bad a state I didn’t care.

  Sometimes I would go out and be the life and soul of the party, and I’m sure people thought, ‘He’s having a good time, isn’t he?’ But I wasn’t. It was a smokescreen. Then, as the night wore on, I would just be sat there, glum, quiet, not saying anything and just fobbing people off if they asked me if I was okay. Some of my mates would turn round and say, ‘Ricky, get a grip, you.’

  I would ask ‘Why, what’s up?’ They would say, ‘Last night you were taking drugs off someone.’ I said, ‘Fuck off, you’re joking.’ ‘Honestly, Rick, you were. Sort yourself out.’ It’s not like I had a dealer I was buying from every night – it was every now and again when I was that pissed; I was out and I didn’t give a shit. I would do drugs with complete strangers, I just didn’t care. The long and short of it was that every time I went out I just wanted to drink myself to death.

  I went out and was drinking more, and I was having more blackouts. Even when I wasn’t drinking I was losing days on end. I could hardly remember a thing. I was going to my own boxing promotions and I was half pissed because I couldn’t face being at a boxing match. I mean, I wasn’t on the front row rolling about, but I had to have a couple just to get over that. What it led to was nothing short of a nightmare.

  If I was in the right frame of mind, I would not have taken drugs. Not a cat in hell’s chance. But I was that down, I didn’t give a fuck who saw me, who I was with or what I was doing. I was on the bottom rung. Or I thought it was. Turns out things could and would get much worse.

  Me and Jen were out in London on a Saturday night when I got a frantic call from Paul Speak.

  ‘Wahay, I’m in London, in a pub,’ I laughed. He asked if we could talk. In fact, he said, ‘Fucking go outside. I need to speak to you. Now.’ When I was out, he said, ‘Ricky, it’s on the Internet here and it’s going in the News of the World tomorrow that you were in a bird’s hotel room taking drugs.’

  I told him where to go. ‘No chance,’ I said. I genuinely didn’t believe it. I didn’t know I’d done it. I wasn’t calling his bluff. But when it came out in the paper, I cast my mind back and remembered little bits and pieces.

  I went back into the pub and I was white. ‘What’s up?’ Jennifer asked.

  ‘Erm, Jennifer. There’s going to be something in the paper tomorrow. Apparently it’s me taking drugs.’

  ‘Where were you taking drugs?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, don’t lose your rag. I was in a hotel room with a bird.’

  She was devastated. I said, ‘Jennifer, I don’t believe this. I can’t believe it myself. Before you shout and bollock me about something I don’t remember, let’s see what it says.’

  Paul drove all the way down from Manchester to London that night, picked us up and we went back, and no one said a word, the entire the way back. I was just devastated and I can only imagine how Jennifer was feeling. I couldn’t believe it.

  When it came out in the paper the next morning I was disgusted and heartbroken. I don’t even really remember the night in question. That’s how bad a state I was in, and I thought, ‘Oh my God. I’ve worked so hard on my
reputation as a good lad, a good boy of British boxing. I flew the flag, was down to earth and a boy next door. Now it’s all gone.’ Now I was something else. I thought I’d ruined my career. I thought I had ruined everything. It was all gone: reputation, career and legacy – in one fell swoop.

  When I was in the hotel with that woman I don’t even remember it. It was hard for me and Jennifer, but the News of the World made it out to be a nine-month affair. They made it out to be something it wasn’t; they showed pictures of me and this girl in the bathroom, but it didn’t show that there was a load of other people in the next room. I think Jennifer could forgive me because she could see I was poorly. I issued a statement through publicist Max Clifford that I was ‘distraught and devastated’.

  ‘He’s not blaming anyone else,’ Max told the press, ‘but obviously we know how difficult it can be for people when they are not at the top any more. He’s in a very bad place.’

  Jen ranted and raved and I had to take it but I was very, very poorly. She had actually asked me to retire before the Pacquiao fight, and after that defeat she wanted me to call it a day even more. When I tried to come back and I realized it wasn’t there, I was that down about it that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Jennifer stood by me. She lived with me through all of that, through the training camps, and when she told me to retire before the Pacquiao fight, she said, ‘Do you even know what you are trying to achieve any more? You’ve achieved all of your goals.’ I did not. I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time. She could see, bit by bit, that I was not the man I was; I was crumbling, but ultimately she stood by me through thick and thin.

  My mission to self-destruct was all but taken out of my hands by what came in the paper. It was the kick up the arse I needed. I really needed it. I wish it had never happened, but without that maybe I wouldn’t be the man I think I’ve become today. Maybe I wouldn’t be here at all.

  Thankfully Campbell was at the age where I don’t think he really knew what was going on. I said, ‘Campbell, you know the things that have been in the paper about Daddy?’ and he said ‘no’. And I just said, ‘You know, just about me retiring, and sometimes papers write silly stuff, don’t they?’ and just left it at that because he obviously didn’t know.

  When the shit hit the fan, or rather the News of the World, I spoke with my dad, and he said I should stay in the Priory in Altrincham. Sometimes you’ve gotta hit rock bottom before you get your finger out your arse and you think, ‘Right, Rick. You need to do something now.’ I was angry about it, but it was now time for damage limitation. I also had to get out of Jennifer’s way because she was going to bleeding kill me.

  The Priory was about half an hour away from our home. Part of me thought I needed to go, part of me didn’t, which probably did not help with my experience there. People go to the Priory for several problems. It can be for drink, drugs, depression, but nine times out of ten they all come hand in hand. More often than not, drink can lead to drugs and both can lead to depression. Then, when that story was in the paper, I thought, ‘Yeah, I probably do need to speak to someone now.’ It certainly wasn’t a drug problem; I was down, depressed, drinking too much; I just did not know what I was doing. I couldn’t remember days on end. I didn’t care if I drank until I died. That’s how bad it was getting. People were saying, ‘Ricky, you’re not coping well, son.’

  ‘I’m fucking all right,’ I’d snap. I was the life and soul of the party, or so I thought, but it was a lie. I was feeling the complete opposite.

  I didn’t find it easy in the Priory, either. It was hard because I felt the focus was on what they perceived to be my drink problem, while I felt the issue was my depression. They would say, ‘You’ve got a drink problem.’

  I would say, ‘No, I haven’t. I’m depressed.’

  They said, ‘No, the drinking makes you depressed.’ I was in there with alcoholics who had inducted themselves because their drinking was out of order. I felt I was there for a number of reasons. I had been in a girl’s hotel room, I had depression, was drinking, found that out in the paper, then Jennifer was giving me earache, asking, ‘What’s happened here?’ and I didn’t know.

  I met a lot of wonderful people in the Priory, patients and staff, but was repeatedly told, ‘You’re an alcoholic, Ricky’; and I was saying, ‘You don’t even fucking know me. What do you mean I’m an alcoholic?’

  ‘See, denial. That’s the first thing an alcoholic does,’ they said.

  ‘Do you know my story?’ I snapped. ‘Yeah,’ they went. ‘We’ve seen it in the paper. You wouldn’t be in that position if you didn’t drink too much.’

  ‘Fucking rubbish,’ I said. I lost my temper a few times with people when I was in there. I was sitting in meetings and I was thinking that none of the others in there had been embarrassed in front of millions like I had. I had fallen off a cliff of fame and celebrity, and plummeted into a wilderness that I didn’t feel many people could relate to. As far as I was concerned, others were there because they were drinking too much. I didn’t feel that the staff saw the bigger picture with me. We are all individuals, but I felt at the time they’d made their minds up before I’d opened my mouth. I struggled; I didn’t think it was for me or that I needed what other people there required.

  ‘Look at them,’ I’d think, taking in my new surroundings, ‘they don’t know what it’s like.’ As I sat amongst them I was acutely aware how individual we all are and how problems are all different.

  When I came out I didn’t drink for weeks and I was still depressed. I was still fucking crying, I was still fucking suicidal and I still wanted to fucking kill myself – and I hadn’t touched a drop.

  Obviously it took a while for me and Jennifer to get back on track after everything. A good while. Although I knew it was a bad time for me, I knew it was horrible for her. She had been on the two-year roller coaster with me, everything: Mayweather, the self-doubt after Lazcano, Pacquiao, the drink, the nights out, the depression, the News of the World stuff and now rehab. She lived through it all.

  But having reached the bottom, there was only one way to go, and that was up. Somehow things felt better when I started training again, so I stopped drinking; I had good days and bad days. For a long period I was okay.

  Several months went by before I could bring myself to watch the Pacquiao fight on tape, though.

  I was in the house on my own one day and I finally put in the DVD. It was just as shocking as I’d heard it was but I had started to feel better about myself.

  I was going to Bob Shannon’s gym and working with his lads and getting a buzz out of training them, taking them on the pads and showing them moves here and there. I got a trainer’s licence from the British Boxing Board of Control – they’d stripped me of my licence to fight after the News of the World story – and started to think that the best thing for me now I couldn’t be a fighter was to bring one through the ranks and get him the opportunities I’d had. There was the occasional wobble but the ship seemed to be steadying. I was promoting my shows, training my fighters and things were going well. I was doing well.

  There were occasional triggers that would set me off. Me and Jennifer went to the Manchester Arena to watch David Haye fight Audley Harrison, and the crowd started roaring and I was nearly blubbing again, thinking it should have been me up there. I still wanted it. I stood there in the audience as it roared and I started welling up. I said, ‘Listen, Ricky. You’re not gonna fight again. You’re holding on to something that’s not there any longer.’

  People used to say to me, ‘You having one more fight, Rick?’ I used to reply, ‘Well, you never know.’ But I did know – I couldn’t do it any more and it was driving me potty, wanting to do it but not being able to. I stood there in the crowd that night and all I could hear was a voice in my head as the penny dropped. ‘Ricky,’ I thought. ‘You need to retire. What are you doing to yourself ?’

  A few months later I went to the Sky Sports studios to do some
expert analysis for a bill featuring Marcos Maidana and Érik Morales, light-welterweights fighting in Las Vegas – my weight class and in the city I was synonymous with. As the presenter Dave Clark introduced me, Sky had packaged a highlight reel of my best memories in Vegas and that nearly set me off. Then they turned the camera on me, live, and I was choking back the tears. I still couldn’t let go but I realized I needed to and finally, in July 2011 – two years and two months after Pacquiao and having survived everything that had followed – I met with members of the media in a London restaurant and announced my retirement.

  I told them that it was the end and that I was in a good place. Me and Jen had a baby on the way, due in September, and I was ready for a fresh start. Letting go had been the hardest thing, I said, but it was time to do that and face up to the fact I would not fight again.

  Unfortunately, I was in a bad way at the time. Maybe I meant it, maybe I did not. I thought by announcing my retirement formally it would stop the nagging that carried on inside me about fighting again. It would be one less thing to worry about – but it was quite possibly the worst thing I could have done.

  Saying I was going to retire and facing up to never being able to do something you love again are two very different things. I went into a worse place because I called it a day when I didn’t want to. My heart was telling me, ‘Go on. Give it another go. You can do it. You love it.’ I couldn’t imagine life without it. In those two years, even though I did not have the motivation and I’d put on the weight and there were drink and drugs, I was thinking to myself, ‘I’ve still got it. I’ve still got it.’ But I didn’t have it, or if I did, I couldn’t find it. No matter how hard I tried.