Bradley Wiggins opens up on cocaine addiction that left his son scared he'd die
Cycling legend Sir Bradley Wiggins was addicted to cocaine for many years following his retirement from the sport in 2016 and has sought help from infamous cheat Lance Armstrong
Sir Bradley Wiggins has revealed how he overcame a crippling addiction to cocaine which left his children worried that he was close to death. Wiggins is a Tour de France and five-time Olympic cycling champion, but his life began to spiral out of control following his retirement from the sport.
The 45-year-old gave up cycling in 2016 after a wave of bad publicity centred around his involvement in the infamous 'Jiffy bag' scandal. Two investigations looked into what was inside a medical package delivered to Wiggins for a race in 2011, but failed to do so, while his use of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) also drew suspicion.
The media fallout plus unresolved trauma impacted Wiggins heavily and saw him plunge into addiction once he left sport behind. He went from being the first British man to win the Tour de France and the winner of Olympic gold medals in Athens, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro and London to an addict.
Wiggins has detailed his struggles in his new autobiography, entitled The Chain, which lifts the lid on the extent of his problems. 'There were times my son thought I was going to be found dead in the morning," he told The Observer.
"I was a functioning addict. People wouldn't realise. I was high most of the time for many years.
'I was doing s***loads of cocaine. I had a really bad problem. My kids were going to put me in rehab. I was walking a tightrope. I realised I had a huge problem. I had to stop. I'm lucky to be here. I was a victim of all my own choices, for many years.
'I already had a lot of self-hatred, but I was amplifying it. It was a form of self-harm and self-sabotage. It was not the person I wanted to be. I realised I was hurting a lot of people around me.'
Wiggins managed to quit cocaine a year ago without going to rehab, but remarkably, he found help in the form of the ultimate cycling pariah: Lance Armstrong. The self-confessed doper reached out a helping hand to Wiggins, after previously looking out for German rider Jan Ullrich, who also had addiction issues.
'He'd been through a similar thing with Jan,' Wiggins added. 'They'd try and get hold of me, but couldn't find where I was. My son speaks to Lance a lot. He'd ask my son, 'How's your Dad?' Ben would say, 'I've not heard from him for a couple of weeks, I know he's living in a hotel.'
'They wouldn't hear from me for days on end. I can talk about these things candidly now. There was an element of me living a lie, in not talking about it.
"There's no middle ground for me. I can't just have a glass of wine. If I have a glass of wine, then I'm buying drugs. My proclivity to addiction was easing the pain that I lived with.'
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