Former Liverpool goalkeeper Chris Kirkland has opened up about his addiction to prescription painkillers, admitting it was "months or even weeks from killing me" before he went cold turkey last year.
Kirkland, who made one appearance for England in 2006 and featured for Liverpool in their 2005 Champions League winning campaign, began taking prescription painkillers in 2012 to help with a long-standing back injury. After making the move from Wigan Athletic to Sheffield Wednesday, Kirkland suffered a recurrence of his back injury in pre-season two days before the Championship season began.
There was a clause in his contract that meant Wednesday could cancel it if he missed three games with back problems, so Kirkland began taking tramadol. "Two days before I was due to make my Sheffield Wednesday debut I got an injury but I just thought 'I've got to play'," he told the i.
