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1:35

How do you cope with Ellis and John?

1:39

Hello and welcome to How Do You Cope With Ellis and John? This

1:41

is a series where we speak to guests about some of

1:43

the challenges they face throughout their lives

1:46

and what they've done to overcome them. This is our final

1:48

guest episode of the series and we'll be speaking

1:50

to snooker player and broadcaster Sean Murphy

1:52

about his struggles with his weight, the stresses that come

1:55

with being a professional sportsman and his relationship

1:57

with religion. Before that, as always, John

1:59

Hosey.

1:59

shame? Well, a very

2:02

good question because we're recording this

2:04

just at the very start of the Edinburgh Festival, which

2:06

is obviously quite a high-stress environment

2:09

and it's kind of,

2:11

you know, I'm seeing

2:13

the fruits of my labours over

2:17

the past sort of nine months to a certain

2:19

extent because I'm

2:23

meeting challenges and disappointments

2:25

and successes in a sort of different attitude

2:28

to what I was when I was drinking. You went to be there a day?

2:30

I haven't been

2:32

here four days and I've

2:34

done two shows and one of them went really well and

2:36

one of them didn't go quite as well and

2:39

this is the first time I've

2:42

been here sober and, you know,

2:44

I've been coming here a long time. I

2:46

have been drinking here

2:48

very heavily for a very long time

2:50

so it's a sort of a new approach,

2:54

but what it's really, what

2:56

it's really illustrated to me is that the

2:59

way I live now is not in

3:01

order for things to go well more often, it's

3:04

to meet challenges with a different

3:06

mindset so it's

3:08

not the world that has changed, it's I

3:11

that have changed and continue to try to change

3:13

so, for example, the

3:15

show last night, the first of my main

3:17

shows, you know, didn't go as

3:20

I wanted it to go and I allowed

3:22

myself sort of five minutes afterwards for

3:24

being grumpy and swearing

3:26

in the dressing room, but after that

3:28

I just sort of accepted it and said okay well what's

3:31

next how do we address that whereas

3:33

before I would have gone out and got absolutely

3:35

lashed. Yeah. I'd have been, you know,

3:37

kept myself in that headspace, I'd have woken up the

3:39

next day anxious, hungover,

3:42

I'd

3:43

have sort of taken that in with

3:45

me to the next show whereas I'm sort

3:47

of much more, it feels much more like a streamlined

3:50

operation up here. Yeah, I

3:52

think I remember meeting a friend of mine

3:54

who'd never been about

3:56

a week after I'd done the festival

3:59

and he'd be listening to some comedians

4:01

talk about it and read you a four. And

4:03

he was very, very cynical. He was like,

4:05

God, it sounds like they're coming about from a war.

4:08

It's pathetic. You know, if they're, you

4:10

know, working has been men or something. That's

4:12

a, that's, that's proper job.

4:14

And I said, yeah, I agree. But

4:16

the thing is, the reason it makes people

4:18

go a bit crazy is that you're

4:21

nervous, which is, you know, an

4:23

odd feeling to have. And

4:25

the gig either goes well or badly,

4:28

which case you're either related or disappointed. You know, you're frustrated.

4:30

And the obvious way to approach

4:33

those two mindsets or feelings is

4:35

to have a drink. And then if you have a drink, you're

4:37

hungover. So you're either nervous, hungover,

4:40

elated or gutted for

4:43

a whole month. And it's just, it's that, and also

4:46

it can affect your sleep because drinking affects your sleep

4:48

and nerves and anxiety about the show can affect your sleep.

4:50

So you're also tired. Yeah. So that's

4:52

why not drinking, I think is a very sensible

4:55

way to do Edinburgh. Because it, because it, it bl,

4:57

it sort of runs off the edges,

4:59

doesn't it? Yeah. I do agree with

5:01

what your friend's saying. And it's

5:04

interesting because I realize now how

5:07

much of what I found stressful about this month,

5:10

uh, was

5:10

completely self-inflicted. Yeah. You

5:13

know, how can you, how can you honestly look someone

5:15

in the eye and say, I can't deal with this when you've been out

5:17

till four in the morning drinking every night? Of course you

5:19

can't deal with it. No one can deal with that. And

5:21

however,

5:23

the difference in, you know, and I'm

5:25

someone who has worked on different

5:27

kinds of, of jobs in this

5:29

industry, the difference about this is you, you

5:32

cannot switch off your brain at any point.

5:34

Yeah. And you are dealing with adrenaline,

5:37

which is a very underrated, yes,

5:39

yes, yes, sort of drug hormone,

5:42

whatever it is chemical and,

5:44

uh, adrenaline messes is sort

5:46

of almost like a silent disruptor.

5:49

It makes you say things that you would never usually

5:52

say adrenaline.

5:53

And it just means, you know, if you're coming, I'm cut, I came off

5:55

stage at 10 o'clock last night. There's no way on

5:57

earth I'm getting to sleep before one. No, absolutely. You

5:59

can't just go.

5:59

but straight back home, lie down and go to sleep. The

6:02

other thing is comedians

6:04

all lose a fortune at Edinburgh. And I was trying to explain that

6:07

to him. I said, that's the thing, you're doing this thing

6:09

because you think it's a good idea, but it is costing

6:11

you a

6:12

huge amount of money. Yes. Anyway,

6:14

that's sort of

6:16

probably slightly dull Edinburgh

6:18

chat for some people. Apologies for that.

6:20

But in terms of more broadly, my approach,

6:23

like this is a real

6:26

example of sort of the mindset

6:29

of progress, not perfection. I

6:31

really am just striving to

6:33

do the next right thing and

6:36

it's not about sort of reaching some perfect end point.

6:38

However, I do rather wish that hadn't been

6:41

brought to mind in such stunning clarity.

6:44

Out of interest,

6:46

I used to take running shoes me to Edinburgh

6:48

every year. The

6:51

amount of runs I've gone for in Edinburgh,

6:53

grand total zero. Are

6:56

you continuing with your exercise

6:58

regime? I've been to the gym twice. So 50% hit

7:00

rate on days at the gym. I have joined a CrossFit

7:07

box up here. That's unbelievable, John.

7:10

That's incredible. Is it? Yeah.

7:13

Well, I've done it a lot of times and

7:15

I've not been through a single run once.

7:17

I always went up with

7:20

good intention. I remember talking to Dave Gorman about it

7:22

on the train. He said, yeah, I bought my trainers. I never go. One

7:24

of the great, great benefits of

7:27

not drinking for me is when I

7:30

say I struggle to sleep and I get sleep at one. Okay.

7:33

And I wake up at seven, six hours

7:36

is enough. But you know, I've maybe had one

7:38

hour less sleep than I would like.

7:40

I feel fine. Yeah, it's not

7:42

a catastrophic double blow. And

7:44

I really, really value that

7:47

time between sort of 6am and 10am where

7:51

I can be productive. I can go to

7:54

the gym. I can work on my show.

7:56

I can do meetings online.

7:58

I don't.

7:59

Well, yeah, I can

8:02

do I can do them in LA, you know, I can

8:04

do them anywhere in the world. I

8:06

don't have to spend that time

8:09

getting through a hangover. Yes,

8:11

of course. So it's like the nine

8:14

to the five to nine before the nine to five.

8:16

I mean, it's like I'm doing that sort of mad,

8:19

mad thing. Yeah. I

8:21

mean, I mean, the Edinburgh fry up industry

8:24

has taken an enormous blow. Oh, yes.

8:26

You know, I'm going to do. I'm

8:29

trying to eat well, cook at home,

8:31

having a lot of salmon, it turns out. Oh,

8:34

yeah. Having a lot of smoked salmon.

8:36

So I'll probably end up getting gout or something. Anyway,

8:38

how are you, dear? Very, very good, actually.

8:42

We're going to Edinburgh in a couple of weeks time, so I'm really looking forward

8:44

to that.

8:45

And because I'm a new person, I've already

8:47

started my packing list because I'm packing for my

8:49

son. And there is he's packing for our

8:51

daughter. That's the way we manage it. Oh, that's nice.

8:54

Very easy to pack for him because he exclusively

8:57

will only wear for buckets. Oh,

8:59

lovely. And that's that's your dream, isn't it? Yeah,

9:01

sure. Well, it is until the one he

9:03

wants to wear is in the wash and then he goes ballistic. Well,

9:06

why don't you wear the 2018 away? How

9:09

do you teach acceptance to a four

9:11

year old? You've got to wait.

9:13

Right. I think it's very difficult to teach acceptance

9:15

because they get distracted by something else. Yeah.

9:19

And my it's amazing. I think because

9:21

my daughter's eight,

9:23

I've seen I've already been through this phase once.

9:25

You can't really teach them to be rational. They

9:27

just kind of get it eventually.

9:30

But it's interesting because you sort of have to

9:32

develop

9:33

because when you're born, the world

9:36

does revolve around you because everyone's caring

9:38

for you. You have to develop slowly

9:40

over time and understanding that the world doesn't

9:42

revolve around you, your wants and your needs. And

9:44

that's something I am only getting to grips

9:47

with at 41. Yeah. I'm

9:49

hoping he does it at 30. You

9:52

won't have that lost decade. Ideally,

9:54

if I could have got it done at 16, it would have saved

9:57

me an awful lot of embarrassment.

9:59

Anyway folks, this week we're chatting

10:02

to snooker player and broadcaster Sean

10:04

Murphy, and there was so much to

10:06

discuss with Sean, I found it very

10:09

very interesting. And I think what was most

10:11

interesting for me is we,

10:13

I think Sean and I probably have very

10:15

different philosophies around

10:17

addiction.

10:19

And we didn't, I didn't really get much chance to

10:21

talk about that. But they

10:23

both sort of have a similar

10:26

outcome. They work for his work for

10:28

him and mine work for me. And

10:31

you know, the most important thing with any addictive

10:33

behaviour is that you find a way to live

10:35

without it. Yes. You

10:38

find a way to change that behaviour, or

10:41

you find a way to remove that stress

10:43

from your life from doing damage to you and others around

10:45

you. And so it was really interesting

10:48

to hear about Sean's journey, which is a sort of a

10:50

different one to mine, but also one

10:52

that had to be different because of the nature of the action

10:55

he'd taken. It's really interesting

10:56

because I only

10:59

knew about him as a snooker player. And

11:01

I didn't know his, his backstory. And

11:04

I

11:05

read a lot of interviews with him and listened

11:07

to things prior to this podcast

11:11

record. And he's, he's had a really, really

11:13

interesting life. So I think you'll get an awful lot

11:15

out of this. Just as a heads up, this

11:17

chat contains discussions around body

11:19

image, mental health, bullying and violence.

11:21

So if you're affected by anything you're about to hear, you

11:24

can find more information and support at bbc.co.uk

11:27

slash action line. We do hope you

11:29

enjoy this episode.

11:30

BBC Five Live. How

11:32

do you cope with Ellis and John? Hello

11:38

everyone and welcome to How Do You

11:40

Cope with Ellis and John. And we're

11:42

delighted to say that today we are joined

11:45

by snooker player Sean Murphy.

11:47

Hello Sean. Hello. Good

11:49

afternoon. Thanks so much for giving us your time. There's

11:51

an awful lot we're looking forward to

11:53

discussing with you. I wanted to start

11:56

by sort of something that struck

11:58

me whilst.

11:59

reading about you. I'm a huge Snooker

12:02

fan and have been for decades.

12:06

But I'd never really thought

12:08

about the Snooker experience from

12:11

the position of someone who

12:13

isn't winning huge loads of tournaments,

12:15

isn't sort of earning massive

12:17

amounts of money. And as someone who's

12:20

come up through the ranks,

12:22

there's a similarity to the lifestyle

12:24

of a comedian, because

12:27

you're working long hours when you first

12:29

start, often for no money at all,

12:31

or even making a loss. You're

12:34

staying on your own when you travel,

12:37

and you're judged by the performance of the

12:39

top one or two percent of people who ever

12:41

go into that field. So

12:44

despite having been one of those top players

12:46

for many years, could you give

12:48

us an idea of the lifestyle

12:52

of an average Snooker player, or

12:55

someone who's in the top 75?

12:58

Well, it's certainly

13:00

not as glamorous as I think everyone

13:03

would assume it to be. We

13:07

are one of the sort of jewels in BBC's

13:09

crown, with our Triple Crown series

13:12

of events and all

13:15

that. But I think that's where the similarity with a lot

13:17

of other major household

13:20

sports

13:21

kind of comes and goes, because you

13:23

don't have to go too far down the

13:26

rankings in professional Snooker before you

13:28

run into players who are working

13:30

two jobs, have other careers, may

13:33

or may not be full

13:35

time. And

13:36

they're not playing Snooker on the sideline.

13:39

They're doing other things on the sideline to enable

13:42

their Snooker. So we're

13:45

often compared to tennis and

13:48

golf and

13:50

mistakenly football sometimes. I always find it

13:52

weird when you compare team sports to

13:54

single player sports. But your analogy to

13:57

comedians or

13:59

employed person

14:01

out there is on the money, I

14:03

think. And the life

14:06

of a mid to low ranked

14:08

snooker player

14:09

wouldn't be what

14:12

many, many people would think as

14:14

you alluded to, there'd be

14:17

the time on the road and the time on tour

14:19

and obviously all the associated costs.

14:22

We don't have a, there's no big team waiting

14:24

to pick up your bill.

14:26

There's no funding

14:28

from government. There's no massive

14:31

grants given out by national lottery

14:33

or anything like that. You are

14:35

out there on your own merits and it is,

14:38

you

14:39

could make the argument that certainly

14:42

single player sports, they are as close

14:44

as you come to in terms of you just completely

14:46

back your own ability to go out there and

14:49

beat everyone else.

14:52

To some degree, I think

14:54

if someone had outlined to me just how

14:56

difficult it was going to be,

14:59

as a kid, if I could have understood

15:01

it, you

15:04

might have thought twice about it because it

15:07

hasn't all been roses and rainbows.

15:12

Because

15:12

of the long travel, especially in the

15:15

lower levels, you might

15:17

be staying in budget hotels and

15:19

not making an enormous amount of money. Even though you're competing

15:22

against other snooker players, is there a sense of camaraderie

15:25

because of the lifestyle you've chosen is quite a unique

15:27

one?

15:28

I think there is. I

15:30

think that's something that sticks with you even as

15:32

your journey progresses. I've been fortunate that

15:34

mine has taken me right to the very top.

15:36

You look

15:38

around with the players who you came through with

15:41

and you have that shared experience. Let's

15:45

take Mark Selby as an example. He and

15:47

I have been playing each other for the best part of 30 years

15:49

since we were boys. We both came from quite

15:52

similar backgrounds, would have had very little

15:54

growing up, split homes

15:57

and all the rest of it.

15:59

get to the summit, you reach the summit of your

16:02

sport. And you

16:03

sort of pat each

16:05

other on the back a little bit and say, didn't we do

16:07

well? We did well getting here.

16:10

But you have that shared experience

16:12

that I remember

16:15

we would have slept in cars and

16:17

we would have had some awful stays

16:19

in these guest houses

16:21

and places around the world. It

16:24

wasn't a life of luxury in five-star hotels

16:27

and private chefs and nutritionists and physios.

16:32

It wasn't like that at all. It was dingy,

16:34

dirty,

16:35

B&Bs, questionable

16:39

hygiene ratings. And

16:42

as I say, there were nights

16:45

where we slept in the car. And

16:49

you put your suit on to

16:51

go and play snooker match and everyone looks really elegant

16:53

and you've got the dinner suit on and all the rest of it.

16:56

And after the game, you throw your jeans on that you've had on

16:58

for two weeks and you go and you know, where are we sleeping

17:00

tonight? Now,

17:01

don't get me wrong, it wasn't all like that. And things

17:04

did improve and things did pick up, but there were

17:06

some dark times and I

17:08

suppose to some degree they kind of, it

17:11

sounds a bit grand to say they help

17:14

you become who you're going to be, but I

17:16

think they do stand you in good stead, those type of tests.

17:18

So to put it in some kind of context for

17:20

people who don't follow snooker,

17:22

that may be outside of what is

17:25

on the BBC, you've got the sort of the three,

17:27

as you mentioned, the triple crown tournaments. They're

17:29

the sort of the three big ones that if you've ever

17:31

watched snooker on the BBC will be

17:33

the snooker you've watched and you've won each

17:35

of those once. So you're in a very select

17:38

group of players who has completed

17:40

that triple crown.

17:42

But just to touch on what you were

17:44

talking about there, you've

17:46

been really consistently inside the top 10,

17:49

pretty much ever since you started, which

17:51

is an achievement in itself.

17:53

But looking at your sort of career timeline,

17:56

would it be fair to say you're someone who

17:58

either gets to the final or... goes out in the

18:00

first round. You're

18:03

sort of not someone who's getting to the quarters and

18:05

the semis and getting no further.

18:08

So have you noticed

18:10

with that sort of big rollercoaster,

18:13

has that reflected in your

18:15

sort of your mental or your physical health?

18:18

Do you notice patterns emerging over the years?

18:20

Because everyone is watching

18:22

you fail to earn your money when you

18:24

go out like first round in the world championship.

18:27

You've also spoken about the sort of financial

18:30

pressure of that, of your earning power

18:32

being so under such scrutiny?

18:34

Yeah, it's a real strange

18:37

one. The fact that what

18:39

I earn

18:40

on the table is a matter of public record

18:42

and it's out there. I actually find it all a bit,

18:47

actually don't like it. When people

18:49

talk about sports and they sort

18:52

of label what that player has won, I find

18:54

it all a bit

18:56

classless. It's not something that

18:58

I like a lot really, I have to be honest. It's not very

19:00

British, is it? Yeah, that's probably fair.

19:03

It feels like it's come in from America maybe

19:06

over the years and it's kind of infiltrated

19:08

into sport and picking up the

19:10

check for form it or whatever

19:12

and you go, yeah, I'm not sure about

19:14

that. But listen, there's nothing you can do about

19:18

it. It does excite people. I

19:20

just think

19:23

one of the things that's always followed me

19:25

around is this tag of everyone

19:28

that always said, oh, you've always had that sort of

19:30

look and air of confidence and

19:32

you would never think that I was struggling, you would never

19:34

think you were going through hard times or

19:36

dark times. And do you know, nothing

19:38

could be further from the truth.

19:41

I didn't go to acting school,

19:43

but maybe

19:46

I watched that many movies as a kid, a lot of it went

19:48

in, I think I could fake it. There were so many times

19:50

people have been thinking, nothing

19:53

looks like it phases Sean or he

19:55

looks a certain way, super confident, this, that

19:58

and the other. And I just wasn't. And

20:00

to come back to the question, those

20:02

highs and lows of performance did come inside

20:05

with massive highs and lows off

20:08

the table. And of course, it's become very

20:11

well-written and talked about now, but this phrase,

20:14

mental health, we didn't talk about

20:16

it 20 years ago. It wasn't something that was spoken

20:18

about in Snooker

20:20

until fairly recently. And

20:22

we were all just people on our own trying to make our

20:25

own way.

20:27

But there would have been some very, very difficult times

20:29

along the way and hard times on and off the table.

20:32

And those, they used to say Snooker, the way

20:34

you played reflected how you were off the table,

20:37

what you were like as a person away from it. And

20:40

there were some moments in my life whilst it looked

20:42

okay, whilst everything might have looked fairly

20:45

calm and serene on the surface

20:47

in play. Actually, there was, it

20:49

was frantic behind the scenes. There's been

20:52

family traumas and troubles and tribulations

20:55

and all of that and health and

20:57

weight loss, weight gain, massive anxiety,

21:00

not being able to leave the house for days.

21:04

Meanwhile, you're still trying to compete and everyone's got

21:06

an opinion on it.

21:07

Sean, you reeled off

21:09

a list there of things that were

21:11

going on in your private life that

21:14

perhaps weren't in people's

21:16

minds when they were sort of talking about your Snooker

21:18

game or commentating on you or tracking your

21:20

progress. I wonder if we could start

21:23

with the weight loss and

21:25

the weight gain. You've recently had surgery

21:27

to help you deal with overeating, a

21:29

bariatric surgery, which is very

21:32

invasive. It's an irreversible

21:34

surgery, which reduces the size

21:37

of your stomach. I wonder

21:39

when did you first realise

21:41

that you had a relationship with food that

21:43

was perhaps different to other people? Did

21:45

you realise that food was your sort of way

21:47

of managing your emotions and your mental

21:50

health?

21:51

It's funny because I've been

21:53

seeing a counsellor,

21:56

a therapist for nearly

21:59

a year, every year. week. And

22:03

one of the things we've gone into, you know, was, was

22:06

my dependence on food. And

22:09

like all of these things, you know, they end up being

22:11

things that, you know, started as a child, and

22:13

they started in your childhood. But I remember

22:15

hearing on one of your previous episodes

22:18

that

22:20

Ruby wax said something that, you know, she,

22:22

she,

22:24

she didn't care that these things had started in her childhood,

22:26

she was just, you know, she wanted them to stop affecting

22:29

her today. It didn't she knew she knew

22:31

why she and

22:33

but it was a real interesting one for me. We

22:35

discovered through conversation that

22:38

because of the way my life was managed through

22:41

being a young boy on this snooker journey,

22:43

it was managed by others, you know, everyone else

22:45

controlled my life until I was able to

22:48

break free and break the shackles of control.

22:50

And

22:50

food

22:52

became one of the first things that

22:54

I was able to control. It

22:57

was one of the first things I was able to

22:59

dictate

23:00

what I would eat, and how much of it I

23:02

would eat.

23:03

And I think, by

23:06

you know, accidentally, so much

23:08

was placed on that so much was put

23:10

into that, I was able to pour

23:12

into that all my frustrations

23:14

about being pushed and prodded

23:17

and cajoled and talked into doing things

23:19

I'd not wanted to do in a way I've not wanted

23:21

to do them for so long, that when it came

23:23

to ordering the McDonald's, I would order three

23:26

because I could,

23:28

and no one was going to tell me different.

23:30

And I think lots of people

23:33

this will resonate with a lot of people that might have for

23:35

other people, it might have been, you know, smoking,

23:38

or it might have been drinking, or it could have been anything.

23:41

For me, it was food. You know,

23:44

gambling seems to follow

23:46

sports people around and everyone

23:48

else, of course, but seems to have such a tight

23:50

connection, but certainly with people in my industry.

23:52

And

23:53

no pun intended, but

23:56

but it never bit me.

23:59

You know, I was too busy.

23:59

stuff in my face with donuts. So it

24:03

was just

24:04

that was the thing that I connected

24:07

with first that I was able to control.

24:09

It was the first thing in my

24:11

life that I could take ownership of, where

24:14

no one could no one could dictate to me, I

24:16

was going to have whatever I wanted when I wanted

24:18

to have it.

24:19

And it sounds a bit twee

24:21

talking about it, it sounds a little bit, you

24:23

know, it feels a little bit silly, but that

24:26

was that

24:28

was where the first it

24:30

took it took hold of me as a as

24:32

a young boy. And, you

24:36

know, to some degree, you

24:38

know, it still does have hold of me, I found myself,

24:40

you know, did it was last year, I was, you know,

24:44

39 spiraling out of control. And I

24:46

just played the World Championships.

24:49

You know, I was the heaviest I'd ever

24:51

been, I was the most, you know, the most miserable

24:53

I'd ever been, I was spiraling

24:55

into depression, I was, I was, you know, really

24:58

in the depths of

24:59

despair with it all. And it was all to do

25:02

with weight and being, you

25:04

know, overweight and self esteem, and

25:06

all of those, you know, all of that.

25:10

And I just decided I tentatively

25:12

looked into some form of surgery many years

25:14

ago,

25:15

and had been talked out of it by some friends. But

25:19

I just decided that it was, you know, it was extreme,

25:22

but I've reached the point where I needed to do something

25:24

extreme.

25:25

As a youngster,

25:27

did you feel like you were other people's property?

25:29

Because you signed your first sponsorship deal when you were 13. Didn't

25:32

you? Yes, yes, I did. Yeah.

25:35

And I think it

25:37

was just, I'm not sure there was

25:39

any, you know, malice intended,

25:41

I think, but you know, I was surrounded by people,

25:44

you know,

25:46

at that stage of my life and my career. And

25:48

I think that's the distinction, you know, pretty

25:51

much from the pretty much from the day I took

25:53

up Snooker seriously, you know, which would have been

25:56

somewhere between being nine and 10 somewhere

25:59

around there. snooker went from being

26:03

something I've done for six months or a year and enjoyed

26:05

to being this is what I want to do with my

26:07

life.

26:08

That conversation happened very early.

26:11

From that moment, it became

26:13

a business.

26:16

I had a coach and a manager and an agent

26:19

and a driver and

26:20

a commercial manager

26:24

and a technical manager and all of these things.

26:27

It happened they were all the same person. They were all

26:29

my father, which caused

26:31

its own problems, as you can imagine. We

26:35

went from being a family and

26:37

a mom and dad and a young kid and all the rest

26:39

of it to

26:42

this industry where every waking

26:44

moment was spent making

26:46

me a better snooker player than the previous day. Everything

26:49

we did as a family, every penny we

26:51

had got thrown into anything

26:53

that could possibly make me a better snooker player.

26:56

As I said, I don't

26:58

think there was any malice involved on anyone's

27:01

part, but I did.

27:03

It took me a long time. I feel

27:05

like every young person goes through that period

27:07

of time where they de-shackle themselves

27:09

from their parents, where they break

27:12

those ties of control, which parents naturally

27:14

have over their children

27:16

for obvious reasons.

27:17

It took me a lot longer

27:21

than it probably should have done to break those

27:23

controls. Now,

27:25

when I eventually did, that led

27:27

to quite a lot of pain in the family.

27:30

But it did feel, looking

27:34

back, that a weight had been lifted

27:36

by doing so. It

27:39

must be very difficult when your addiction

27:41

is food, because

27:43

anyone who's had any addiction will know the point

27:45

at which the thing they're addicted to

27:47

actually begins to do more damage than it

27:50

relieves pain. And

27:52

for you, that was obviously partly to do with

27:54

your health,

27:55

your size, the impact

27:58

on your performance. How

28:00

did you manage the fact that

28:05

your comfort was then contributing

28:08

to the thing that was causing you stress?

28:11

And I think it's also important to say that

28:14

an awful lot of people may be overweight

28:16

and live perfectly healthy lives and be perfectly

28:18

happy with that. Not everyone who is

28:21

what society would say is overweight necessarily

28:24

has a problem with food. But for you, that

28:26

was the case. The food

28:28

then begins to cause the problem that you go to

28:31

food to relieve the stress from. That

28:33

must have been a very

28:34

difficult, lonely place to be. Incredible.

28:39

You've verbalized exactly

28:41

how I felt for many, many years. There's

28:44

another player, Mark Allen and I, we're

28:47

very good friends. And we used to joke.

28:50

It became a bit of a thing on social media

28:52

that we would, whoever lost first, would

28:54

get the pizzas in. Because

28:56

that's often the thing when you're on the road. You're

28:59

either celebrating with food or drink or you're

29:01

commiserating with food or drink or whatever.

29:04

And we used to joke about it. But it was true. And

29:06

we had this little thing where we'd come

29:08

off the table and text each other and go, right, you

29:11

get in the drink and I'll get the pizzas. And

29:13

we've done that around the world. We've

29:15

gone around the world eating, testing their

29:17

food takeaways and stuff.

29:21

Meanwhile, you wake up the morning

29:23

after and there's uneaten pizza boxes and uneaten kebabs

29:26

and food room service and all this.

29:28

And you just feel disgusted with yourself and embarrassed

29:31

and ashamed and

29:32

all these other

29:35

things. And that suit that was tight

29:37

yesterday is now a little bit tighter. And

29:39

those sort of messages of abuse

29:41

that you get in in your DMs or on the

29:44

notifications are

29:48

mounting up and piling up. And it just feels like that dark

29:50

cloud is getting a little bit closer to bursting. And

29:54

then, of course, you might be a little bit more of a

29:57

fan of the dark cloud.

29:59

not be able to get home, you've lost your match, you're

30:02

milling around for a day or two. So you find yourself

30:04

going at, you know, you just repeat

30:06

the side. It makes no sense at all.

30:10

But that's the thing about addiction, isn't it? That's the

30:12

thing about being, you know, you're out of control.

30:15

I

30:15

think

30:19

there was a very small light

30:21

at the end of my tunnel during this journey where,

30:24

and of course, I say that, I still continue

30:27

to plumb the depths of it after this. But

30:29

I remember going to an over eaters anonymous

30:32

meeting

30:33

in Nottingham, I lived in Nottingham for

30:35

a year or two, before moving to

30:37

Dublin.

30:38

And I was, you know, really trying

30:41

to reach out for some help from, you

30:43

know, anywhere I could find it. And I wasn't

30:46

aware of over eaters anonymous, I didn't

30:48

know it existed.

30:49

Anyway, I discovered it and I

30:52

went along. And it was during that meeting

30:54

that I realized that whilst

30:56

I was very low, there

30:59

were some further depths to discover

31:02

from through this addiction. And

31:04

that, I suppose

31:06

that always sat with me that, you know, I felt

31:08

as if it was bad.

31:11

But it could be a lot worse. I remember

31:13

being confronted with some stories and

31:16

some people at the meeting that was, you

31:18

know, that was quite harrowing, you know.

31:22

But I think to some degree that then also,

31:24

you know, I remember leaving that meeting thinking, well,

31:27

you know, I'm not as bad as those, you know, people

31:29

and things aren't things aren't as bad and stopping

31:31

and getting two Belgian buns on the way home, you know, from

31:33

the garage. So, you know,

31:36

perhaps I perhaps I needed more of a wake up call.

31:38

I guess the thing with hearing stories

31:40

of people perhaps further down the

31:42

scale than you is on the

31:44

one hand, they could make you think, oh, well, I'm

31:47

all right. I'm not as bad as that person. But

31:49

on the other hand,

31:50

more usefully, you might go, oh,

31:52

I'm not I'm not that bad yet. So

31:56

perhaps I need to address this before

31:58

I get to that stage. So it could

32:01

be both sort of motivating or demotivating

32:03

in a way. Yeah, what it did to me, it highlighted

32:06

what was ahead of me. It showed me where I could

32:08

go because

32:09

nobody starts there.

32:11

Everyone starts having a bit

32:14

too much here, a bit too much there. And as I say, this

32:16

doesn't go for everyone who's overweight. It doesn't

32:18

go for everyone who likes to go out for food.

32:21

It doesn't count for everyone who likes to go for

32:23

a casual drink. You know, not everyone who

32:25

enjoys a drink is a problem drinker. Not,

32:28

you know, that's not how it works, is it? That's not

32:30

how addiction works. You

32:32

know, it's not rational. It's not logical. Makes

32:34

no sense. But

32:35

I would seek solace in food. And

32:39

I suppose drink to some degree, although it was always

32:41

food over drink. And

32:44

just, you know, over a period of, you know,

32:46

years, you know, there was moments where, you

32:48

know, I would lose a lot of weight. It

32:50

was never really losing weight. That

32:52

was the problem.

32:53

It was keeping the weight off. It was changing

32:56

my relationship with food. It was changing,

32:58

you know, as I said, the celebrating with

33:00

or the consoling with or whatever it

33:02

might be, changing

33:05

my relationships with it. I used

33:07

to look at people who could eat

33:10

seemingly such small portions and

33:12

be happy. I used to look at people like that

33:14

in wonder and think, how do you do that?

33:16

You know, these people who they literally treat

33:18

food as fuel, they've got no interest

33:20

in food.

33:21

They eat just because they know they have

33:23

to. I used to think, wow, I'd love to be that person.

33:26

Meanwhile, I'm on my fifth plate at

33:28

the All You Can Eat buffet. So

33:31

it was a real tough

33:32

road. And eventually,

33:35

you know, the end of the story

33:37

is that I was unable

33:40

to fix

33:42

the way I thought, change my relationship with

33:44

food. I was unable to do it.

33:47

And that was why I went down the road of the

33:49

bariatric surgery.

33:51

Because even

33:52

now, if I still

33:54

think like an over-eater,

33:56

if I still think I want to have that

33:58

big double pizza and this, that, and that,

33:59

the other.

34:01

I now physically can't do it.

34:03

I've stopped by I've taken away that

34:05

option of being able to

34:08

destroy my life.

34:10

That's a really interesting position

34:12

to be in because

34:14

most people do not have

34:16

a surgical solution

34:18

to their addiction problem. You

34:20

know, you can't ask a doctor to remove

34:23

the part of your brain or body that makes

34:25

you addicted to alcohol or

34:27

or

34:28

gambling, for example,

34:30

or sex.

34:32

So have you had to learn ways to manage

34:36

the behaviors of an overeater without

34:40

the sort of physical ability

34:42

to overeat because your surgery

34:45

has changed one part

34:47

of your addiction landscape,

34:50

I guess. But as you said,

34:52

those other parts are still there. So

34:55

how do you deal with those in the moment in the day? It's

34:59

a great question because it's something I face every

35:01

single day.

35:04

I once knew an alcoholic who'd been dry

35:06

for the best part of 20 years

35:09

stopped drinking and smoking on the same day. And

35:12

I remember saying to him like, how did you do that?

35:14

And he said, I, every single day, I

35:16

have to look myself in the mirror. And I have

35:18

to tell myself that today I won't drink. And

35:21

it was a battle that he fought for all

35:24

his life. And

35:26

that's a battle I fight every day. Because

35:29

I still think like an overeater. I

35:32

still look at the you know, the big

35:34

bag of sweets and you know, the big you

35:36

go to the big Sunday carveries and stuff

35:38

like that.

35:39

And

35:41

I still look at it and would absolutely love to destroy

35:43

it. When

35:45

I when I lose, still to this

35:48

day, when I lose a match, you know, my first

35:50

instinct is to, you know, to

35:52

console myself with,

35:54

you know, food of some kind.

35:56

I haven't yet mastered that

35:59

and I have I haven't turned that ship

36:01

around yet. And to some degree,

36:03

I'm not sure I ever will. I've got a feeling

36:06

that that will be something I have to fight with

36:08

for the rest of my life. But

36:11

again, knowing that really

36:14

was part of the reason why I chose to go

36:16

down the route that I went down with the surgery. Because

36:19

I now, even if

36:21

I lose the mental battle,

36:23

even if I lose and have a weak moment

36:25

or a week, it takes a week

36:27

second

36:28

to order the food on the app. It

36:30

takes seconds.

36:32

If I'm weak for that period of time or

36:34

I

36:35

find myself in a situation that you

36:37

can't get out of, I now physically

36:39

cannot do it.

36:41

I can't overeat.

36:43

Now, that doesn't mean that you can't regain

36:47

any weight. That's not

36:49

true either. You know, I can still go

36:51

over my calorie intake for the day. There's still

36:54

ways and means to eat too

36:56

many calories in a day and gradually

36:58

put weight on.

36:59

But I can never return

37:02

to where I was.

37:03

And I can't sit down. The days of three-course

37:06

dinners and all

37:07

of that, that

37:10

has just gone. I can't

37:12

do it. So what is the experience

37:14

of

37:17

using food as a method

37:19

of coping, say, with a defeat?

37:22

How does that experience then

37:24

compare to

37:26

prior to having the surgery, if you were able

37:28

to eat so much less? Is it... Do

37:31

you still get the same kind of emotional satisfaction

37:33

from eating the food, even though you're eating far

37:37

less quantities of it? It's funny

37:39

because

37:41

since the surgery and my weight loss,

37:45

my self-esteem has risen.

37:48

And so the amount that I hate myself

37:52

has gone down. And

37:54

so the need to balance that out with

37:58

the excessive amounts of food

37:59

almost like the self abuse, it's almost like self

38:02

harm.

38:03

The need to do that has

38:05

diminished as well,

38:07

because my self esteem has gone up. So the

38:09

balance point is a lot higher.

38:12

So I now get just

38:14

as much reward out of having a couple

38:17

of handfuls of Maltesers. As

38:19

I would have done before

38:21

through eating, you know, three packs of Maltesers,

38:23

a Domino's and something because

38:27

the balance point has changed.

38:29

Obviously, there's the physical element to it.

38:31

I cannot physically do it anymore.

38:33

But the mental,

38:37

as I said, I don't think it's a fight I'm ever going,

38:39

I don't think that fight will ever disappear. I don't think

38:41

it's something I'm ever going to be free from. But

38:44

the fight is easier now, as I say, and it's

38:46

all to do with

38:48

self esteem. It's all to do with what that

38:50

little voice in my head

38:52

tells me about me.

38:55

And in the year since my surgery, the

38:57

message is the things he says about me,

38:59

the things he says to me,

39:02

are becoming slightly nicer. They're

39:04

becoming slightly more positive.

39:07

The there are still some negatives in there.

39:09

I can promise you, especially

39:12

with some of the shots I played. But

39:15

but there are there are still some negatives in there.

39:17

And it's not all positive all

39:20

of the time. But I'm a lot

39:22

kinder to myself

39:24

than I was. I don't I

39:27

don't grimace as much when

39:30

when footage of me playing comes on

39:32

or I have to analyze some shots that I've played

39:34

or whatever.

39:36

I can wear a nicer suit, I feel better

39:39

when I'm at the table.

39:41

And of course, you know, bringing it back to snooker

39:43

for a second, all of that has led to

39:45

better performances, you know, the season

39:48

I've just had, the best season I've ever

39:50

had. And this is the absolute

39:53

center of why my you

39:55

know, that that little voice that little voice

39:57

in your head that tells you

39:59

all those things that

39:59

are either good or bad.

40:02

The message has just changed ever so slightly.

40:05

And that's been the biggest difference.

40:07

I think also, I mean, just in the way

40:09

you spoke there,

40:11

you refer to that voice in your head as he,

40:14

not me.

40:15

So just being one step removed

40:17

from it gives you a great deal of power over

40:20

it, because you can see it as something

40:22

you don't always have to identify with,

40:24

or be

40:26

driven by. But I

40:29

wondered, have you considered going

40:31

back to Overreach Anonymous to help

40:33

manage the sort of that mental

40:36

fight, as you call it, which is still there? Well,

40:39

as I say, I went there for

40:41

one session and one session only, when

40:44

I lived in Nottingham.

40:46

But as I said a second ago,

40:48

I see a therapist

40:51

every week. And

40:56

after the bariatric

40:58

surgery,

40:59

I think the money I spend going to see her every

41:01

week is the best money I ever spend on anything. Because

41:04

I

41:07

find it's just so, it's

41:09

so lifting, it's so freeing, it's so

41:13

cathartic.

41:18

Now, she must be absolutely liked. She

41:20

must have her head done in when she leaves. Who

41:23

does she see? Who does she go to see?

41:26

That's the question. But

41:29

I think aside from the surgery,

41:31

which probably saved my life,

41:34

seeing my counsellor

41:36

every week, or certainly as often as I'm home

41:38

in Dublin, is

41:40

the best money I ever spend. Are you

41:42

able to sustain that when you're on

41:45

tour playing snooker, seeing your

41:47

counsellor? Can you do it on Zoom and

41:50

other kinds of ways? Yeah,

41:53

you can do. And yeah,

41:56

that is available. It's

41:58

just so hard to predict.

41:59

you know, I'm still really old

42:02

school, you know, I would hate to book something in

42:04

with her and then have to cancel it because I get a

42:06

match scheduled or a match overruns and then

42:08

I have to play. So we've kind of

42:11

we've kind of moved away from that.

42:14

But you know, there are sessions that I really

42:16

enjoy. And the sessions are really funny. And I don't

42:19

know whether anyone else listening to this will

42:22

will

42:24

will this will resonate with them. But

42:27

our sessions are almost

42:29

identical every time you know, we walk

42:31

in and she'll say, How are you? How have you been?

42:33

And I always say, Oh, you know,

42:35

everything's okay. And I'm actually really good. And I will

42:37

then always say, and it's

42:40

not by habit because it's I

42:42

mean, I go hard, do you know, I don't really think I've got

42:44

much to say this week, I don't really feel as if I've

42:46

got much to share. And

42:48

then an hour later, she has to stop

42:50

me. And

42:53

she'll say, I think we'll leave it there.

42:57

You're listening to How do you cope? And we'll be back with more

43:00

from Sean Murphy after this. Hear

43:02

them do their thing in the Premier League, then

43:04

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43:09

Subscribe to the players channel and get inside

43:11

the footballing minds of Premier League

43:13

icons from the footballers football

43:15

podcast. I'm getting stick for arguing

43:18

with one of their

43:18

players. And that's the player that they was booing themselves.

43:22

The first with trade Dini and

43:24

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43:27

you'll play me next week. And much more

43:29

to come as we head into the new season.

43:31

We're football talk straight from the players.

43:37

The

43:37

players channel. Listen on BBC

43:40

sounds. BBC five

43:42

live. How do you cope with Alison

43:44

john?

43:48

You spoke earlier about how when you were

43:50

what before even you were a teenager,

43:52

you're sort of every second was going

43:55

into improving you as a snooker player, there

43:57

was an awful lot of pressure on you. and

44:01

your dad played an awful lot of roles in

44:03

your early career.

44:05

Part of the reason you had so much time

44:08

to dedicate to Snooker was that you left school

44:11

and were homeschooled after experiencing

44:14

really awful bullying. I

44:17

wonder if we could talk about that. Do you

44:19

think we treat the word bullying

44:21

too flippantly? Because reading

44:23

about what you went through,

44:26

we almost sort of see it as all part of

44:28

growing up and part of the experience of being at school,

44:30

but for you it meant a serious

44:32

physical assault, which we in

44:35

the adult world would call ABH

44:37

or GBH.

44:38

And yet we call it bullying and we maybe

44:40

speak to the

44:41

head teacher or whatever, but

44:44

that bullying really changed the course of your life,

44:46

didn't it?

44:47

Yeah, it did. No question

44:49

about it. I

44:51

mean, as a caveat, we were quite a long

44:53

way down the line with school

44:55

about arranging a situation

44:58

for the forthcoming year, which

45:02

would have been year 10. I left

45:04

school at the end of year nine. I

45:07

think I was about 13, something like that.

45:09

And we were well down the road of

45:12

negotiating with the school, a

45:14

situation going into year 10, and

45:16

then obviously with everything that was going to follow

45:18

that, of a much reduced

45:22

school attendance with

45:24

a much bigger homework load to cope

45:27

with my sort

45:29

of amateur career and

45:31

what was going to become a professional snooker career. And

45:35

we were almost at the point of agreeing terms

45:38

with the school.

45:39

I say we, it

45:41

was my mum and dad, they were doing

45:44

it. But yeah, the penultimate year

45:46

of year nine,

45:47

everything changed and

45:50

there was a, there

45:54

was always trouble in the school.

45:56

I was usually in the center of it

45:58

for good or for bad.

45:59

as good as I got. I

46:02

wasn't a weak little boy or anything.

46:05

But there was this penultimate day

46:07

of year nine, some of the

46:09

much older, bigger boys were

46:11

waiting for me in the humanities block

46:13

I'd been sent on an errand by

46:15

one of the teachers. And they were waiting and

46:18

they dragged me into the toilets and

46:22

beat the living bejesus out of me

46:24

and was left in

46:26

a pool of my own blood was left there to...

46:29

Yeah, I don't know what was going to happen but I was in

46:32

a bad way.

46:36

But for the PE teacher,

46:38

she was

46:40

often a PE teacher and I think she was a geography

46:42

teacher too. She found me

46:45

in the toilets

46:46

and she

46:48

literally bundled me into a car. This is halfway

46:50

through the day remember, this is like schools in session.

46:53

She took me in a car and she took me home.

46:56

And she just said, I know the... Because I

46:59

think she was deputy head or something. She

47:01

knew the process we were already

47:04

into with the school.

47:05

And she said, if you take my advice, you won't

47:07

send Sean back to this school.

47:10

Don't send him back. And I'll

47:12

never forget and she took a bit of a pause

47:14

and she said, don't send him back. They'll kill

47:16

him. And

47:19

the air in the room changed. And yeah,

47:23

they didn't send me back.

47:26

We agreed pretty much like within, I

47:28

think it was almost within over a weekend or 24

47:30

hours that that was it done.

47:33

And then

47:35

it was a case of trying to find out from the local

47:37

authority, what were the minimum requirements

47:39

needed for me to leave school? What did I have

47:42

to do to satisfy? Because you

47:44

can't just leave school, you have to continue

47:46

an education of some degree.

47:48

And it was agreed that I could

47:51

leave as long as I had a day,

47:54

a week

47:55

that was attributed to school and education.

47:58

That became Mondays. I

48:02

think from about nine until

48:05

one, something like that, was school

48:07

day for me. And

48:09

we had an English teacher, a maths

48:12

teacher, and then for

48:14

some reason a Spanish lady

48:16

came to the house for a period of time and

48:18

taught me to speak Spanish. And

48:21

that was it. I did

48:24

my GCSEs much

48:26

earlier than everyone else just to get

48:28

them out of the way.

48:29

And

48:31

played full-time, although I didn't

48:33

turn professional until I was 15, I played full-time

48:35

professional

48:38

snooker from that day onwards. When

48:42

the teacher said, if you take my

48:44

advice, you won't send Sean back to this school, that

48:47

must have been an enormous relief because that must have been

48:49

the thing

48:50

you craved and wanted. So

48:54

was it your snooker you think that made you stick out?

48:58

Because you would have been an almost

49:01

local celebrity. I'm only saying this

49:03

because I went to school with Matthew Stevens,

49:06

who obviously you played, and

49:09

he was a couple of years older than me at school.

49:11

Everyone in town knew Matthew was the

49:14

snooker player. And

49:17

I don't know, he was a few years above me at school, obviously,

49:19

so I can't talk about his experiences.

49:23

But you were effectively

49:25

a celebrity for want of a better

49:27

word. Is that the thing you think that made you stick out?

49:30

I've spent a

49:32

long time trying to work that out.

49:35

And in some ways, I'd love to be able

49:38

to get in a time machine and go back and witness

49:41

it and work it out. What was it for those

49:43

few years? Because

49:45

I was only in that

49:46

little sort of educational

49:49

ecosystem for a small period of time.

49:52

And that itself was part of the reason because

49:57

although I'd grown up in the area, no.

49:59

My parents had sent me to a Catholic

50:02

chain

50:03

of schools, infants

50:08

and junior schools. And then the

50:10

next school I was supposed to go to

50:13

was in Northampton, which was a couple

50:15

of bus rides away and

50:17

all the rest of it. And at that time I'd just

50:19

taken up Snooker.

50:20

And it was felt that that bus ride

50:23

to school and back every day would pretty much

50:25

curtail any interest that I had

50:27

in the game. I wouldn't be able to practice

50:29

after school if I was still on a bus from Northampton.

50:32

So we chose to go to the local

50:35

secondary school. And of course, now you're thrown in

50:37

with kids who I didn't know. I

50:39

hadn't grown up with these kids. I was

50:41

the newbie, even though I lived in the same village

50:44

and had lived there all my life.

50:47

I didn't know anybody there. I just wouldn't know them

50:49

from the street or if you'd seen them at the park

50:51

or whatever.

50:52

I didn't know them.

50:55

And I always wondered whether that was, that was

50:57

part of the problem.

51:00

I was ahead of them

51:02

in terms of education when I joined

51:04

that scene, when I joined year

51:06

seven, there was no question that, I'm

51:09

not saying I was the brightest in the school, but I was

51:11

ahead of the curve.

51:14

I think I'd sort of already started growing

51:16

up in a very adult world in the Snooker clubs. So

51:18

I knew things they didn't. And

51:22

I was either in the local paper

51:25

or on the local BBC news almost

51:27

every week, almost

51:31

weekly.

51:32

And

51:34

there was the big thing if you ever won a tournament or

51:37

if anyone in the school did anything of note

51:39

on the weekends, bring the trophies in,

51:41

bring the medals in, bring the awards in, and

51:43

they have you at the front and the headmaster would present

51:46

you and everyone would give you a nice round of applause.

51:49

And that was nice, but

51:51

the beat ins and the abuse that went with that

51:54

break time or at lunchtime or after school,

51:58

wasn't so great.

51:59

But to

52:02

cut a long story short, I've never been able to firmly

52:05

attribute it to one particular thing. I

52:08

think the snooker and the local success was

52:11

definitely the biggest contributing factor,

52:13

no doubt,

52:14

but there were others. You've spoken about

52:16

your

52:18

relationship with your own body and

52:21

your eating. And you also mentioned

52:23

that you were getting an awful lot of abuse on social

52:26

media. You said the DMs

52:28

were racking up about your appearance.

52:32

Did your experience with the

52:34

bullying you suffered give you ways to

52:36

deal with that? Or were you thinking, crikey,

52:39

I've got enough problems with this in my own

52:41

head, let alone having to read other people

52:44

online every day? No,

52:49

I would give almost everything

52:51

I have to be one of those people who

52:54

just seem to be so thick-skinned

52:57

that things like this don't seem

52:59

to matter to them, that it's like water off a duck's back.

53:01

I think to some degree people

53:04

have looked at me throughout my career and think

53:07

I am like that. I think because I've been quite

53:09

outspoken and I have often said

53:11

things that have got me into hot water and I'm

53:14

not frightened to give an opinion on stuff. People

53:18

think, well, you must be really thick-skinned. And

53:20

to some degree, I probably should be more thick-skinned.

53:23

Do you know the truth of the matter is

53:25

most of these comments that you read,

53:27

they actually really hurt. They actually

53:30

do hurt.

53:31

And in there somewhere is

53:33

a real person who

53:35

perhaps agrees with some of these comments

53:38

that are being written about them. And I think because I've

53:40

done quite a lot of soul search over the years,

53:42

I think that's the thing that resonates the most is

53:44

that when a comment

53:46

comes through your DMs and slips in through all

53:49

your protective countermeasures of what

53:51

words you can see and who you can't and whether you've

53:53

muted people and this, all of that stuff,

53:56

as comment still lands. sometimes

54:00

I think it's the ones that actually in

54:02

your deepest, darkest recesses of

54:04

your brain,

54:06

you probably agree with

54:08

that they hurt the most. Which

54:12

again, was why I had to go down

54:14

the road of the bariatric surgery because

54:16

I

54:17

knew when these people were saying things

54:19

to me that, you know, you've got so fat

54:21

now that it's now affecting your game, you're too

54:23

big to reach over the table, you could

54:25

be much more successful if you weren't so fat

54:28

and all this stuff and things

54:30

much more offensive than that, you know, things that

54:32

you just can't repeat.

54:34

I actually deep down knew they were true,

54:37

I knew they were right.

54:38

They weren't nice to read and they weren't nice

54:40

to say and I'm not sure anyone has

54:42

the right to say these things to someone else,

54:44

like it's not your business. But

54:47

they were

54:50

probably right. Because it's such

54:53

a serious operation and it's

54:55

irreversible, were

54:58

you assessed prior to having the operation?

55:01

Did you have to sort of effectively persuade

55:04

them that it was the only route you

55:06

had left or the route that was best for you? That's

55:09

exactly what happens and it is a persuasion,

55:11

it is a sales pitch on your behalf to

55:14

pitch to these people and pitch

55:16

the idea because it's almost as if they don't

55:18

want to do it.

55:19

They hold the keys to the

55:21

gateway and only

55:25

but through them can you get through it. And I

55:27

really had to go through quite a rigorous,

55:31

no, he didn't have me doing laps at the park or anything, but

55:34

he did have me answering some very serious

55:36

questions and to

55:37

really dig into

55:39

why I wanted it and

55:41

as it happened, when the physical examination

55:44

came along, I only just qualified. I barely

55:48

got in being too light. There could have been

55:50

an argument

55:54

to be turned away

55:56

and said, no, listen, you really should go off and do

55:59

this off your own back.

55:59

you need to go and just eat less,

56:02

move more, and all the rest of it.

56:07

There was an argument that could have been made,

56:09

but thankfully the doctor responded

56:13

well to my pitch

56:14

and accepted

56:17

me onto the programme.

56:19

And then of course, there's the pre-op analysis

56:23

the day before, and

56:25

you're assessed and

56:28

your weight's taken, all of these things

56:30

are taken.

56:31

It wasn't until I went to hospital

56:33

and you drive yourself in and you're giving your

56:35

room, you get your see gown on and do all this thing. It

56:38

wasn't really until then that I started

56:40

thinking about,

56:41

geez, you're about to have proper surgery. This

56:45

is all getting a bit real. And

56:48

a good banter with the anesthetist, and it

56:50

was very funny, because I was asking him about how

56:52

it were. This was a cannula in your

56:54

hand, and I said, how will I not? When

56:57

he turns it on, how long have I got? He said,

56:59

oh, you'll feel it up your arm and on your cheek, and by

57:01

then you'll be out.

57:02

And he said, are you ready? And he turned it, and

57:05

he said, oh, is this, he said something like, is this a

57:07

bad moment to tell you that I recently lost a bet

57:09

on you in the snooker? And I looked

57:11

at him as if to say, oh, crap. And

57:14

he went, good night. And

57:17

he just knocked me out. It was incredible.

57:20

It's probably worth saying that the rigger

57:22

you discussed there with which they assessed you does

57:25

reflect the seriousness of the operation.

57:27

And it's not a surgery

57:29

that any

57:30

doctor would take lightly because

57:33

of how final it is.

57:36

And also every surgery carries with

57:38

it

57:38

its own risks. I wonder

57:40

if we could sort of change tack

57:43

in a big way here, because I wanted to ask

57:45

you about your relationship with faith,

57:48

because I

57:49

think it's quite common

57:51

to hear stories about people who find faith

57:54

or who lose their faith, but am

57:56

I right in thinking you sort of found faith and

57:59

then lost it?

57:59

Is that fair because

58:02

that's a slightly different story? I wondered if

58:04

you could talk to us a bit about that. Yeah,

58:06

I was raised in a Roman Catholic

58:08

household, by

58:11

two

58:12

Irish descendants who they were

58:14

raised Catholic themselves. So I knew

58:16

no different. And

58:20

was raised as a Catholic kid, like I had a

58:22

holy communion and all that stuff and went

58:25

to church on a Sunday and stuff.

58:28

Following my parents' separation when

58:31

I was 14, I met

58:34

a lovely family on holiday in Lanzarote.

58:37

My father and I had gone on holiday

58:39

and met a lovely family. And

58:43

to be honest, I just really fancied their daughter.

58:47

That's the truth of it. And

58:49

the holiday came and went, we all exchanged. Now,

58:52

what did we exchange? Because this is obviously before

58:54

mobiles and thought maybe mobiles are just, I

58:57

don't know, but we certainly didn't exchange numbers

58:59

or Twitter handle it.

59:01

It

59:03

wasn't like that. What did

59:05

we exchange? I think we exchanged addresses and

59:08

I think we wrote to each other.

59:10

And

59:12

I think either

59:14

later that summer or something, I think I'd

59:16

just turned pro. I'd had a period of time playing

59:19

a couple of pro games. Those

59:21

matches weren't far from where they lived.

59:24

And so they'd come to watch me play and

59:26

then an invite to go and stay with them

59:29

for a couple of weeks came

59:31

through. So my dad drove

59:33

me across the country. We met at a meeting point

59:36

and it was

59:38

like prisoner exchange on the motorway

59:41

services and I get in their car

59:43

and drive back down to their house. And

59:45

of course, in my mind, I'm a 15, what was I, 15?

59:50

Full of testosterone. All

59:53

I'm, I just fancy this girl. I

59:55

just can't believe that this long distance,

59:59

love affair is going to happen. And

1:00:03

just spoiler alert, it didn't happen. It

1:00:07

didn't happen. I'm so disappointed. I

1:00:09

know. Sorry about that. Everyone can

1:00:11

turn off. No, I

1:00:14

spent a lovely week with them. I was only there meant to

1:00:16

be there for 10 days off, two weeks. And it got

1:00:18

to the Saturday night and

1:00:21

we'd been out somewhere for a dinner and

1:00:23

we were all in the car going back to their house and

1:00:25

I'll never forget the mother, Linda,

1:00:27

turned around to me from the passenger seat and

1:00:29

I was sat in the back with the kids and

1:00:32

she said, now, Sean, we're going

1:00:34

to be going to church tomorrow. Would you like

1:00:36

to come with us?

1:00:38

And I said, yeah, no

1:00:40

problem. And I don't know what made

1:00:42

me ask. I think there had been a spate

1:00:45

of these documentaries about this new

1:00:47

style of church coming in from America,

1:00:50

this born again culture that was

1:00:52

coming in.

1:00:54

And I just said to her off the

1:00:56

back of her question, do

1:00:59

you have to genuflect in your church?

1:01:03

And for anyone who doesn't know, genuflection

1:01:05

in a Catholic church is when

1:01:07

you go down on one knee and make the sign of the cross

1:01:10

before you take your seat as a mark of respect

1:01:12

to the altar. And

1:01:13

she didn't know what I meant.

1:01:16

So alarm bells have gone off for me that here's

1:01:18

a lady who's obviously very religious, goes to

1:01:20

church every week, but doesn't know what genuflection

1:01:23

is.

1:01:23

What type of church are they taking me to?

1:01:27

And we went to the

1:01:29

church. It was a born

1:01:31

again, Christian church.

1:01:35

And you know, we had an absolutely brilliant

1:01:37

time.

1:01:38

It was fantastic. What got

1:01:40

me was the music,

1:01:43

the style of the praise and the

1:01:45

worship section. I just

1:01:47

fell in love with the music. I just loved it.

1:01:49

It was like a rock concert. It was brilliant. Now

1:01:53

the whole word and the whole, the ministry

1:01:56

and the actual teachings of the Bible and all of

1:01:58

that stuff, I'd never heard of it.

1:01:59

never got into that. I never really

1:02:03

got into that at all until

1:02:05

a bit later on. And I fell deeper into

1:02:07

the, you know, fell deeper down the rabbit

1:02:09

hole. And

1:02:10

you fast forward

1:02:12

a few years, you know, I met my first

1:02:15

wife to be Claire,

1:02:16

whose family were deeply

1:02:18

entrenched in the church. I

1:02:21

left to be with her. We

1:02:23

were married shortly after I won the

1:02:25

World Championship in 05. And we

1:02:27

were together for another three years after that.

1:02:30

And we were very, very

1:02:32

deeply involved with the local church.

1:02:34

We would host sportsman's events. We

1:02:36

would go to different evenings at churches

1:02:39

preaching. I used to stand on the stage

1:02:41

at, you know, at the church and give big

1:02:43

speeches and talking about like

1:02:46

Christians in sport and was attached to different

1:02:48

things. I was quite a long way into it.

1:02:52

But my actual real, real

1:02:55

personal faith that always had a big question

1:02:57

mark, there were so many things I'd never

1:02:59

really understood.

1:03:01

And

1:03:03

then when Claire and I split up,

1:03:05

I found the way I was treated by

1:03:08

people in the church community,

1:03:10

people who claimed to be friends.

1:03:13

I found the way that

1:03:16

they treated me,

1:03:18

just if I needed any pushing

1:03:20

away,

1:03:22

that was it.

1:03:24

And I haven't set a foot in the church since.

1:03:27

I think my belief in God and

1:03:30

my belief in a God, which was

1:03:32

always 50-50 at best,

1:03:35

has just

1:03:37

eroded over time. So

1:03:39

yeah, you know, as you said at the start, you know, I have somebody

1:03:41

who found faith

1:03:44

and have since lost it. So your

1:03:46

sort of relationship with God was very contingent

1:03:49

on the behavior of people who would

1:03:52

sort of associate themselves with being close

1:03:54

to his message. Listen,

1:03:57

I'm very happy to be completely open and honest.

1:03:59

I only went to see them because I

1:04:02

fancied their daughter. I went down there

1:04:04

because I was in love with their daughter. That

1:04:07

didn't work out. And I

1:04:10

stayed involved.

1:04:11

That's how I met my first

1:04:13

wife.

1:04:14

And to keep the peace, I

1:04:18

kept up this facade of a

1:04:21

believer in God. I look back

1:04:23

at some of the things I said,

1:04:25

and some of them very publicly, through

1:04:29

knitted hands now, through my fingers, because

1:04:33

I just think, what were you doing?

1:04:36

What were you doing? You didn't even

1:04:38

really believe what you were saying. What

1:04:41

were you doing?

1:04:42

Were you using your faith in a sporting

1:04:45

sense?

1:04:46

Was it something that you, were you praying

1:04:49

before playing and things

1:04:51

like that? Or was it, how do you

1:04:53

find yourself

1:04:54

in too deep to something that you weren't quite sure

1:04:57

to get out of?

1:04:58

Yeah, completely. Yeah, I completely found myself

1:05:01

in too deep. You know, I'd met this

1:05:03

girl, married her, was entrenched in her

1:05:05

family, entrenched with the church. People

1:05:09

knew me in the sporting context as the

1:05:11

born again Christian snooker player. There

1:05:13

were stories written about me giving 10% of

1:05:15

my winnings to the church, all

1:05:17

of this, that and the other.

1:05:19

And deep down, I'm thinking, yeah,

1:05:22

you know, this

1:05:24

isn't me. This isn't, how

1:05:26

have I got myself in so deep?

1:05:29

I'm now in too far.

1:05:31

I can't get out of this. I can't get out. That

1:05:34

must have been such a stressful place

1:05:36

to be. Because I think

1:05:38

for a lot of people,

1:05:40

they, especially in Britain,

1:05:43

if you have a religious faith, you kind of keep

1:05:45

quiet about it, because, you know, it's

1:05:47

always, it reminds me of that tense moment, whenever

1:05:50

Jonathan Edwards was interviewed on the track

1:05:52

side of the Olympics, you'd have

1:05:54

the interviewer just sort of tensing up for the

1:05:56

moment at which he thanked God.

1:05:59

it sort of made always made me smile. But

1:06:02

that's a very British thing.

1:06:04

Whereas in America, you know, first

1:06:07

thing, thank God for the, for

1:06:09

everything, you know,

1:06:10

genoflect on the,

1:06:12

on the basketball court or whatever it is, but we

1:06:15

just don't have that sort of culture over

1:06:17

here. So

1:06:18

to find yourself sort of publicly

1:06:21

the

1:06:21

Christian,

1:06:24

whereas personally, you

1:06:26

didn't feel necessarily that represented

1:06:28

you must have been really, really

1:06:31

stressful. Yeah, I mean, you know, I lived a lie

1:06:33

like, you know, it wasn't it wasn't

1:06:35

real. But I was but it just

1:06:37

couldn't get out of it.

1:06:38

The timeline is important. You know, I wasn't

1:06:41

really going to a church of my own, I used to dabble

1:06:43

in one in the earth in a well in Bar area. And

1:06:46

then when I met this girl, Claire,

1:06:47

she was fully entrenched in the church. And it

1:06:49

became very clear very early that unless

1:06:52

I was as equally into it as she

1:06:54

was, the relationship could go no further.

1:06:56

You know, that was, you know, people who've been brought

1:06:58

up in that world,

1:07:00

you know, they're very, they, I think in

1:07:02

the, they, they quote a phrase from the

1:07:04

Bible about being unequally yoked with

1:07:06

people,

1:07:07

or, you know, not being unequally

1:07:09

yoked. And they take that to mean

1:07:11

that, you know, if you're a Christian, you have to

1:07:13

go out with another Christian, you can't go out with someone

1:07:16

who's not.

1:07:16

And that would be like the worst thing

1:07:18

in the world. So, you know, I kind of, you

1:07:21

get this list of things from her that you go, well,

1:07:23

you know, you need to be a B and C. And I thought,

1:07:25

well, I better be I'm not a, but I can be B

1:07:27

and C, and I'll try and be

1:07:29

a.

1:07:30

And before you know it, you know, that you've gone from

1:07:32

complete anonymity, don't forget along that

1:07:35

journey, you know, I'd never won a thing in Snooker, I was a complete

1:07:37

nobody in Snooker terms.

1:07:39

And then I won the world championship out

1:07:41

of nowhere.

1:07:44

And when, and as I say, went from complete anonymity

1:07:46

to being recognized everywhere in the UK.

1:07:49

So now you're famous and a famous Christian. Yeah,

1:07:52

and the church, the church very

1:07:54

quickly piled it on to me to say, that's

1:07:57

great. Congratulations. It's incredible,

1:07:59

blah, blah, blah.

1:07:59

You now have a responsibility to, you

1:08:03

are now one of our most recognizable,

1:08:05

almost foot soldiers. Go out,

1:08:08

spread the word, give the message,

1:08:11

make sure everyone knows that you go to church,

1:08:13

make sure everyone knows this is your chance

1:08:15

to do God's work.

1:08:18

And I'm there thinking, like,

1:08:21

how have I found myself in this? You

1:08:23

know, how have I got here? How have I ended

1:08:25

up in this position? I don't want any of this responsibility.

1:08:28

I just want to play snooker.

1:08:30

I don't want to do this. But

1:08:33

if I don't, you know, next time I'm in the next time

1:08:35

I'm being interviewed by Ray Stubbs, as it was

1:08:37

then, or then Hazel Irving, or whoever

1:08:40

it might be on IT or whatever, the next time I'm

1:08:42

there and I don't thank God or I don't praise

1:08:44

Jesus or I don't say this or I don't say that,

1:08:47

or I don't do the interview with the lady

1:08:49

from the Times and explain

1:08:51

that, you know, we tithe as a family and give 10

1:08:54

percent. The church are going to think that I'm

1:08:56

embarrassed. I'm

1:08:59

going to face these people every week at church. The

1:09:01

pastor is going to ask me why I didn't mention A, B and

1:09:03

C. And did the pastor used to ask

1:09:05

you if you didn't? Yeah, it was very,

1:09:07

very, it was very, very clear when we used to,

1:09:10

you know, there were very, very clear intent

1:09:12

on

1:09:13

how people in the church should mix

1:09:15

with people in the world, as they would

1:09:18

put it, as they used to call it.

1:09:20

And as I say, somebody, you

1:09:22

know, I was fairly high profile as a young man.

1:09:25

It was just a given that I would use

1:09:27

my platform

1:09:28

for the glory of God as

1:09:31

they saw it. Meanwhile, I'm in my own

1:09:33

brain thinking, you know, I'm not really sure I even

1:09:35

believe in God. I'm not even sure I even

1:09:37

believe this. I don't really want any of

1:09:39

this pressure from the church. I just want to get on with my next

1:09:42

thing. I'm in a BBC interview and I've said something

1:09:44

and

1:09:45

now I can't climb down for it. Now

1:09:47

I can't backtrack because I've said it and

1:09:50

I've gone home and I've told somebody in the family that

1:09:52

if they don't repent, they're going to go to hell and all

1:09:54

that. And you find yourself saying all

1:09:56

these things,

1:09:58

thinking, what, what am I doing?

1:09:59

doing?

1:10:00

What am I saying? And

1:10:03

when I came out of that, we separated in 08.

1:10:07

When I came out of that, it was like coming out of a coma.

1:10:10

It was like someone coming out of a coma, going

1:10:14

where have those last four years gone? What

1:10:16

happened there?

1:10:18

How many bridges did I burn? It

1:10:20

was incredible.

1:10:22

And it's so funny because even now,

1:10:25

every year we have, barely

1:10:27

am I to say. For clarity, I

1:10:30

have no faith in any religion anymore. I've got

1:10:32

no interest in it whatsoever.

1:10:37

But it follows me around. There's no escape.

1:10:39

I can't get away from it. And we have this event, the shootout

1:10:41

every year, where the crowd are much more boisterous than

1:10:44

they are anywhere else. It's

1:10:46

a great event, but they always have theme tunes

1:10:48

and sing-alongs for the players. And I walked

1:10:50

out this season and played in it. And the song went

1:10:53

something about Murphy loves

1:10:55

to play on the

1:10:57

bays while watching songs of praise or

1:10:59

something like

1:11:01

that. So there is no escaping this.

1:11:04

I don't know. I don't know how to get the message

1:11:06

out there, but

1:11:07

I can't do it. Who

1:11:10

would have thought that God's work was coming

1:11:12

back from 10.6 down against Peter

1:11:14

Ebbden and an absolute nail-biter? Yeah, I

1:11:16

know. Who knew he would be so interested?

1:11:19

Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't

1:11:22

want to put my cards on the table, but

1:11:24

there are a few times watching Ronnie when I've thought,

1:11:26

you know what, maybe there is a God. Yeah,

1:11:29

yeah. Yeah,

1:11:31

some of the things he does on the table are a joke.

1:11:33

Like, I mean, you know, it's

1:11:36

well publicised that, you know, we're not the best

1:11:38

of bedfellows.

1:11:39

You know, we're not on each other's Christmas card

1:11:41

list, that's for sure. But

1:11:43

like watching it, watching, you know, as

1:11:45

a player,

1:11:47

some of the things

1:11:49

he does are just mind-blowing

1:11:53

the skill. There's also stuff he does off the

1:11:55

table, which is a joke as well. Yeah,

1:11:57

well, I'm certainly fit.

1:11:59

I'm fit to talk about the

1:12:02

things he does on the table. Yeah. I

1:12:05

wonder if maybe you could share

1:12:07

some advice for people

1:12:10

struggling with their weight and their thinking around

1:12:12

food. Because like we said, really

1:12:15

is important to say that

1:12:17

not everyone who is

1:12:19

overweight is unhappy or has an issue with food

1:12:21

at all and can be perfectly fit

1:12:23

and healthy. But for someone

1:12:26

who is thinking, food is my thing,

1:12:29

what would you say to them for managing

1:12:31

it? And maybe some things to avoid as well. I

1:12:36

would really hammer home what you've

1:12:38

just said there a minute ago is that

1:12:40

just because you're overweight doesn't mean you've

1:12:43

got a problem,

1:12:44

so to speak. But

1:12:49

if you do feel that you're struggling, if

1:12:51

you are considering going to seek help

1:12:55

for weight loss, be it a weight

1:12:57

loss club or a

1:13:00

particular, whatever it might be, or indeed

1:13:02

surgery like I've had,

1:13:03

I

1:13:05

think it's important to remember that no

1:13:07

matter how loudly or darkly that voice

1:13:09

in your head shouts, you are still

1:13:11

in control.

1:13:13

And there was, I can't remember

1:13:16

the specific moment for me, but there would have been

1:13:18

a moment where I remembered that

1:13:20

actually I was in control of

1:13:22

this, of where this journey was going.

1:13:24

I wasn't subject and

1:13:27

powerless to this addiction. I

1:13:29

was actually in control of it.

1:13:31

And I went through

1:13:33

my list of what I thought I could do.

1:13:36

I wasn't able to do them. And in the end, opted

1:13:38

for surgery. Now that's extreme, it's irreversible,

1:13:41

but it has saved my life.

1:13:43

And I suppose I would

1:13:45

try and really advise people out there that

1:13:49

remember that you are in control, even

1:13:52

in the darkest of moments, that

1:13:54

you are actually in control. And

1:13:57

ultimately, that you, You

1:14:00

can, if you find yourself at a lower,

1:14:02

an ebb as I was at, if you find yourself

1:14:05

needing to do something extreme about it,

1:14:08

you can do something about it. Even

1:14:11

in the darkest moments, you

1:14:13

can do something about it. Well, Sean

1:14:16

Murphy, thank you so much for giving us your time

1:14:18

today. It's been a fantastic conversation

1:14:21

and we thank you for being so candid

1:14:23

about your journey. Pleasure guys. Thanks

1:14:26

for having me on. Thank you very much, Sean.

1:14:31

Thank you for listening to our chat with Sean Murphy.

1:14:33

Remember, if you've been affected by anything you've heard

1:14:35

throughout this episode, there's more information and support

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at bbc.co.uk forward

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slash action line. Remember to subscribe

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1:14:49

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