Former U.S. soccer star Abby Wambach decided to get sober following her 2016 DUI arrest, and she’s looking back on the scandal in a new interview.
Wambach, 44, admitted during the Wednesday, May 7, episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that her drinking and prescription pill usage was “out of control” leading up to her retirement from professional soccer. (Wambach announced her retirement in October 2015.)
“Then, I [got] a DUI, and that was the most important thing that ever happened to me,” she admitted. “I get a DUI, my mugshot is on the ESPN ticker for seven straight days. It was the thing that woke me up and I was like. ‘Whoa my life is way worse because of alcohol.’”
Wambach has “not had a drink” since the night she got arrested in April 2016.
The Portland Police Department confirmed at the time that Wambach was arrested and charged after she was pulled over for running a red light. She subsequently failed a breathalyzer test. Wambach apologized following her arrest and eventually pleaded guilty and agreed to enroll in a diversion program. Wambach was ordered to complete a drug and alcohol program and install an ignition interlock device (IID), which requires drivers to complete a breathalyzer before starting the vehicle.
Wambach said during Wednesday’s podcast that her US Women’s National Team (USWNT) teammates “were worried” about her in the months leading up to her arrest.
“One of them got the phone call that I got arrested, from a friend, or a text, ‘Did you hear about Abby,’ and they thought that I died,” she recalled. “That was their first thought, that Abby got in an accident or something happened, she’s dead.”
Wambach continued, “I wasn’t far off from that happening. I feel very lucky that I’m still here.”
The former athlete noted that her status as a veteran on the USWNT didn’t do any favors.
“I think that there was this element of, Abby’s gonna be fine, she’ll take care of it,” she added. “It definitely has changed a lot of my relationships and friendships from that time. I had to create a whole different life for myself.”
However, Wambach has no regrets about the choices she’s made.
“Everything really powerfully good in my life has happened in my sobriety, and I won gold medals as a high functioning alcoholic,” she said elsewhere in the podcast. “I was just really kind of suffering not knowing if I was doing life right.”
Elsewhere during the podcast, Wambach and wife Glennon Doyle opened up about the highs and lows in their relationship after nearly 10 years.
“We’ve gone through ups and downs of feeling really connected and so in line and so on the same page, then stuff happens,” Wambach said. “People die, diagnoses happen, and it forces you away from this homeostasis line, in a way.”
She noted that “living at the high” point is just not “sustainable” for a long-term romance.
“That happens for the first couple of years and you’re just, like, infatuated with each other,” Wambach continued. “But then you fall into a sense of loving, of complete partnership and intimacy.”
