{"id":11267,"date":"2018-07-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/uncategorized\/ryan-fitzgerald-s-shock-confession-about-hitting-rock-bottom-2\/"},"modified":"2018-07-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T00:00:00","slug":"ryan-fitzgerald-s-shock-confession-about-hitting-rock-bottom-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.fiveaa.com.au\/news\/ryan-fitzgerald-s-shock-confession-about-hitting-rock-bottom-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Fitzgerald\u2019s SHOCK Confession About Hitting Rock Bottom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former AFL player now media star and FIVEAA regular <strong>Ryan Fitzgerald<\/strong> has revealed he nearly turned to dealing drugs to make ends meet when his AFL career ended prematurely.<\/p>\n<blockquote><h3>\u201cFooty was everything in my life and it was then it\u2019s over,\u201d Fitzy has told Fox Footy\u2019s BOB program.<\/h3>\n<h3>\u201cI left AFL with a mortgage, I had a house. I even got to the point where I pulled mum aside one day &#8212; it was full on &#8212; I said to Mum: \u2018I\u2019m struggling to pay the mortgage\u2019.<\/h3>\n<h3>\u201cI told her I\u2019m going to get some of my mates just to start frickin\u2019 growing weed for me, just to get by.<\/h3>\n<h3>\u201cMum broke down and I remember I grabbed her hand and I was just shattered and I said \u2018I\u2019m so sorry\u2019.\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Fitzy also admitted during the raw interview that he had blown large amounts of money gambling.<\/p>\n<blockquote><h3>\u201cMy old man was devastated by that, because he hates gambling,\u201d Ryan said.<\/h3>\n<h3>\u201cIt was the environment. Back in those days, there was a lot of down time between training sessions and in the Swans, (the) majority of blokes would go down the pub and just have a punt.<\/h3>\n<h3>\u201cFor me, it was you get to hang out with some of these senior blokes going \u2018this is amazing\u2019.\u201d<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;I even got to the point where I pulled mum aside one day \u2014 it was full on \u2014 I said to Mum: \u2018I\u2019m struggling to pay the mortgage\u2019.&quot;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FitzySA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@FitzySA<\/a> opens up to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BobMurphy02?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@BobMurphy02<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FOXFOOTY?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@FOXFOOTY<\/a>&#39;s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BOB?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#BOB<\/a>: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ma9vKMFdzr\">https:\/\/t.co\/Ma9vKMFdzr<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gVk1mmi6RQ\">pic.twitter.com\/gVk1mmi6RQ<\/a><\/p>&mdash; FOX FOOTY LIVE (@FOXFootyLive) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FOXFootyLive\/status\/1021885191378194433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 24, 2018<\/a><\/blockquote>&#13;\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former AFL player now media star and FIVEAA regular Ryan Fitzgerald has revealed he nearly turned to dealing drugs to make ends meet when his AFL career ended prematurely. \u201cFooty was everything in my life and it was then it\u2019s over,\u201d Fitzy has told Fox Footy\u2019s BOB program. \u201cI left AFL with a mortgage, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[],"geo_market":[],"class_list":["post-11267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - 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