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Mary Earps has lifted the lid on her battle with alcohol during lockdown, claiming the 'darkness consumed her'.
The controversial former Lionesses goalkeeper admits she became 'very lost' and 'unrecognisable' and even hid her struggles from her parents.
Earps, now 32 and retired from England duty, has hit the headlines recently for criticising rival stopper Hannah Hampton in her searingly honest autobiography.
And she delves deeper about 'drinking myself into oblivion' after being left out of Phil Neville's Lionesses squad on the eve of the Covid lockdown in All In: Football, Life and Learning to be Unapologetically Me (Bonnier Books, £22).
She turned to mixing Echo Falls Summer Berries Vodka with diet lemonade as a coping strategy as lockdown transformed the nation.
'The drinking obviously wasn’t a conscious choice, I think I just fell into some really negative coping strategies,' she admits, speaking about her memoir.
Mary Earps admits she felt 'very lost' as she turned to drinking over lockdown
She says she became 'unrecognisable' to herself during lockdown after being axed by England
'Lockdown was a scary time for everyone. I don’t think I necessarily handled it well, and it also coincided with a really difficult point in my career. I felt very alone, very lost.
'That person is unrecognisable to me now, the darkness consumed me at that time. But I don’t judge myself for that, I’m not upset with myself.
'I was hiding it from friends, they had no idea. I think a lot of people I know will read about that for the first time in the book – I don’t think my parents even know that.'
In her book, Earps writes that for two weeks straight, she consumed nothing but soup during the day and Echo Falls at night. The drinking was a 'very ugly' battle.
She even admits that she wonders if there was 'any point in me being here any longer' and she was 'piling on the pounds and annihilating my fitness'.
Earps has gone on to become an England legend, winning the 2022 European Championship and making 53 appearances.
But Earps' manager at Manchester United at the time, Casey Stoney, described in 2023 how the goalkeeper had been 'hurt deeply' when she was left out of Neville's squad.
After making her England debut under Mark Sampson in 2017, Earps travelled to the 2019 World Cup in France as Neville’s third-choice goalkeeper before being dropped completely.
Earps hit out at Hampton over her 'bad behaviour' in her new autobiography
Hampton was one of the heroes of Sarina Wiegman's side at the European Championship
Earps has revealed she is hopeful she and Wiegman can 'draw a line' under their controversy
And her frustrations around the national team are a major theme in the book as she also discusses the breakdown of her relationship with Hampton and Sarina Wiegman.
That led to her retiring just before the Euros over the summer, which England won in Switzerland with Hampton in goal.
In her book, she criticises Wiegman for 'rewarding bad behaviour' by recalling the previously dropped Hannah Hampton to the squad, as well as stating that there had been a 'clear lack of care for me and my welfare' by the England set-up prior to her being dropped.
Hampton went on to star for the Lionesses at the tournament in Switzerland, saving two penalties in the quarter-final shoot-out before repeating the feat in the final against Spain.
Earps, who plays for French club Paris Saint-Germain, remains hopeful of reconciliation with Wiegman.
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