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Calum Best opens up about dealing with his late father’s alcoholism: ‘I felt alone and confused’

Calum Best has opened up about dealing with his late father’s addiction to alcohol.

The reality star’s father was former Manchester United footballer George Best, who died in 2005 from multiple organ failure, aged 59.

It’s no secret that George suffered from alcoholism for the majority of his life, and now his son is patron of Nacoa (National Association for Children of Alcoholics).

Speaking on Good Morning Britain about his own experience, Calum said his goal is to help other children out there know that they’re “not alone”.

Calum said: “It’s a tough battle, it’s a huge battle here in the UK, that’s why I speak a lot about it. A lot of my focus is to aim at children of alcoholics, and for me it has been a big motivation over the past few years.”

“I have teamed up with a lot of charities that deal with children of alcoholics and my goal is to let the kids know that they’re not alone, and to try and provide them with tools to help them come out of a dark place.”

Looking back, the 38-year-old said he didn’t understand the severity of his father’s illness when he was growing up.

He said: “You don’t really know when you’re young. You’re trying to figure out where you stand and what it is. There’s a lot of anger because you think, why is that going on and it’s not being focused here?”

 

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“But then as you learn more – and that was a big thing for me, to learn more about what it was and how it affected people – you realise alcohol dependency, if you’re there with your loved one and you say, don’t do this, the alcohol is telling their brain that they’re not giving you the best advice, come and we’ll show you the right way.”

“It can really affect you and if you don’t open up and speak about it and find ways to help yourself it can affect you long term down the line.”

Calum also spoke about his struggle to open up about his dad’s issues, as his late father’s fans don’t like to discuss his alcoholism.

“I have found that people only want to hold [him] at this iconic level of ‘hero’,” he said. “So if you speak about the alcohol side sometimes people don’t like that.”

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“But it’s more important to me – I am proud to be my dad’s son without a doubt – but it is more important to me with the platform I have and the situation I went through to be able to advise people that might be in the same situation.

“I felt alone, I felt confused, I felt disturbed, then all of a sudden, you say hold on, I have a few answers here. And as you get older you realise you have got to pass on this message, you have got to try and help other people do the same thing,” he added.

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