So it appears that Dele Alli had a choice. Either allow his career to drift quietly away on a tide of perceived indifference or very real unhappiness or confront the issues that are threatening to ruin his life for good.
Alli, still a young man at the age of 27, has taken the hard route and there will very many people in football who are relieved about that.
Alli's meeting with Gary Neville in a TV studio at times plays less like an interview and more like a confessional, a release of sorrow.
It's like the opening of a locked door and now, as a result, the grim secrets of Alli's life are out. The abuse, the addictions, the mental horrors. The sheer misery of it all.
We will look at Alli with different eyes now and, above all, hope for his recovery.
We will hope for a return to the football field, too, but that is secondary. Firstly, we will wish him some stability and some happiness.
Alli's revelation on Neville's Overlap show that he was abused as a child will have struck those who know him more deeply than we can really imagine.
At MK Dons and at Tottenham in particular, there is a fondness for him that has long endured.
His issues with sleeping pills, meanwhile, have been talked about within football for a while. Issues around medical confidentiality quite rightly prevented their disclosure.
But, like any addict, he has been faced with a dilemma. Ignore his problems, pretend they aren't real and, in doing so, allow them to slowly lead him down a dark hole from which it can be desperately difficult to escape.
Or face them, tackle them and try to beat them.
That battle will, we imagine, go on. But self-awareness underpins it all and as such it may be that round one is already won. Alli has started treatment and that may yet
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