Vinnie Jones - Its Been Emotional

Also by Vinnie Jones

Vinnie: The Autobiography

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2013
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright 2013 by Vinnie Jones Enterprises, Inc

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.

The right of Vinnie Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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The author and publishers have made all reasonable efforts to contact copyright-holders for permission, and apologise for any omissions or errors in the form of credits given. Corrections may be made to future printings.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47112-758-8
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47112-932-2
EBook ISBN: 978-1-47112-760-1

Typeset in the UK by M Rules
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

I dedicate this book to my awesome, beautiful wife Tanya, for being my rock always.

My two great children, Aaron and Kaley, for always having the best smiles. And to my manager, Alex Cole, and Jeff Schwartz, thanks for your loyalty towards myself and my family in Los Angeles.

There is a recurring theme in my life.

Things are good, everyone is happy then I go and shoot myself in the foot.

I must be the only person who wasnt lifted by the Olympic spirit in 2012. I should have been I love sport and consider myself a proud Brit flying the flag for Queen and country overseas.

But I associate the Olympics with one of the worst summers of my life: in 1972. I was grounded for the entire summer by my old man when the police turned up on my doorstep pointing a finger at me when I was only eleven years old. Two of my best pals and I had found a rifle in the woods near my house in Bushey. I had gone rummaging around in my dads office, where I wasnt supposed to go, looking for ammunition. I found some cartridges, which almost fitted, and off we went to the end of the garden to try out our new weapon. We were firing these bullets at pigeons, taking it in turns to have pot shots, totally oblivious of the distance the bullets would go. A bloke down the road had been out in his garden while we were firing the gun and the bullets were smacking off his roof and raining down on him. He called the police, knowing fine well who was responsible, and, the next thing we knew, the long arm of the law was making its first inquiries with Vincent Peter Jones.

My dad asked if I was responsible, and I made my first really big mistake with him: I lied. Had I come clean, it might have been a different story, but I tried to wriggle out. He gave me a proper hiding something you would never get away with in this day and age. He leathered me, and grounded me for the entire summer. I couldnt play football with the lads and I just stayed in and watched the Munich Olympics on TV. I sickened myself with it and it has only ever reminded me of bad times. London 2012 brought it all flooding back even after all these years. I had a dream setup where we were living and I spoiled it for myself by being a little rascal.

In my teenage years I ended up dossing on sofas with all my possessions in a black bin liner, falling out with people and then moving on. I found it hard to settle, always upping sticks after some confrontation or other where everything would explode with fists flying and fingers being pointed in my direction.

Then there was the football career with the discipline issues, biting a journalist on the nose, air rage, trouble with my neighbours and giving Paul Gascoigne Gazza a friendly squeeze, among all sorts of other scrapes. Some serious, some silly.

Since I moved to Hollywood, the highs have been incredible but, as has always been the case, my own actions have led to some devastating lows.

Guy Ritchie directed my first film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and he once told me a great story when he got into the whole Kabbalah religion thing.

Dont get me wrong: Im not signed up or a practising member or anything. But he explained a principle that has given a discipline to my life over the last year or so.

It was about dogs.

Guy said, Right, VJ, I aint going to sit here and preach about Kabbalah youre the last person on the planet I would do that to. But theres one thing I want you to think about.

He explained that, according to Kabbalah teachings, we all have a dog corresponding to our personality.

It sounds a bit off the wall, but it makes perfect sense when you think about it. Ive always said in life weve got devils and angels the devil on one shoulder, always urging you to go and have one more drink (Just one more. It wont hurt!), and the angel on the other shoulder saying, Go home. Get your head down and behave, Vin.

So Guy said to me weve all got this dog but mine just happens to be a really big bastard. A big, angry bastard at that, one I should have spent more time understanding how to keep under control.

As you will read in this book, I seem to do so well, then suddenly I will destroy myself.

There have been too many moments in my life when the dog has been controlling me. There is no excuse for a grown man to wake up handcuffed to a hospital bed. It has taken me to this point in my life, at forty-eight years old, to realise that I need to control the dog that lands me in hot water.

I cant tolerate that shit any more, or ending up in the nick with my head in my hands over some drama that puts my family through the mill. There have been spells where I thought I have had the dog well and truly tamed, but then Ill get complacent and hell come crashing out of the kennel, foaming at the mouth, biting anyone who gets in the way.

I was nearly blinded in a pub fight. That was horrendous for us all to go through. More recently, I was on the front page of the papers again for some business in Russia that rocked my marriage and my entire existence with my family.

So, as you read this, I have virtually given up drinking alcohol. Ive had enough of getting into a pickle.

Since the incident in Russia, I have come back to my home in California and I see a psychologist called Professor Victor Morton. For the first time, I am tackling head on the problems I have had all through my life.

Ive sat and talked my life through with this guy and much of what I told him is in this book. Hes not a shrink as far as Im concerned, a nutty geezer or an alcoholics guy. Hes the top professor at University of California, Los Angels (UCLA), a top psychologist I wouldnt be surprised if the most important people in California go to him. Ive been going to see him once a week for eight months at the time Im writing this, and weve got the dog at the back of the kennel.

For an alcoholic to combat his or her problems, he or she has to admit to his or her problems first. With me, Im acknowledging my demons.

Ive been trying to work out how much the breakup in my family at a really young age affected me. All those nights I was up listening to all the arguments at our house, Woodlands, in Bedmond; you dont ever forget that. It was a messy, messy divorce. I have been trying to detach myself from it because it was my dad Peter and mum Glendas relationship that went wrong. They loved my sister Ann and me very much, so why am I trying to be part of that anguish all these years later?