Hope Solo is opening up about her April arrest for DWI, the roller coaster of emotions she felt and the lessons she learned.
On his Hope Solo Speaks podcast, the 41-year-old former Team USA soccer star said he felt “embarrassed” and “ashamed” after being arrested with his kids in a Walmart parking lot in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The car after the officers pulled him over.
“The reality of what it meant was horrifying. Embarrassment. Shame. Financial loss,” she said. “The idea to explain this to my kids came when they were old enough to search the Internet.”
Solo takes responsibility for his mistakes, and she knows that she has paid a high price.
“I let alcohol get the better of me in a decision that I would never be down,” she said. “A decision that has come at a great cost to me and my family.”
Solo said she had to “get to the bottom of why I found myself in that situation, the moment a police officer knocked on the window of my car.”
She volunteered to enter an inpatient alcohol treatment program to address her challenges with alcohol while awaiting legal repercussions and deal with international headlines, as well as joining the US soccer hall. His presence had to be cancelled. Of Fame Ceremony – “Feeling embarrassed on top of embarrassment.”
Solo — a two-time Olympic gold medalist and World Cup champion during the U.S. women’s national team race in the 2000s — also revealed that she had her first panic attack before entering herself on a 30-day treatment program. .
“Having my first panic attack had so many days and nights of crying uncontrollably,” she said. “The thought of giving myself up to leave my family behind was almost unbearable.”
But entering a treatment program is a decision she only made at a high cost. Before that, Solo says she didn’t think she had an alcohol problem, which she admitted to excessive consumption after her family moved from Washington to North Carolina at the height of the pandemic.
“We were both tired day after day,” she said. “Closing with a drink was nice and that’s exactly what we looked forward to doing and, well, gradually increasing the drinking. We found it reduced the stress of our daily lives and we felt we had to. We have a right to do so. We never drank and drove. We never went in public and we got up every morning to handle our business. I was foolish to think it was under my control.”
She also came across the issue of postpartum depression after initially ridiculing the notion. Solow said he looked at the definition and assessed himself that he did not fit the definition. Later, she says, she learned about the different levels of postpartum depression and sought help.
Last month, Solo pleaded guilty to DWI. Her attorney, Chris Clifton, reportedly stated that the remaining two charges (opposition of arrest and misdemeanor child abuse) were dismissed.
Following the petition, Solo issued a statement calling the unfortunate episode “easily the worst mistake of his life”.