http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/article-2059132/Jonnys-battle-obsession-despair-Id-self-harm-scream-water.html
An extract from the book desribes how he was feeling at one part of his rugby career:
"This starts as a thought, a single negative notion. Yet the more I try to figure it out, the further away I am from an answer. I start sleeping terribly, three or four hours a night.'
Years later, Wilkinson was forced to take sleeping tablets, prescribed by Newcastle club doctor Graeme Wilkes, to help combat his insomnia, but even by the end of the 2002 summer he had reached breaking point.
'A sense of helplessness dominates my summer days,' he says. 'Everything feels pointless, and my natural reaction is to treat the problem as I do my kicking - right, work it out and stay here working it out until you have done so. But by focusing so intensely, I just make it worse.
'My obsessive side has truly kicked in. I get back from training one day with this darkness inhabiting my brain. I go up to the Slaley Hall Hotel. Usually, I use their pool to relax.
'This time, I make sure that no-one else is around, lower myself into the water until I'm completely submerged, and then I let out a scream of total frustration."
