JAMIE O'HARA: I've been where Dele Alli is... he CAN get through it

When I saw that picture of Dele Alli, an alarm bell started to go off in my head.

I've been somewhere close to there before and I want to tell Dele: there is a life after this darkness. I also want to say this. Call it a rallying cry:

When it's gone, it's gone. Your legs have gone, your flexibility is gone. There is no way back. You might have money to last forever, but you don't have your career.

You have been blessed with a talent, don't give it up, Dele. Get fit, visualise being on that pitch again, creating magic. You can get there. No regrets!

Like Dele, I too was 27 years old and I was feeling cast aside. That's so young, too early. You think you can play forever.

Series 19 of Celebrity Big Brother had finished, there were bad influences within my circle of 'friends'. I was being advised to see how often I could get myself onto the showbiz pages of MailOnline. That's how they counted success. And I was addicted to a fake lifestyle.

I was lost, depressed. It was dangerous.

Dele Alli has achieved a lot more than I did in my professional career, but he also has a lot more to lose.

He needs to find a way out. He needs to find a way to play again once he is fit. He needs to get himself somewhere where he can enjoy waking up for work again.

I ended up playing non-league at Billericay and it saved me. It wasn't about the money, I just needed to love having a ball at my feet again. I needed to smell the fresh cut grass. I needed to play.

I started by getting help, taking action and talking to people. There was nowhere else to hide.

The Sporting Chance clinic were brilliant for me.

I had a therapist and psychologist and they taught me visualisation techniques. They provided space for me to talk about the trauma of losing my mum as a child. They showed me that I was not alone. I thank them for all that they did for me.

At the heart of it was the need to play football and to find a safe place for myself.

Yes, people ripped it out of me. I was the 'failed, washed up footballer', but it saved me. Playing made me happy.

He isn't playing. Spurs let him go, Everton didn't play him much, so he went to Besiktas and that hasn't worked out, either. Now he is injured and seeing out the season.

That feeling of being cast out, I know. In 2014, I was not allowed to train with the Wolves first team, be in the dressing room or even communicate with team-mates. I had to train alone.

I had money. I was being paid £25,000-a-week, but that didn't matter. I would finish training alone at 3pm and my moods were so dark, I would sometimes pick a bridge on the M6 and think about driving into it.

I was going off the rails and I needed to find my buzz elsewhere.

That's where lots of professional footballers seek the adrenalin rush they fear they cannot replace from a life on the pitch; they try different methods to recreate the highs. They are lured to risk and jeopardy, such as the dangers of substances.

For me, getting back my love of football, the combination of playing and discovering a new career in the media, working for talkSPORT and Sky, gave me a different focus and I am grateful for that, I needed it.

I hope Dele is in a better place than I was and I hope that photograph is a misrepresentation of where he is now. I hope too that he can find his way back. He was some player.

Jamie O'Hara presents The Saturday phone-in on talkSPORT (5.30-730) and The Sports Bar