Matt Lawrence, the former Millwall captain who played in the 2004 FA Cup final, has spoken publicly about surviving two near-fatal drug overdoses in New York in March 2021. Lawrence said cocaine he bought was laced with fentanyl, causing him to stop breathing on two occasions within four days. He was revived both times.Now 52, Lawrence has been sober since August 2025 and is sharing his story for the first time. He spent 16 years as a professional footballer, with his career including spells at Wycombe Wanderers, Fulham, Millwall, Crystal Palace and Gillingham. He later moved to the United States.
Who is Matt Lawrence?
Matt Lawrence is a former English professional footballer who played primarily in defence. His career included six years at Millwall, where he became captain and helped the club reach its first FA Cup final in 2004.Millwall faced Manchester United at the Millennium Stadium that year. Lawrence walked out as captain alongside Roy Keane. Manchester United won 3-0, with Cristiano Ronaldo among the scorers.After retiring from football, Lawrence struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction.His most serious episodes happened in New York in March 2021. On March 17, he took cocaine that had been contaminated with fentanyl. He collapsed in Manhattan and stopped breathing.Emergency responders administered Narcan, the brand name for naloxone, which reverses the effects of opioids. Lawrence was taken to hospital and survived.Four days later, another overdose nearly killed him. He had taken more cocaine from the same batch. This time, he collapsed inside a bar and stopped breathing again. A priest reportedly gave him the last rites.Lawrence described how his addiction had changed his view of the danger.“It’s scary how I came to normalise everything. Normalised buying drugs, which is illegal. Normalised being an angry person because that’s what drugs do. They make you snappy and argumentative. I managed to normalise dying because I came out of hospital and didn’t stop. I normalised dying twice in the space of four days”, Lawrence told Daily Mail Sport.He later returned to cocaine despite surviving the overdoses. He said he fell back into drug use within six months and his intake became worse.“I fell back into it within six months, and fell back even deeper. I didn’t die again but my drug intake and frequency got worse. I regret all of that. What it did to me financially, what it did to me domestically and what it did to me professionally. I thought I was living my life and getting away with it, but I was out of control”, he said.“I was incredibly depressed. Spending days in tears doing drugs and days in tears not doing drugs. Miserable and upset. My girlfriend and I sat across the dinner table last August, and she just said: ‘You have to stop, you can’t do this anymore’I am sober as we speak today, I’ll be sober for the rest of today and tomorrow”, he continued.August 10, 2025 became Lawrence’s first day of sobriety. Since then, he has focused on his family, work and football. He is also writing his autobiography himself.