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American soccer icon Abby Wambach revealed her recent off-the-field accomplishments outweigh anything she achieved during her legendary playing career.
Wambach, 45, celebrated her ninth year of being sober in April, which she candidly discussed in an exclusive interview with Us Weekly.
“Having the gift of sobriety and to maintain that is really hard, because I have been so lucky to win championships and have incredible experiences,” Wambach told Us at the 3rd annual US Women’s National Team Players Association Players Ball in Los Angeles on Tuesday, July 15. “Those have been amazing moments, but to be able to maintain my sobriety over these nine years feels like even more incredible to me and more of a win than any of those championships.”
She added, “Yeah, they were fun, but this one saved my own life.”
Wambach, who retired from professional soccer in 2015 and still holds the record for most career goals by a member of the American women’s national team, admitted she knew it was time for a lifestyle change as her playing days began to wane.
“A lot of my teammates knew that I was suffering and struggling with alcohol towards the end of my career, in a lot of ways, because I was scared s***less to retire, and I didn’t know what I was going to do,” she said. “I was going through a divorce and couldn’t manage all that was happening at the same time.”
Wambach got divorced from Sarah Hoffman in 2016 before marrying wife Glennon Doyle in 2017, who she credits with being a support system during her sobriety journey.
“We have an incredible amount of respect for each other,” Wambach said of Doyle, 49, an author who has written bestselling books like Untamed. “She is a very different person than me. The way that we think about the world and see the world in some ways is very different, but in the most important ways, it’s the same. We have really decided to build a life together.”
Wambach and Doyle are coparents to Doyle’s three children — Chase, 22, Tish, 19, and Amma, 17 — who Doyle shares with her ex husband, Craig Melton. The couple also cohost the podcast “We Can Do Hard Things” with Doyle’s sister, Amanda Doyle.
“We work together, we have kids together,” Wambach detailed. “We obviously live together. We spend a lot of time together. I mean, it’s perfect for us lesbians. We love to talk about everything.”
She added, “I think that she is the smartest person I’ve ever met, and I’m not an idiot. I feel like my time on the national team was spent putting people that were better around me, that would just make me look good too, right? I think that I’ve done that in my marriage. I’ve married somebody who makes me want to be a better person. She really does value trying to make the world better, as do I. She’s just the freakin’ best. I love her so much.”
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