BERLIN, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Tennis player Boris Becker has admitted to having a lengthy addiction to sleeping pills swallowed with whiskey, the Times of London reported Wednesday.
Becker, 35, once regarded as a model for German youth, said he was in a drugged haze when he played and lost the 1990 Wimbledon final against Stefan Edberg.
Becker's problems began in 1987, he said. "There were planum pills against insomnia, some other pills against pain and against loneliness, there were women, whisky or both," Becker said.
Becker became the spokesman for a liberal young generation that abhorred neo-Nazis and racism. And he figured strongly in the "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign.
In his book, "Stay A Moment Longer," he describes how his marriage to American Barbara Feltus collapsed after a series of well-publicized affairs, including a very short encounter in a closet of a London restaurant, which resulted in the birth of his daughter, Anna.
