Conor McGregor's coach John Kavanagh recently gave a talk at the Royal College of Surgeons regarding injury prevention and safety in MMA.
During the talk he relayed an anecdote from seven or eight years ago. Conor McGregor had not been seen in the gym for months and the featherweight's mother asked Kavanagh to give him a call.
From the Irish Mirror:
I remember calling up to his house that day. I hadn’t seen him in weeks or even months at this stage.
He was about 18 or 19.
I basically gave him an ultimatum, you're in the gym on Monday or your fighting career is over. Maybe I was a little bit over dramatic with it but I could see how people could slip down that road.
So we just had a good chat and in fairness to him, step one is admitting there is an issue and he did that, that day.
On Monday he showed up in the gym.
So that’s how it’s changed his life. Thankfully he did it.
This is something that Conor has spoken about previously in an interview with Setanta.
During the Setanta interview he also spoke about how he almost quit shortly before he was signed by the UFC (around the 10:10 mark of the video.)
