AFL great Ben Cousins makes sad admission about ‘overnight’ drug addiction

AFL great Ben Cousins insists he is lucky.

Despite the well-documented challenges with a drug addiction that took him to some very dark places, Cousins says he received fantastic support on his road to recovery that has helped him get his life back on track.

In a candid interview with Brownlow medallist and Collingwood premiership player Tom Mitchell, Mitchell asked Cousins about his life in the fishbowl and the challenges that presented during his playing days.

“Basically from the beginning of my career, certainly the first 12 months when I was at West Coast, things happened really quickly,” Cousins said on the Ball Magnets podcast.

“I think I was under more scrutiny, particularly in Perth, my profile, it seemed a bit out of whack for a long time because I had only just stepped into playing.”

Mitchell noted that Cousins — the 2005 Brownlow medallist — was captain of the club at a “pretty young” age, too.

“Yeah, things like that,” Cousins said. “It all happened very quickly.

“Right from the beginning I had to learn how to cope with it. At times, when things hadn’t been going well, it might have added a bit of extra stress.”

But Cousins stressed that the industry had been good to him through some dark patches.

“I don’t sit here in anyway with a chip on my shoulder,” he said.

“It’s quite the opposite actually. I’ve been lucky. Probably the luckiest person I know, to be honest.”

The 46-year-old also spoke about the highs of his 2006 premiership success, his obsessive training methods, the lows of his life while in the midst of addiction, and how his issues manifested.

“It can happen so easily ... early in my career, I really embraced the concept of hard work,” Cousins said.

“There were some things about my nature or personality that predisposed me to feeling like I need an escape or to get away.”

Suggesting that the footy industry makes you want to feel that way, Cousins mentioned that at the beginning of his career, he would really only entertain the odd night out drinking.

“But pretty quickly, for me, that didn’t quite hit the spot,” he said.

“It was taking something (drugs) and it happened basically overnight.”

He added that as his performance improved year in, year out, it reinforced his off-field habits.

“It made me feel like some of the things I was doing weren’t necessarily bad for me but were working in my favour,” he admitted.

However, he acknowledged that in the “big picture” it wasn’t the case, and everything was actually unravelling for him.

He also warned younger players who were thrust into the limelight and how their family and friends can react to potential warning signs.

“If I had my time over again, I would’ve liked to have just sat down with somebody with whom I could nut out a few possible alternative ways of getting the same release but more healthily,” he said.

“It’s really easy to say that now, isn’t it?” Mitchell chimed in, to which Cousins replied: “With resources today, it should make it more apparent that there are other ways to go about it”.

It comes after West Coast young gun Harley Reid said he was honoured to carry on the rich legacy of the Eagles’ No.9 as his star reaches dizzying heights after a brilliant debut campaign.

The young midfielder from Tongala in country Victoria has taken the AFL by storm, becoming the face of the Eagles’ rebuild and revitalising hope in the fanbase.

The generational talent was taken at pick No.1 in last year’s draft and the Eagles presented him with a guernsey that has seen plenty of talent in the past.

“The history behind it is obviously huge, and it’s an honour to have that number on my back, and I think to have Nic Naitanui present my jumper and then turn it around was a pretty cool moment on draft night,” Reid told Channel 7’s The Front Bar.

“I was so honoured to take on the No.9, and you look at the locker, and you’ve got Peter Wilson, Ben Cousins and Nic Nat.”

With all of that talent and hype, the 19-year-old has faced plenty of attention on and off the field, gracing the back page of The West Australian more than 30 times in his first year as an AFL footballer.

But West Coast legend Cousins, who also made an appearance on The Front Bar alongside Naitanui, said Reid had handled the intense spotlight with aplomb.

“We haven’t seen something in Perth like what Harley’s experienced in the 12 months that he’s been there,” Cousins said.

“The strike rate on the back page and the scrutiny he’s been under has been a lot for a young kid to take on, but he has shown that he’s mature beyond his years, and he’s been able to play good footy, which is a credit to him.

“It’s been fantastic to see him in the short time that he’s been there make the number his own, and he’s got a huge future.”

- With PerthNow