Joe Williams: ‘I couldn’t stand the sight of myself’

JOE Williams took on everything that was thrown at him on the rugby league field. But he was hiding a painful secret — one that nearly killed him.

FORMER rugby league star Joe Williams always played hard, taking knock after knock on the field.

But the game-of-life tackles were much tougher. The ones he couldn’t outrun. The ones that almost ended his life.

At just 13, the Aboriginal boy from Wagga Wagga was feted as a rugby league protégée, snapped up and signed by the game’s legends Phil Gould and Arthur Beetson to play for the South Sydney Rabbitohs when he finished school.

Williams in actions for the Rabbitohs in 2007. Picture: Gregg Porteous

For five years, across three NRL clubs, he played with the best in the game. What no-one knew was that all that time he was doing battle with the voices in his head.

It had been like that since he was a teenager when the voices told him he wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t good enough — that he would never amount to anything.

“I didn’t tell anyone, as I thought it was natural to everyone,” Williams, 34, told news.com.au about his experiences as a teenager.

“Those voices, those thoughts, are terrifying as hell and they get more and more significant as I’m getting older.”

Williams says the “inner dialogue” started when he was 14 after he received a massive concussion that knocked him unconscious.

“Concussions have massive impacts on depression, it’s called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE,” he said. “I show all symptoms of that and believe that I have that CTE from repeated trauma of the brain.”

Williams’ internal battle quickly worsened and as an underage teenager, he turned to alcohol and drugs.

“The only reason I drank was because it calmed down what was going on inside my head,” he said.

“In Sydney you’ve got bright lights and clubs that never close — I was no longer a young kid that wanted to be an NRL player all his life. I was a guy that couldn’t wait for the weekend.

“I went into the NRL because I was living my dream, but behind closed doors I couldn’t stand the sight of myself.”

Former rugby league player Joe Williams’ new book Defying The Enemy Within addresses his battles with mental health, alcohol and drug use.

At 22, Williams tried to tackle his demons.

“I had a drink and a drug problem and I walked away from that, I distanced myself from everyone,” he told news.com.au.

“I lost interest in footy because I wasn’t playing well, and I was putting the substances in my body to silence the noise. But when you get off that, the noise is turned up again and I had to start to realise what I was going through.”

Williams’ marriage broke down, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and battled suicidal thoughts.

“I had three children by then, I wasn’t living with anyone, the voices were louder than ever and I attempted to take my life,” he said.

That was in 2012.

THE ROAD BACK

“It should have killed me, but it has made me who I am,” Williams says of those dark days.

“I was admitted into the mental health ward and they said: ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’

“Thinking about it, I didn’t know whether to be disappointed I was alive or thankful, but I knew I had a second chance.

“But that moment I promised myself that every day when I opened my eyes I would make a positive influence in someone’s life.”

Williams admits keeping that promise hasn’t been easy.

“You don’t just wake up and think I’m all right now,” he said.

Williams started The Enemy Within workshops, sharing his story with students, inmates, corporates and parents.

“I’ve travelled to every state in Australia and 32 states in America to spread my message to tens of thousands of people,” he said.

“All my life I’ve wanted to be a sportsperson, but without doubt this is what I was meant to do and I had to go through all that bulls**t first.”

When he left football, he walked into the boxing ring — a place that Williams says helped him discover who he was.

“I learned how to fight back against those negative thoughts while I was fighting and training and ended up in 16 professional fights,” Williams said. “I had three world title fights and won two of them.”

Williams preparing for a charity boxing match, a sport he says helped with his recovery. Picture: News Corp

He is now 12 years sober, has four children with another baby due any day, but admits he still has to work hard on his mental health.

“Just two weeks ago on the NSW south coast I was a mess,” Williams admits.

“The biggest thing I’ve seen with all my experience is that storytelling helps people — it normalises the conversation.

“I’m a footballer, I’m a boxer but no opponent on the footy field or in the boxing ring was

tougher than the fight inside my head every day.”

Next Williams will make a four-part documentary telling the stories of different elders from around the world and his book, Defying The Enemy Within, will be released in January.

“I guarantee you the suicide rate would go down if we just connected with each other,” he says.

“Today we are all stuck in front of a mobile phone we do everything online, we don’t connect.

“We can sit in an office full of 100 people, sitting 10m away from someone and we send an email instead of talking to them.”

To mark Mental Health Week this week, Williams has taken part in the Sixty Second Challenge — sparing a minute to do as many push-ups as you can.

The global initiative aims to raise $1 million for mental health charities and help stop the cycle of suicide.

“If we want to really make an impact, we need to shift the paradigm and the way suicide and mental health are viewed in general,” Erin Macauley, chief operating officer of Suicide Shatters Families, said.

“Despite efforts to make mental health mainstream, we still aren’t doing enough.

“If we want to really prevent deaths by suicide — which we have the ability to do — we need to come together as a whole and let people know that there is hope, they can get through it and they aren’t alone.”

If you or someone you know is struggling or needs help, call Lifeline on 131 114, Beyondblue on 1300 22 4636 or Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. In an emergency, call 000.

Originally published as Joe Williams: ‘I couldn’t stand the sight of myself’