I am ashamed of my behaviour towards people who love me, says Wayne Carey

FALLEN AFL star Wayne Carey went on four-day drug and alcohol benders and often contemplated suicide.

FALLEN AFL star Wayne Carey went on four-day drug and alcohol benders and often contemplated suicide.

 In a revealing new book, Carey says he never recovered from the fallout of his 2002 affair with Kelli Stevens, the wife of Kangaroos team-mate Anthony Stevens.

He dates his binge drinking to the start of his football career, and admits to routinely turning up to training - and later, media commentary work - with no sleep after heavy nights of partying.

Yet Carey spiralled further out of control after 2002, starring in a series of very public scandals that cost him jobs and his dignity.

He tells the Herald Sun he has dealt with many underlying issues since he called police to his Port Melbourne apartment - and fought them - in 2008.

Pictures: Wayne Carey arrested in Port Melbourne

Carey says he has improved his approach to life, which reads like a Hollywood screenplay steeped in drugs, alcohol, womanising, violence and a fleeting jail stint.

He makes regular visits to a psychologist and has a new awareness of trigger points that set off explosions of "self-sabotage".

On the Stevens affair, Carey remains filled with a "deep shame and regret" that fuelled his abuse of alcohol and cocaine, which he first snorted in Memphis in 2002.

The dark times also brought thoughts of suicide.

"There have been numerous times where I've thought about it," he says.

"Every little thing that has happened, there has been a point where I've thought, 'That's it'.

"I was looking at it like I would be doing my friends and family a favour because they have to deal with the public scrutiny as much as I do."

Pics: Wayne Carey and Kate Neilson

Carey says Ella, his daughter, was his "saviour".

But her calming influence took time to take effect. Three days after she was born in 2006, Carey turned up at the hospital to take Ella and then-wife Sally home after yet another night of heavy cocaine use.

Carey is careful to avoid blaming others in The Truth Hurts, co-written by Charles Happell.

He traces his bad behaviour to his childhood in Wagga where his father Kevin terrorised the family.

"I'm terribly ashamed of what's in the book," Carey says.

"There's parts of it when I was sitting there with Charlie crying, or trying to hold back tears talking about it, because I am ashamed of my behaviour over a period of time towards people who love me."

Carey's greatest regret is lying to Sally about the Stevens affair.

Despite her long-held suspicions, he denied any wrongdoing, even avoiding the issue after he knew Kelli had confessed to her husband and the world was about to find out.

"It was at that moment - I remember it very, very vividly - that I knew my career at the Kangaroos was finished," he says in the book. "That was the first thing that came into my head: I was going to have to leave the club, and give the game away.

"Obviously, I understood that it also probably meant the end of my marriage. But, strange as it may seem, and selfish as it may sound, the first thing I thought about was my football."

Anthony Stevens and team-mate Glenn Archer confronted Carey at a friend's house in Albert Park.

Carey says he accepted that if punches were thrown, he would not fight back.

"I listened to what Stevo had to say: that I was a weak p---- and that I'd betrayed him," Carey says.

"He was very upset. He was looking at me like a guy who had just been stabbed in the heart. I was feeling as bad as I could possibly feel."

Finally, Carey told Sally, who was taken to hospital and sedated.

Then he made a media statement and escaped to the bush, where he drank. And drank.

Carey says he was in an alcoholic haze for most of 2002. Drinking made life tolerable. It was during this time that suicide first crossed his mind.

Five clubs expressed interest in taking him on.

Due to call manager Ricky Nixon on a Monday with a final decision, Carey instead went on a 3 1/2 day bender of booze, cocaine and ecstasy. He felt so low, he says, that if a friend hadn't dragged him home, "I've got not much doubt that I'd have kept on going until I killed myself".

Carey says he is not using the book to change the public perception of him.

Rather, in what he likens to a form of therapy, he wants the world to know the truth.

Full disclosure in Carey's case includes the mention of two sisters, a plane and the Mile High Club.

He says he has not snorted cocaine for 18 months.

And although he still drinks from time to time, he says he is careful to avoid binge drinking as a means of escape from his tumultuous past.

Wayne Carey, the little boy who never grew up

ANYONE with personal problems can call Lifeline on 131 114; Victorian Statewide Suicide Helpline on 1300 651 251; or Mensline Australia on 1300 789 978.