Ben Cousins: The polarising highs and lows of the troubled and drug-addicted premiership player
AS his former Eagles teammates this week celebrate the 10th anniversary of their 2006 premiership, Ben Cousins is recovering after again unravelling in public - just another part of his sad spiral.
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WHILE his former Eagles teammates this week celebrate the 10th anniversary of their 2006 premiership, Ben Cousins is recovering after again unravelling in public. It’s another part of the sad spiral of a once-celebrated AFL champion.
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IF you are looking for a grim irony in the unfolding tragedy that is the life of Ben Cousins, the thought of the fallen football star standing in the middle of the road trying to guide the actions of others, while his own life veers wildly out of control may just provide it.
The cause of the latest meltdown from Cousins is unknown. The West Coast premiership player has a long, well-documented drug addiction problem, but he has also been detained for mental heath reasons.
On Sunday, Cousins was taken to hospital after police were called to an incident in Canning Bridge in Perth, where the troubled ex-player was spotted in the middle of a busy highway, directing traffic then trying to jump on the back of a motorcycle.
One witness, Itiita Iosia, told Yahoo News, she was scared as Cousins ran towards her.
“He came down here and ran down this path here and, honestly, I started s...ing myself because I thought it was a crazy person,” she said.
Even before that, Cousins had spooked Craig Steven, a window washer, just by hanging around for a few hours. Stevens said Cousins was “off on his own planet’’.
“He was really lost, confused, making no sense at all. Seven or eight cop cars turned up left, right and centre. They even had the helicopter above us.”
Just as he did in 2006, Cousins fled from police, but was soon detained in nearby bushland and taken to Royal Perth Hospital where he was being treated yesterday.
The incident comes in the week in which the Eagles will celebrate the 10th anniversary of their 2006 premiership. It had been speculated that Cousins would attend the event.
Sunday’s events continue the sad tale in the destruction of a man who was regarded as one of the best footballers of his generation.
Cousins won the Brownlow Medal in 2005. The following year, even though he had relinquished the captaincy of the West Coast after the aforementioned dash from the police to avoid a breath testing station, he stood on the dais with Chris Judd to accept the premiership cup.
But as has become all too evident in the years since that day, the successes were only masking a severe and deepening drug problem that had been building since his teenage years.
In his biography, Cousins outlined how he beat the AFL’s much-vaunted, but ultimately futile illicit drug detection system.
“I had to plan methodically, looking for windows when we had a Friday night or Saturday afternoon game and I’d know I had enough time to rest and get the drugs out of my system,’’ he wrote.
“Six-day breaks were too hard, but if we had an eight-day break I’d be rubbing my hands together.’’
And he rationalised it all. In his mind he believed he deserved a bit of rest and relaxation after all the hard work. And cocaine and ecstasy were his preferred outlets.
After his playing days were done, he explained it all in his documentary Such is Life.
‘I’d take drugs and I would train and f...... train and obsess and play good footy. I knew that at the end of that one-week block, two-week block or sometimes on the month, I would start to absolutely annihilate and launch into as much drugs as I could,” he said.
In his insatiable appetite for drugs, he had plenty of mates.
West Coast was rife with players who shared Cousins’ tastes. From the club’s 2006 premiership team, Cousins, Daniel Kerr, Chad Fletcher, Daniel Chick and Adam Hunter have all been linked with drugs in some form. Ruckman Michael Gardiner was sacked mid-season because of his off-field behaviour.
And, most tragically, Chris Mainwaring, a star Eagle of the 1990s, died aged 41 in 2007 after overdosing on cocaine. Cousins was the last person to see him alive.
In a recent interview, West Coast chief executive Trevor Nisbett said he would hand back that 2006 flag if it meant Cousins was still healthy.
“I guess if you could roll it all back and give back the premiership and say that all our players are fit and well and healthy and we still have Ben having a normal life, we’d give it back tomorrow,” he said.
“I guess the disappointing thing is we weren’t able to salvage Ben out of the wreck.’’
Cousins publicly admitted his problem with drugs in 2007 and headed to a Californian clinic that specialised in methamphetamine addiction. He did return and play again for the Eagles but further drug-related troubles saw him sacked and he would finish his career with Richmond, playing his last game in 2010.
In the years that followed, the name Cousins only appeared when accompanied by another outbreak of troubling behaviour. He had jumped a fence at the SAS barracks in Perth, he had been involved in a low-speed chase with police, there was a strange incident outside a Sikh temple.
Even the rare shaft of good news, such as the 2011 birth of his son Bobby Ernest Cousins with partner Maylea Tinecheff, was soon overwhelmed by a darker tale. In 2013, the couple reportedly split weeks after welcoming their second child.
Six years after his last game, the memory of Cousins the golden footballer has been washed away by the all-too-obvious realities of a man trapped by his inability to shake a vicious drug addiction.
Life and times of Ben Cousins
SEPT, 2002: Fights teammate Daniel Kerr at a Perth nightclub.
MAY 4, 2005: Cousins and ruckman Michael Gardiner embroiled in police investigation into nightclub shooting.
FEB 17, 2006: Runs from police near a breath-testing station in Perth.
FEB 20: Gives up West Coast captaincy.
SEPT 30: Judd and Cousins hold the premiership cup aloft.
DEC 3: Arrested for public drunkenness after being found dazed near the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.
MARCH 20, 2007: Seeks drug-rehabilitation advice for “substance abuse”.
MARCH 23: Starts three-day bender after indefinite club suspension.
MARCH 31: Heads to a Californian rehabilitation facility that specialises in methamphetamine addiction.
MAY 5: Appears on national TV to admit to substance abuse.
JULY 21: Returns to the AFL to play.
OCT 1: Cousins was with mentor Chris Mainwaring at his Perth home hours before Mainwaring collapsed and died.
OCT 16: Cousins charged by WA police with possession of a prohibited drug (diazepam) without a prescription.
OCT 17: West Coast sacks Cousins at an emergency board meeting.
NOV 19: The AFL Commission suspends Cousins for 12 months for bringing the game into disrepute.
DEC 16: Richmond takes Cousins with the final pick in the pre-season draft.
AUG 17, 2010: Announces he will end his AFL career.
SEPT, 2011: Partner Maylea Tinecheff gives birth to their first child, Bobby.
JAN 13, 2012: Sent to mental health unit after drug-induced psychosis.
MARCH 27: Charged with possession of methylamphetamine with intent to sell or supply.
AUG 2013: Reportedly split from Ms Tinecheff weeks after welcoming their second child.
JULY, 2015: Fined $2600, loses driver’s licence for 10 months after pleading guilty to reckless driving, failing to stop and failing to give a breath sample.
JUNE 26, 2016: Taken to hospital after behaving erratically on a Perth highway.
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