Sacked: Gavin Crosisca on the impact Darren Millane’s death had on him, taking drugs on match day and how Ben Cousins can beat his addiction
Former Collingwood star Gavin Crosisca hasn’t taken drugs since his wife “kidnapped” him and took him to a rehab facility. Now running a rehabilitation centre himself, he explains how Ben Cousins can beat his addiction.
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Gavin Crosisca says the trauma associated with close mate Darren Millane’s death thrust him into a downward spiral that nearly cost him his football career.
The beloved Collingwood champion called teammate Crosisca to go out drinking with him on the fateful night that saw him lose his life when he drove into the back of a car with a blood alcohol reading of 0.322.
Crosisca was too hung over to meet him but told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast Millane was so drunk on that 1991 night he was carried out of the Tunnel nightclub by mates.
He then caught a taxi to his car for that fateful journey, with Crosisca woken by a teammate at 5am to tell him Millane had died.
While teammates swore off booze in tribute to their mate, Crosisca lost his licence 12 months later and then bought into a Melbourne pub.
By the end of 1993 Crosisca was warned his partying ways could end his career, and while he played until 2000 he believes Millane’s death haunted him for years.
“ ‘Pants’’ funeral and his death was well and truly the equivalent to my mum’s (passing),” he said.
“From a leadership point of view and a person point of view, everybody who knew him knew what sort of person he was such a strong leader on the field but he was such a strong leader off the field.
“You just wanted to be around him, he just had that aura of confidence, it seeped out of him it was just a huge shock.
“It is just shock. I don’t know how anyone copes with that, this is when you look at trauma, our brains are so different.
“It rocked the internal beams of the footy club, it just was really hard to explain the impact it had. From a personal view it was pretty tough.
“Nine months after (he died) ‘Daics’ (Peter Daicos) and I got involved in a pub. Mick McGuane was as good a drinker as anyone but he decided after Pants’ death to get off the grog and he got super fit and he won the next two Copelands.
“We had the pub for two years and there was a loss of licence from me from a behavioural point of view and just got messy.
“1991 was OK, ‘92 was OK and then ‘93 was a bit of sledgehammer to the back of the head. It was either you pull your finger out here or your career is done, and that’s when I just met my beautiful wife.”
He says he would never have been in the same car with Millane – “Pants was normally going home with a girl, it wasn’t like we were sharing cabs” – when he was invited out that night.
“I remember getting a phone call from him on the Sunday. I lived in Ferntree Gully at that stage, and Pants was at Dingley, and got the phone call on the message, on the old tape. He said, ‘Gav, meet us here’. I was too hung over from the night before, and didn’t end up going.
“I remember hearing that Pants that night was at the Tunnel, and someone I know saw him being carried down the stairs, or arm in arm with a couple of guys, guys he knew.
“He was actually put in a cab out the front of the place and unfortunately with Pants’ ego or not thinking when you are drunk, had his keys in his pocket and got the cab around to his car and he just drove. A listed player called me at 5am and said, ‘Turn the news on’.”
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CROSISCA’S MID-MATCH DRUG FIX
Collingwood premiership star Gavin Crosisca says his amphetamine addiction grew so dramatic post-career that he snorted speed at halftime during most games as an AFL assistant coach.
The 246-game Collingwood defender has turned around a decades-long drug addiction to become an anti-drugs campaigner and part-owner of the Sober Living Rehab facility.
Crosisca told the Sacked podcast he took cannabis nearly every day of his 14-season career, including the night before Collingwood’s drought-breaking 1990 premiership.
After he became an assistant coach for six seasons at North Melbourne, Hawthorn and Carlton his addiction turned to methamphetamines.
His speed addiction was so intense he could not survive a two-hour game without a halftime pit-stop in the changerooms of AFL venues to take speed.
“When I was coaching I was probably spending $750 a week. I would probably have had two or three grams to get me through the week,” he said.
“My groundhog day, my schedule, was I would have a little Wizz Fizz scoop. Always amphetamines for me.
“I had the speed and I could have a little hit of speed in my nose before you even turned around.
“If you looked at most of the games I was an assistant coach I was out pretty late. Always a toilet break. No consequential thinking whatsoever.
“Once I got sacked from Carlton that was just a crisis for me: ‘Oh my god, I am out of the AFL system, what am I going to do?’
“I didn’t work for about seven or eight months and then I was probably using a gram a day.”
Crosisca estimates he wasted $250,000 in one three-year period on drugs and gambling before his wife Nicole dragged him to a rehab clinic in May 5, 2011.
He has not touched drugs since then, but says when he arrived from Queensland with genetic alcoholism issues and his own mental health issues he used cannabis to calm his mind.
“It was something I was hiding from the very start, I started smoking cannabis when I was 16, that was just before I moved to Melbourne, and it wasn’t a social thing, it wasn’t out and about. For me it was a daily situation from the very start, I didn’t know what was going on for me, I just enjoyed it and thought, ‘This is awesome’.
“It took me out of my reality and soothed the internal stuff that I had going on, without really knowing about it, it was an ongoing battle from the start.”
On the night before the famous 1990 premiership win – where Crosisca kicked two crucial goals – he even tried to relax with a beer after hearing Robert DiPierdomenico advocate its relaxing properties on Channel 7.
“It was something I was hiding from the very start, I started smoking cannabis when I was 16, that was just before I moved to Melbourne, and it wasn’t a social thing, it wasn’t out and about. For me it was a daily situation from the very start, I didn’t know what was going on for me, I just enjoyed it and thought, ‘This is awesome’.
“It took me out of my reality and soothed the internal stuff that I had going on, without really knowing about it, it was an ongoing battle from the start.
“My routine wouldn’t have changed at all, it was pretty standard. I remember hearing Robert DiPierdominco on some footy show and this is how much people above you have impact on you, he said it wouldn’t hurt some of these blokes to have a beer just to calm down. I thought, ‘Have a beer, that’s an awesome idea, Dipper’. So I had two sips out of a beer and it was just putrid.”
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HOW COUSINS CAN BEAT HIS ADDICTION
Drug rehab expert Gavin Crosisca says Ben Cousins would need as long as 12 months in rehabilitation to kick his ice habit as he bemoaned the trail of wreckage left by West Coast’s drug culture.
Crosisca’s own addiction to amphetamines was so bad his wife “kidnapped” him and took him to a rehab facility in 2011 where he spent three months.
He hasn’t taken a drug since and now runs the Sober Living rehabilitation centre where many of the problems focus on ice, with his clients including ex-AFL players.
He said ice is so damaging he does not believe Cousins’s use was performance-enhancing and he believes the club’s 2006 premiership was not tainted.
But with Cousins just one of many players who have battled addiction from that team, he says club officials had to intervene more quickly.
Asked to explain why Cousins had never got clean, he said he was still empowered by some Perth identities who were able to supply him with drugs.
“It is a really difficult one. This is a short easy answer but some people just don’t get it,” he said.
“He has a lot of hooks into the addict world. He has a caring loving family and I have had a bit to do with Brian Cousins. They have learnt to set their boundaries and that usually helps the addict find recovery but there are people that enable Ben Cousins and that’s a key component.
“He needs at least a six-month program. He needs to go into a lockdown three month-program in the states and then do three or six or nine months in a Sober Living environment where he can have consistency and be disciplined and accountable. But there has got to be a willingness to accept change is possible.”
A secret report into West Coast’s drug culture published by the Herald Sun in 2017 unveiled a decade-long drugs culture, with AFL legend Kevin Bartlett saying it put a “black line” through the Eagles premiership.
“I feel really sad for that group,” Crosisca said after battling his own demons for so long.
“Because it was a Gavin Crosisca model but with 15 blokes. I am not quite sure if you cannot see 15 blokes doing the same thing. That culture has created guys now in their late 30s and 40s, it created addiction and created a bunch of addicts and we could name them.
“There was one in the paper recently and it’s fluffed off as a big night out. That’s not normal behaviour. When you have woken up in the gutter?
“I feel so sorry for people who are still suffering like that and in denial about what the hell is going on.”
AFL NOT TACKLING PROBLEM GRAMBLING
Reformed gambler Gavin Crosisca has accused the league of gross “hypocrisy” as it accepts millions from betting companies while problem gambling sweeps across the league
The AFL this year signed a new agreement with the league’s official gaming partner BetEasy that is worth $10 million a season through to 2025.
But Crosisca believes the league must do much more about problem gambling, including investing vast sums into treatment and counselling for players who are battling with gambling addiction.
Crosisca’s issue grew so bad he considered robbing his own pub as his gambling and drugs issues spiralled out of control before turning his life around.
He said with the spread of gambling now infecting all levels of football he doubted the league was serious on minimising the effects of problem gambling.
“The AFL – give me a spell. What are they doing there? It’s ridiculous. It’s the most frustrating thing of all time,” he said.
“It is absolutely hypocritical they can have a major sponsor that is paying them what they are paying them.
“If they are doing something (with that money) they need to tell us what they are doing so they are accountable? Where is it?
“And then Jaidyn Stephenson missed 10 weeks because he puts a bet on a game. It’s the most frustrating thing of all time.
“Tell them to give me $5 million and we will open up a gambling rehab centre in St Kilda. All we need is funding that would provide a free support service for players current and past.
“It is a real danger and grassroots is where it’s coming from as well. It filters down. They see the AFL players do it and it’s so easy with online gambling. (The AFL) has the resources to provide what they need.”
Gambling counsellor Jan Beames last year told the Herald Sun up to 120 coaches and players were battling serious gambling problems.
The AFLPA hit out at Beams but she was backed in by Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan.
Crosisca argues most people who regularly use poker machines are addicted to an extent, glad that more clubs are finding a way to break ties with poker machine venues.
“I wanted the mind numbing feeling of pressing the button. Pokies can take 500 bucks in five minutes. It is a nasty addiction and the suicide rate with gamblers is the highest,” he said.
“The gambling mobs say only eight per cent of gamblers have a problem but people are really struggling and losing their houses, families and relationships.
“It’s not a minor issue. I love how clubs are getting out of (poker machines). They don’t need that money.
“I am a person who loved the pokies and I don’t think there are many people who play the pokies who aren’t addicted. They are all addicted to some level.”