Nearly 4 million people nationwide watched the Ben Cousins documentary Such is Life – The troubled times of Ben Cousins. The program detailed his public life as a footballer while leading the secret life of a drug addict. This duplicitous lifestyle finally came to an end when he was arrested in Perth in 2007.

Paul Dillon, author of Teenagers, Alcohol and Drugs and Generation Next speaker, asked the question “How can you really answer a question about the harms associated with drug use when incredibly successful men in peak physical condition admit to regular drug use?”

The documentary was graphic in both its discussion of drug use and footage of Ben under the influence of drugs. At one point Ben says “There would be a time and a place for speed, there would be a time and a place for ecstasy, cocaine was my drug of choice, no question, but Valium played a huge part in that and Xanax played a huge part in that.”

Paul Dillon addressed the problem of profiling public figures that are known drug users, “The major problem is the message that these admissions send to young people. Although many would imagine that stories of famous people using drugs and experiencing a range of problems would discourage teenagers from going down the same path, in many cases just the opposite happens.  Unfortunately the only message that some young people pick up is that these celebrities have ‘made it through to the other side’ and continue to lead very glamorous and successful lives.”

Later in the program Cousins says “I would train and f***ing train and obsess and play good footy and the thing that would get me through those tough moments, those tough days, … was I knew at the end … I was going to absolutely annihilate and launch into as much drugs as I could.”

Paul Dillon went onto to say “When you look at the messages that we give young people about drugs they are usually negative, warning about the risks associated with their use. Drugs destroy lives – people who use them lose their jobs, their families and are very unhealthy. This just doesn’t match what they see when the latest rock star tells all on a TV chart show, or a famous sportsman has been caught doing the ‘wrong thing’.”

He added “Even if they did have a bad time there for a while, they certainly don’t look like they’re suffering too much at the moment. These cases also cause young people to question the legal issues around drug use when they see celebrities who are caught with illicit sub stances getting off with a slap on the wrist.”

Although the documentary showed Ben Cousins’s drug use, it failed to address the underlying issues of why he became addicted, or explore  the internal changes and revelations he went through during the process of ‘becoming clean’.

The Sun Herald reported that “Cousins’ pain was palpable, but there was precious little sense of him realising he’d long before foregone the right to expect anything else by virtue of his own betrayals.”

Paul Dillon commented that “There are physical, psychological and, importantly, social effects that can arise as a result of using alcohol and other drugs. In some cases, the use of drugs may not result in any major physical effects that anyone can see, but the mental health repercussions may be immense. In other cases, the physical impacts of long-term drug use may be obvious.”

After the program aired the Sydney Morning Herald conducted an online survey, in which 16,054 people participated, 57% of the respondents felt he was “smug and full of excuses”.

Danny Weidler, a Channel Nine sports reporter said that his motivation for the tell all documentary could have been financial rather than conscience driven.  He is not earning the big bucks anymore and he is about to retire. “Channel Seven paid $800,000 up front for the program; other networks had knocked it back – the feeling was that it wasn’t sending the right message,” he wrote.

Paul Dillon advised parents and teachers to make “sure the information we give young people is balanced, accurate and credible is crucial. Acknowledging that not everyone is going to experience the same problems will enable us to explain why some people appear to get by unscathed. At the same time, no matter who you are, there are problems – some you may not be able to observe by watching the nightly news, but they are there.”

For more information on issues related to the use of drugs and alcohol go to Drug and Alcohol Research and Training Australia (DARTA).

Writer Helen Splarn. Editor Dr Ramesh Manocha.
Source: Paul Dillon – DARTA (Drug Alcohol Research and Training Australia). Sydney Morning Herald