The Death of Innocence & The Death of an AFL Legend

[The Saintsational Man]

"Hey guys i threw this on BigFooty, despite the initial few replies been the usual negative nigels, I got some decent replies, let us know what you think"

It seems like such a long time ago, but the death of innocence in the AFL began the day a man by the name of Lawrence Angwin turned up to a Carlton training session under the influence of a "Recreational Drugâ€

[Saints Premiers 2008]

agreed entirely

lets hope this thread isnt hijacked by references to abnormal female sprinters or canadians...

[Iceman234]

Yes Ben, we all respect you for what you have achieved.



Now, when you eventually reveal the full extent of how long you were addicted to yourself and the drugs, hand back your achievements and become a normal person.

Ben, it was a disgrace watching you cheat your way through the latter part of your carer especially.

But such is life, as a well respected Aussie armed robber once quoted.

You have single handedly disgraced the AFL brand, but especially your own brand.

[Dan Warna]

i dont respect what he achieved because he is a cheat.

[Saints Premiers 2008]

i dont respect what he achieved because he is a cheat.

go and live life a little and stop preaching your seemingly god like crap

im not saying that living life involves getting addicted but having a perspective on them is through use...albeit maybe once or socially...

if you havent you have no reason to post here other than to flap your gums so to speak due your own sense of self importance

[Dan Warna]

i dont respect what he achieved because he is a cheat.

go and live life a little and stop preaching your seemingly god like crap

im not saying that living life involves getting addicted but having a perspective on them is through use...albeit maybe once or socially...

if you havent you have no reason to post here other than to flap your gums so to speak due your own sense of self importance

i have no problems posting in this thread.

if you do thats your problem

he is a drug cheat and this patronising rubbish painting him as some great brought low by external circumstances is rubbish.

he is an arrogant jerk who supports criminal scum, sucked drugs and cheated.

[Saints Premiers 2008]

i dont respect what he achieved because he is a cheat.

go and live life a little and stop preaching your seemingly god like crap

im not saying that living life involves getting addicted but having a perspective on them is through use...albeit maybe once or socially...

if you havent you have no reason to post here other than to flap your gums so to speak due your own sense of self importance

i have no problems posting in this thread.

if you do thats your problem

he is a drug cheat and this patronising rubbish painting him as some great brought low by external circumstances is rubbish.

he is an arrogant jerk who supports criminal scum, sucked drugs and cheated.

do you seemingly copy and paste the same response to everything raised to do wth drugs???

[SirDog]

Have the press stated that in Sydney before he left to LA he met up with Gardy and another gangsta. (Brother of JK)?

[Dan Warna]

i dont respect what he achieved because he is a cheat.

go and live life a little and stop preaching your seemingly god like crap

im not saying that living life involves getting addicted but having a perspective on them is through use...albeit maybe once or socially...

if you havent you have no reason to post here other than to flap your gums so to speak due your own sense of self importance

i have no problems posting in this thread.

if you do thats your problem

he is a drug cheat and this patronising rubbish painting him as some great brought low by external circumstances is rubbish.

he is an arrogant jerk who supports criminal scum, sucked drugs and cheated.

do you seemingly copy and paste the same response to everything raised to do wth drugs???

all i see is whinging and whining about how poor cousins is an innocecnt victim in all this and think about what a champion he was, when in reality he was a cheat, a supporter of criminal scum and junkie.

good riddance and I am glad this scumbag isn't cluttering up our team lists

I hope all those who were hoping this cheat would come to st kilda are glad he wont be and glad we didn't trade for him.

thank you Woosha, you did us a favour!

[plugger66]

i dont respect what he achieved because he is a cheat.

go and live life a little and stop preaching your seemingly god like crap

im not saying that living life involves getting addicted but having a perspective on them is through use...albeit maybe once or socially...

if you havent you have no reason to post here other than to flap your gums so to speak due your own sense of self importance

i have no problems posting in this thread.

if you do thats your problem

he is a drug cheat and this patronising rubbish painting him as some great brought low by external circumstances is rubbish.

he is an arrogant jerk who supports criminal scum, sucked drugs and cheated.

do you seemingly copy and paste the same response to everything raised to do wth drugs???

all i see is whinging and whining about how poor cousins is an innocecnt victim in all this and think about what a champion he was, when in reality he was a cheat, a supporter of criminal scum and junkie.

good riddance and I am glad this scumbag isn't cluttering up our team lists

I hope all those who were hoping this cheat would come to st kilda are glad he wont be and glad we didn't trade for him.

thank you Woosha, you did us a favour!

He is taking drugs now to cheat at what Dan. He is an addict not a cheat. Ask yourself why would he still takes drugs now when he isnt even playing if he was taking them to cheat. Addicts need help not the rubbish you are saying. If he is a cheat so are other players in the AFL including maybe some ours. Start writing our players are cheats as well then or is it only an addict like Cousins.

[Dan Warna]

was he an addict while playing? could he play with out hte drugs? were they in his system on match day? was he taking controlled dosages at the time?

you can't have it both ways.

he made his lifestyle choices.

the title of this thread incorporates the term AFL legend...thats a joke.

[Animal Enclosure]

Apparently they were not in his system Dan as he hasn't tested positive during in competition testing.

While I'm not on the 'poor Ben' side, I'm not on the string him up side either. He's rooted his life up, it's sad that a great footballer has finished his career on such a note but there is no one else to blame but Ben.

He's headed down a one way road to a good looking corpse... let's hope he can get his life sorted out & save himself. That goes for anyone with an obvious addiction...not just because he's an AFL footballer.

[The Saintsational Man]

was he an addict while playing? could he play with out hte drugs? were they in his system on match day? was he taking controlled dosages at the time?

you can't have it both ways.

he made his lifestyle choices.

the title of this thread incorporates the term AFL legend...thats a joke.

Dan I do enjoy reading your posts from time to time, every now and again they can bring quite a laugh.....

But instead of contributing to the "Point" I was trying to make, you've high jacked my post and put your own "38 year old", uneducated spin on it, which, quite frankly, isn't even funny, though I know u were trying to be, as any 5 year old kid can cut and paste.

.....and the "Point" your proving???

That you, yourself, clearly have no clue about the drug culture in our society, in your "38 years" you'd figure you would have learnt something, but then again ignorant people never seem to learn much as they only care for what they have to say and are to arrogant to respect others views and opinions.....but.....

Such is 38 years of life hey???

[stinger]

i agree with dan on this....benny is a druggie and a cheat.....i saw him play crappy first half's on a number of occasions...........then come out literally flying in the second.....those of us who don't have our head either in the ground or up our arse now know why......

[Ghost Like]

Have the press stated that in Sydney before he left to LA he met up with Gardy and another gangsta. (Brother of JK)?

Very interesting snippet SirDog, how did you come across this? A possible explanation for why he missed his connecting flught to LA.

But on the OP, very well written The Saintsational Man, I enjoyed reading it right up to the point of "...and offer a helping hand." I personally think Ben needs a little tough love at the moment, I think too many people are making excuses for him and making it a little too easy for him to keep falling off the wagon.

I have no answers, I'm not an expert in this field but after seeing what has occurred on Ben's trip to one of the best drug rehab facilities in LA I now know why AA do not hold their meetings in a back room at the CUB brewery.

Surely we have experts here that can help him?

[Mr Magic]

[quote="Ghost Like
Surely we have experts here that can help him?[/quote]

How do we know he actually wants help?

Maybe he is happy in his current lifestyle?

The truth is we only know what we see reported in the media. Cousins has not publicly told us what he feels/wants so the rest is pure conjecture on our part.

Until drug users/addicts actually break a law then we have no control over their respective lifestyles, and it would seem to me, a non-lawyer, that the taking of recrestional drugs is not against the law, only the possession and distribution of those said drugs is.

Maybe one of the posters with legal expertise can advise on whether the 'ingestion of drugs' is tantamount to 'possession?

What we can argue about is that the AFL has said that the ingestion of recreational drugs is against the AFL Competition Rules and therefore anybody caught doing that is in breach of those rules. So far I don't believe that Cousins has actually been found to have broken those rules?

[The Peanut]

Generally with the Ben Cousins saga I have found that a majority of the comments regarding his issues extremely naive at least.

I am very dissappointed in the one-track mind many intelligent Australians seem to have regarding drugs in our community. I am forced to put it down to the way the media and the Government approach serious community issues - 'we are right, they are wrong - punish'. The problem just keeps creeping along and gathering momentum while attitudes stay at this level.

We hire professionals and study the opposition footy teams to structure ways to respond postively to their strengths and weaknesses so I can't understand why we as individuals can't do that on other issues.

Whether Ben Cousins in right or wrong is not the point - he is neither - it's just like saying that every Liberal or Labor policy is right or wrong. In the end both of their policies will have some positive and negative effects on our community.

Terrorism, climate change and social drugs and their effects on our comminuty are not going to go away while so many people refuse to listen and learn.

I guess it was the heading that caught me on this thread - I usually dodge the Ben Cousins threads big-time because of the negative opinions that are repeated over and over and over.

[brown-coat]

He's not a fool. He knew what drugs can do to people, how they can destroy lives.

It's a shame he chose to destroy his life, reputation and career. Why are people naive to criticsize those who willingly, knowingly engage in something that can lead to self destruction?

Why is that naive? It's just logic.

[The Peanut]

He's not a fool. He knew what drugs can do to people, how they can destroy lives.

It's a shame he chose to destroy his life, reputation and career. Why are people naive to criticsize those who willingly, knowingly engage in something that can lead to self destruction?

Why is that naive? It's just logic.

Are you saying that Ben Cousins just decided to take drugs so that his career and life would be destoyed?

My experience in life must be much different to some others around here as the only thing that is 'black and white' to me is 'the Eddies'.

My experience in life is we all make mistakes - some of us are just lucky. When I was much younger I used to drink and drive sometimes and got away with it - a friend of mine had an accident when doing the same thing and ended up killing his brother, going to jail for manslaughter and now he is probably a drug dealer - but had he been lucky on that night things would be much different for him.

Many young people experiment with drugs, drink too much etc - most don't have negative outcomes so its easy for others to say 'I'll be OK'. There is also peer group pressure and all sorts of people lurking around to tempt them when they are bored or have had a few too many drinks.

I appreciate the new culture that GT developed at our club with the players - young people need support when things go wrong IMHO - not punishment and ridicule. If things really get out of control they need lots of support and understanding.

[HarveysDeciple]

People make choices in their life.

Drug addiction is a sad thing, I wish Benny the best in getting over it, but the reality is he was confronted with a decision and made a very very foolish one.

For that he is a complete moron.

He is one of the best footballers of the modern era, He isn't a cheat, but he is a selfish ignorant fool who has brought down his own career, shattered his family and destroyed the reputation of his football club.

I wish him well in his recovery, but I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.

[The Peanut]

I wish him well in his recovery, but I have no sympathy for him whatsoever.

Fair enough - we all to have an opinion guided by our backgrounds, education and experiences but SYMPATHY and UNDERSTANDING are different words with different meanings.

[saintbrat]

age and perspective can lend to making differant judgments.

Ben is not the first football superstar to fall foul of his own sense of 'importance ( may not be the word) or infallibility.

Wayne Carey and Garry Ablett snr both cruelled wonderful careers and hero worship with personal behaviour. Ablett also fell to drugs and continues to pay for those indiscretions-

We like to think they ( the sports stars we admire for their skill) will take on board that admiration and become worthy of it .I guess we hold to example the likes of Don Bradman and for Us Robert Harvey- sports people who are quiet, unassuming and glad to have been able to work at what they were good at- Humble

yes we like the flashy and the gifted but as Ben is evidence of it doesn't mean a darn thing if you don't also realise when you've made a mistake and take the assistance offered.

what niggled for me was the fact he didn't really take on board that it was 'wrong', or maybe thought he was above beeing an' addict' as others are seen- because of where he had been placed.

Yes I am saddened by his conditon and feel for his family but my next query would be JUST WHAT can people do? what can we as ' society' do to assist the addict to aim for recovery.
many of the precepts for recovery from addiction are to- admit- seek- work at-is this correct-?
I struggle to get past the fact he was feated when he returned when his demeanour ' appeared' to show smirking, maybe he was hurting below but actions wouldn't see that.

what could the eagles,the AFL, his teammates, and (given their feeding of the myth)- the media have done to better assist Ben and or the supporters of football to understand what Ben needed and help him to get through this time.

ps; in the days before my football supporting players behaving badly was still almost 'expected'-the bad boys where delighted in by many- Boony and his drinking - differances in supporters/fans perspectives have changed just as the community awareness has but it takes time for one to equate to the other.

[The Peanut]

There are lots of reasons why people end up where they do - some people I know even spend a sunny Saturday afternoon on a footy internet forum.

We can all see where Ben has ended up but are wildly speculating about the process he has been going through to get where he has. The culture within the squad at the West Coast Eagles and perhaps beyond now appears to be mind boggling with their own Chief Executive Officer Trevor Nisbett stating yesterday that the probe might even find some more skeletons in the closet.

It appears to have been an unbelievable environment for young impressionable men. With a the death of Chris Mainwaring, Daniel Kerr and Ben Cousins continually mentioned in the same breath as the Coffin Cheaters bikie gang and drugs it makes me think that perhaps Michael Gardiner was extremely lucky that he was treated like a scapegoat by the Eagles and sacked over an alcohol related issue, It gave him the opportunity to resurrect his career in Melbourne, well away from some sort of a drug infested hub. Even if he isn’t 100% clean these days (and I hope he is) there is less likelihood of him completely falling off the rails without the influences of friends and acquaintances he met within a West Coast Eagles environment.

I am certain that Chris Judd wouldn’t have left the Eagles nest without knowing more than he is letting on, players seldom leave clubs unless they believe that their career in on the skids. When Daniel Kerr was in the papers earlier this year after being interviewed by police for ordering the veterinary (and social drug) ‘ketamine’, the West Coast Eagles told the press it was unlikely they would investigate the matter.

When I was living in Perth, both Cousins and Kerr were charged with trying to get hold of prescription drugs at my local Pharmacy and there must be endless stories out there. I believe that the West Coast Eagles have been pushing everything under the carpet for so long, who knows what will be found after a bit of hoovering.

It appears that Chris Mainwaring, Ben Cousins, Daniel Kerr, Michael Gardiner and probably a long list of others were all introduced to illicit drugs and the underworld through the West Coast Eagles club in some way. I don’t have any real evidence for this but there is something not making any sense and it will be interesting to see what is uncovered in the coming months.

In the meantime I believe that we should be careful who we blame and recklessly sling off at because we are only know what the press know, and that’s if they have never been paid or threatened to lay off by a very rich club with friends in very high places.

Isn’t it the Coffin Cheaters that are often linked to the Western Australian Police corruption in court case after court case, or is that another bikie gang?

[sunsaint]

i agree with dan on this....benny is a druggie and a cheat.....i saw him play crappy first half's on a number of occasions...........then come out literally flying in the second.....those of us who don't have our head either in the ground or up our arse now know why......

Just a question stinger.
Why would Cousins wait till the second half to get on the juice?
Surely it would have been next to impossible to do so in the locker room at half time and keep it out of the public domain all these years

[sunsaint]

i dont respect what he achieved because he is a cheat.

Not sure on your vintage Dan, so I'm taing a punt.
Do you also hate music from the Beatles and Rolling Stones, because they used drugs while creating their music?