Cousins speaks about addiction

Cousins opens up for the first time

Former AFL champion, Ben Cousins, has opened up for the first time about his battle with drug addiction as part of a campaign, 'KO to drugs'.

Before today, Cousins has spoken in a measured way about his sacking from the West Coast Eagles but today he let his guard down.

"I wanted to be here today because I'm somebody who through my issue has been very high profile and I am someone who's lost a livelihood," Cousins admitted.

"I've hurt a lot of the people who are close to me. At the end of the day I ran the gauntlet. There's a lack of public awareness ... I deep down dont think I had a choice," Cousins revealed.

"The very things that make a great footballer, some of those things lead me to fall into traps," Cousins added.

Whether or not he had a choice will be a matter for debate but what was remarkable about today, was Cousins was clearly prepared to discuss his addiction and what led to it at length, in the not too distant future.

"I apologise for not being able to go and get to my issue at the moment. There will come a day when I am able to go into detail about how it came about," Cousins said.

Cousins was speaking at a media conference held in Sydney to promote a public anti drugs campaign spearheaded by World champion boxer, Anthony Mundine.

Also at the conference were rugby league star, Sonny Bill Williams, and former Olympic hockey champion and track and field athlete, Nova Peris.

For the first time, Cousins spoke frankly about battle with his addiction which abruptly ended a football career which has earn't him hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.

Journalists were limited to three questions to each pannellist but even so, Cousins revealed much about where he is at, saying he is in a good place at the moment and throwing himself 100 percent into rehabilitation which he is undergoing at a Sydney clinic.

When asked was it a tough battle Cousins said he didn't like to use the word tough but that it was something that required his total attention every minute of the day.

Any talk of a comeback to AFL football was "hypothetical" Cousins said.