Although distant from football culture, I have followed Ben Cousins’s case with interest. My attention was piqued not so much by the prominent parading of Ben’s situation in the daily media as by its synchronicity to the case of a young man I know. Let’s call him John.
John shares the same city and roughly the same age as Ben. However, beyond that, our man may as well inhabit a spartan, parallel universe.
John’s father was killed when he was a young child, and his family later broke down, abandoning him altogether in his early teens. He speaks of the terror of being alone on the streets in a big, strange city with no home, no food, no friends, no family and no money. Predatory drug dealers soon filled the void with a free smorgasbord of heroin, speed and ‘pills’ to numb the pain. As soon as he was addicted, he had to earn his fix. So began John’s criminal record, for which some may condemn him.
Uneducated, illiterate and unsupported, John later fought his drug addiction; however, alcohol — safe, legal, omnipresent alcohol — remained a problem that caused him more trouble than all the rest put together.
Despite skilfully prepared psychological reports that attest to chronic trauma and debilitating brain injury John has been righteously berated, even vilified, by some in authority who would struggle to imagine a day in his shoes. The reports have been shelved, with negligible action on recommendations that would have given him a fighting chance.
Many have made money out of John, legally and illegally. The illicit drug trade has had its cut, as have the legal breweries. He has contributed handsomely to the keep of many professionals ancillary and central to the criminal justice system: doctors, psychologists, disability case workers, public servants, wardens, and judicial and legal staff. However, aside from the committed and caring work of his lawyers, there have been negligible effective outcomes from this small but expensive army. For almost ten years, John has languished in the shadows of systematic indifference.
Not for John the luxury rehab of the stars, or any rehab at all. So far, despite the efforts of concerned humanitarians to whose attention he finally came, the professional rehab support he has desperately needed for a decade has never materialised.
Yet, each time the criminal justice system comes down on John, it does so more emphatically