Health Sociology Review

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The ‘sorry addict’: Ben Cousins and the

construction of drug use and addiction in elite
sport

Kate Seear & Suzanne Fraser

To cite this article: Kate Seear & Suzanne Fraser (2010) The ‘sorry addict’: Ben Cousins and the
construction of drug use and addiction in elite sport, Health Sociology Review, 19:2, 176-191,
DOI: 10.5172/hesr.2010.19.2.176

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 Copyright © eContent Management Pty Ltd. Health Sociology Review (2010) 19(2): 176–191.

The ‘sorry addict’: Ben Cousins and the

construction of drug use and addiction
in elite sport
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KATE SEEAR
Sociology, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

SUZANNE FRASER
Centre for Women’s Studies and Gender Research, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash
University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

ABSTRACT
Australian Football League (AFL) player Ben Cousins is one of the most highly acclaimed and recog-
nised athletes in Australia. Followed closely in the media, his off-field activities are subject to as much
attention and speculation as those on the field. In 2007, Cousins and his family confirmed long-standing
rumours that he was an illicit (non-performance enhancing) drug user. Following a series of incidents,
his football contract was terminated and Cousins publicly entered drug rehabilitation. In this article we
explore the multiple extant accounts of Cousins’ drug use.We examine media representations of his drug
use, including accounts from a range of key stakeholders, and we also look at Cousins’ public accounts of
his own drug use. What emerges is paradoxical picture both of Cousins himself and of drug users more
broadly. Cousins is simultaneously positioned as in control and out of control, as manipulative and as
subject to the manipulations of his ‘addiction’, as criminal and victim, as culpable and innocent. In the
process, he acts as a figure through which contemporary understandings of the nature and implications
of addiction are produced and reproduced. What is addiction? If, as many now take for granted, it is a
disease requiring a medical response, what can be said about the agency and responsibility of the ‘addict’
in the context of elite sport? How do mainstream understandings of elite sportsmen as intrinsically mas-
terful, commanding and physically exemplary mesh with assumptions about drug addicts as passive and
physically compromised? In considering this intersection of discourses of elite sports and of addiction, we
also explore some of the unique dimensions of the Cousins case including the challenge his embodied
athleticism poses to understandings of his drug use, and the significance attributed to his rehabilitation
and ‘comeback’ in 2009.We conclude with some reflections on the ways in which Cousins’ case troubles
certainties about drug use, and on the strategic efficacy of disease models of addiction in Australia.

KEYWORDS: drugs; addiction; sport; Ben Cousins; agency; sociology

W e heard that drugs chose [Ben], not he
drugs … But we haven’t heard him say
that before that, he chose drugs, and that he
would not on any account choose them again.
(Greg Baum, The Age, 26 November 2008)
INTRODUCTION
The disease model of addiction has become the
dominant way of understanding regular drug use
in the West. But what is ‘addiction’? If, as many
now take for granted, it is a disease requiring a

176 HSR Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

 Ben Cousins and the construction of drug use and addiction in elite sport
medical response, and marked by an absence of
agency/will, what can be said about the agency
and responsibility of the ‘addict’ in the context
of phenomena usually associated with health
and strength of will: masculinity and elite sport?
How do mainstream understandings of elite
sportsmen as intrinsically masterful, command-
ing and physically exemplary mesh with assump-
tions about drug addicts as passive and physically
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compromised? In considering this intersection
of discourses of gender, elite sports and addic-
tion, we look closely at the example of Ben
Cousins, a highly decorated Australian footballer
in the Australian Football League (AFL) who
has, in recent years, publicly declared himself to
be a drug ‘addict’. We also explore some of the
unique dimensions of Cousins’ case including
the challenge his embodied athleticism poses to
accounts of his (non-performance enhancing)
drug use, and the significance attributed to his
rehabilitation and football comeback in 2009.
These issues are approached through analysis
of textual accounts of Cousins’ drug use. We
examine media representations of his drug use,
including comments made by a range of key
stakeholders, including media personalities. We
also examine Cousins’ public statements about
his own drug use. What emerges is a paradoxical
account, both of the individual sportsman him-
self and of illicit drug users more broadly. In con-
ducting this analysis, we also explore some of the
ways in which Cousins’ case troubles certainties
about drug use, and consider what these disrup-
tions mean for the strategic efficacy of disease
models of addiction in Australia.
BACKGROUND
Ben Cousins is one of the most recognised
and accomplished athletes in Australia. Since at
least 2002 his personal life has been the subject
of intense media scrutiny and attention. There
have been a string of reported incidents, claimed
associations with crime figures, and prolonged
speculation about a serious drug problem.
The most widely reported incidents involving
Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
HSR
Cousins include being allegedly present in a
Perth nightclub in 2005 when one man was shot
and another was stabbed in a brawl (there was no
allegation that Cousins was responsible for either
the stabbing or shooting); being found drunk
and unconscious outside the Melbourne casino
in 2006; and evading a ‘booze bus’ (a police
road block designed to screen drivers for blood
alcohol content) in 2006. Cousins was fined in
relation to the latter incident. Speculation about
Cousins’ drug use has attracted the most media
attention, especially throughout 2005 and 2006.
It reached a climax in early March 2007 when
Cousins failed to appear at two team training ses-
sions and was indefinitely suspended by his club
without further explanation. At the time spec-
ulation was rife that Cousins’ failure to attend
training was related to his rumoured drug use
and that, believing he was going to be subjected
to a drug test at training that day, he attempted
to evade authorities.
Two days later his father, Bryan Cousins,
appeared on an Australian television network
nightly news broadcast to read a prepared state-
ment on behalf of his son. This would constitute
the first public acknowledgement that Cousins
had engaged in illicit drug use. In part, the state-
ment said:
I am making this statement today not on behalf
of Ben, but as a father on behalf of his son…
We are working closely with Ben and I have
been with him today and he has told me in
due course he will make his own statement…
Ben’s problem relates to substance abuse and
he faces a great challenge…Your family, your
friends, your fans and your footy club want
you to overcome this issue and win in the same
manner in which you have done throughout
your whole career.
Within days Cousins left Australia to attend a
drug rehabilitation facility in the United States,
marking the beginning of a very public engage-
ment with drug rehabilitation services and dis-
courses. Several weeks later Cousins returned
HSR 177
 HSR Kate Seear and Suzanne Fraser
to Australia and made his first public statement
about the longstanding allegations of drug use.
The statement came in the form of a 90-second
pre-recorded video released to the media and
broadcast nationally; in it, Cousins described
himself as experiencing ‘illness as a result of
substance use’ but stopped short of saying any-
thing about the nature or extent of his drug use.
(It has been widely reported that he used ‘ice’
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[crystal methamphetamine hydrochloride] and
cocaine). A short time after his stint in rehabili-
tation, Cousins returned to playing AFL foot-
ball. Further public incidents followed, however
(these are described below), and in November
2007 the AFL formally suspended Cousins from
football for a period of 12 months for ‘bringing
the game into disrepute’. At a press conference
announcing the ban Cousins again apologised
for his actions, describing himself, for the first
time, as a ‘drug addict’. This marked a distinct
shift in his language in that he had not used the
term ‘addiction’ publicly before.
In this paper we examine the representation
of what is otherwise a rarely publicised combi-
nation of attributes: sporting virtuosity, leader-
ship skills and regular illicit drug use. We argue
that Cousins embodies a set of skills not ordinar-
ily associated with drug ‘addiction’. We explore
the expectations about Cousins that have played
out in the media since questions of his drug use
have arisen and consider what these mean for
dominant understandings of addiction (namely
the disease model of addiction) and masculin-
ity in the West. We begin with a brief overview
of Cousins’ football career before we consider
the academic literature on elite sport and drug
addiction.
COUSINS’ FOOTBALL CAREER
Run by the Australian Football League (AFL),
the game of Australian rules is indigenous to
Australia. It is one of the most popular spectator
sports in the country, with the AFL premiership
1
http:/www.realfooty.com.au/articles/2008/06/27/1214472774148.html (viewed 7 August 2009).
178 HSR Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
season attracting in excess of 6.5 million attend-
ees annually (AFL 2009). Australian rules football
is played by more than 693,000 people across the
country and almost 575,000 people (or approxi-
mately 1 in every 38 Australians) are a member
of an AFL club (AFL 2009). Australian rules foot-
ballers are high-profile national celebrities. They
receive considerable media attention, especially
in Melbourne (where the national competi-
tion originated) but also in Western Australia
and South Australia, which have a strong tradi-
tion in Australian rules football and their own
well-established local competitions. Ben Cousins
is one of the best-known Australian rules foot-
ballers of the last two decades, having attracted an
enormous amount of media publicity even before
speculation arose about his off-field activities.
Born in country Victoria in 1978, Ben Cousins
was selected in the 1995 AFL national draft to
play for the West Coast Eagles (WCE), a team
based in Perth, Western Australia. Following his
debut in 1996 at the age of 18, Cousins became
one of the highest profile footballers in the coun-
try, winning the Rising Star Award for the most
talented young player in the competition in his
first season. He has won many of the game’s
highest accolades including the Brownlow Medal
in 2005, awarded to the most outstanding player
in the competition. He has been selected as an
‘All Australian’ (an honorary selection in a team
compiled of the best players across the league) on
six occasions. Between 2000 and 2005 Cousins
captained the WCE and in 2006, he won a pre-
miership with the team. An expert panel for The
Age newspaper recently named him one of the 50
greatest footballers of all time.1
For the majority of Ben Cousins’ football
career, including periods of apparent drug use,
he played the game as a midfielder, a position
that requires a vast array of skills. These include
a capacity to run, often at high speeds, for long
periods of the game; the strength to apply defen-
sive tackles and dispossess opposition players of
 Ben Cousins and the construction of drug use and addiction in elite sport
the ball, as well as to resist tackles and a capac-
ity for kicking and handballing accuracy. Two
of the most highly regarded attributes amongst
midfielders are endurance and decision making
under pressure. Often at the centre of play for
long stretches of the match with little or no rest,
midfielders can run at high speeds for long dis-
tances during a game, sustained for a period in
excess of two hours. Even after his suspension
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from the captaincy, the media claimed that he
was internally regarded as the ‘spiritual leader’
of the team and a superior ‘natural’ leader to his
replacement (Wilson 2009). Indeed Cousins has
been praised for his leadership skills, stemming
in part from his capacity for self-discipline. In
short, Cousin’s customary team position was one
demanding some of the highest levels of skill,
confidence, self-discipline and fitness in the game.
He held this position to great acclaim during the
entire period in which he has since been iden-
tified as living as a drug addict. Whilst Cousins
is not the first elite athlete in Australia to have
admitted to illicit drug use, his case has arguably
been the highest profile case Australia has seen
to date. We might speculate as to the reasons for
this; Cousins is a high profile, extremely capa-
ble footballer, from a middle class background.
He is considered by many to be highly market-
able and articulate. As well, as we noted earlier,
Cousins displays an apparently unusual combi-
nation of attributes that renders his case novel;
in a celebrity-obsessed age, the drug ‘addiction’
of a major sporting celebrity is newsworthy. We
will return to the significance of this, as well as
Cousins’ celebrity, later in this paper.
DRUG USE IN ELITE SPORT
The vast majority of literature examining drug
use among athletes focuses on the use of per-
formance enhancing drugs in elite sport. For
example, Mottram’s (2005) edited collection on
‘drugs in sport’ focuses almost exclusively on the
role that drugs might play to enhance athletic
performance. Although Reilly (2005) consid-
ers drugs that might ordinarily be considered as
Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
HSR
‘recreational’ (alcohol, marijuana and cocaine)
the focus is primarily upon how such drugs
might impact upon performance or be related
to performance ‘stress’. While these are of course
isolated examples, it reflects an academic preoc-
cupation with the ‘enhancement’ function of
drugs in sport. Overall, there has been a failure
to consider drug use – and the disease model
of drug addiction especially – in previous aca-
demic research in the area of drugs in sport.
Moreover, the scholarly literature has to date
paid little attention to how dominant ideas of
drug addiction beyond ‘performance enhanc-
ing drugs’ intersect with elite sport and gen-
der. This paper explores these issues insofar as it
does, as we noted earlier, explore the use of non
performance-enhancing drugs in sport. In the
next section we look closely at the disease model
of addiction, the primary approach to addiction
in Australia, and then go on to consider how its
implications and assumptions sit with represen-
tations of masculine sporting virtuosity.
THE DISEASE MODEL OF ADDICTION
According to White (1998, 2001) and others
(e.g. Levine 1978) the disease model of addic-
tion arose in the West in the late 18th century.
The word ‘addiction’ has its etymology in the
term addicere, which refers to the relation of a
slave to its master in Roman law (Seddon 2007).
Whilst there are a range of theories about the
mechanisms and processes of addiction (see West
2001, 2006a, 2006b) the notion of slavery is cen-
tral insofar as addiction is defined as ‘behaviour
over which an individual has impaired control
with harmful consequences’ (West 2001:3). It is
believed that addiction ‘violates the individual’s
freedom of choice’ (West 2001:3). The absence
of individual will or agency is thus at the heart
of the disease model of addiction.What has been
the appeal of this focus on the absence of will
or agency as the defining feature of addiction?
While there were a range of factors driving the
development of the rise of the disease model,
one of the strongest was the shared view that an
HSR 179
 HSR Kate Seear and Suzanne Fraser
approach to regular drug use was needed that
exceeded the traditional view of it as a moral fail-
ing or a sign of wickedness. The disease model,
and its frequent (although not invariable) medi-
calisation is seen to provide a scientific explana-
tion for what had previously been understood
as a ‘failure of the will’ and this scientisation has
been regarded as destigmatising and progressive.
As Fox (1999:215) notes: ‘A ‘disease’ approach
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relieves drug-dependent persons of responsibil-
ity for their condition’. In contrast to this view,
however, some scholars argue that the shift to a
disease model of addiction has merely shifted the
forms of stigmatisation in operation, rather than
removed stigma altogether (Brook and Stringer
2005). From this point of view the failure of the
will conventionally associated with addiction is
actually institutionalised as an illness, crystallis-
ing, rather than disrupting, essentially arbitrary
negative judgments about drug users.
This debate over the disease model and its
frequent association with medical responses, as
either beneficial or harmful, is not altogether
unique (it shares features with those around men-
tal illness) yet it differs from debates about other
health issues such as cancer in obvious ways. As
the second author of this paper has argued else-
where in relation to injecting drug use (Fraser
and Valentine 2008; Moore and Fraser 2006),
drug users figure as less than fully rational sub-
jects within Western liberal discursive contexts.
For these subjects the disease model and medi-
calisation simultaneously offer the prospect of
acceptance as the ‘merely sick’, but ‘sick’ in a way
that impacts on the sufferer’s social and political
standing as a legitimate subject or citizen.
Addictive or compulsive conduct is argu-
ably constituted through reference to what it
is ‘not’. It has been suggested that ‘addiction’ is
constituted through its antithesis: freedom (see
Moore and Fraser 2006; Seddon 2007; Sedgwick
1994). This is not to say that an absence of free
will is always presumed, permitted or expected
amongst ‘addicted’ subjects, however, drawing
upon the work of Reith (2004) and O’Malley
180 HSR Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
(2002), Seddon (2007:338) argues that a ‘paradox
of freedom’ can be located in discourses of drug
addiction, insofar as addicts ‘with attenuated free
will are at the same time expected to act as ratio-
nal calculators’. This point has been made in at
least two specific realms regarding drug ‘addic-
tion’. The first realm involves paradoxes of free
will emerging in regards to the criminalisation
of drug use. As Fox (1999:215), for example,
points out: in spite of the fact that the disease
model precludes responsibility, ‘the illegal con-
text in which heroin addiction exists signifi-
cantly changes the nature of responsibility’. Even
whilst the disease model of addiction ostensibly
removes agency from the drug-using subject, the
administration of the criminal law depends upon
a seemingly contrary, agentive subject. Within
the context of public health these contradictions
are also apparent (Fraser 2004; Moore and Fraser
2006). As Fraser (2004) argues, for example,
health promotion and educational efforts among
injecting drug users depend upon a model of the
subject which is autonomous, rational, ‘enter-
prising’ (Rose 1996) and responsible. Such char-
acteristics are arguably at odds with the notion
of enslavement or entrapment embedded in the
addiction model under which injecting drug use
is increasingly subsumed.
The question of agency at the centre of the
disease model of addiction is brought into sharp
relief in a third realm: where illicit drug use
occurs in the context of elite sport. Athletes are
typically regarded as intrinsically masterful, com-
manding and physically exemplary. Unlike ‘drug
addicts’, elite sportspeople are not considered
passive or lacking in will. This is especially true
of AFL footballers who participate in a physically
demanding, brutal and high contact game closely
associated with some of the most admired fea-
tures of ideal masculinity (Connell 1987). Elite
athletes generally, and AFL footballers in particu-
lar, are considered exemplars of ideal masculinity
insofar as they are positioned as rational actors
with a high capacity for self-discipline, and men-
tal and physical strength (Wedgwood 2003). Like
 Ben Cousins and the construction of drug use and addiction in elite sport
‘drug addicts’ they are perceived to be risk takers
but theirs is a form of risk taking that is valo-
rised insofar as physical risks taken on the field
are interpreted as evidence of physical prowess,
moral rectitude, skill, courage, dedication and
self-sacrifice. Clearly issues of risk, rationality,
responsibility and moral rectitude apply across
both drug use and sport. In an important sense
Ben Cousins’ fit/addicted body and disciplined/
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intoxicated subjectivity throw out a challenge to
the usual tendency to polarise illicit drug use and
elite sports (beyond performance enhancement)
in the media and elsewhere. In the process they
raise questions about the political implications
of the disease model of addiction. In the next
section we outline the methods for this study,
followed by an examination of media coverage
of Cousins.
METHODS
The paper reports on a sample of media cov-
erage about Ben Cousins from the period of
2007 to 2009. Articles were sourced through the
newspaper database Factiva as well as the Google
search engine, using combinations of keyword
searches including: ‘Ben Cousins’, ‘drugs’, ‘drug
use’, ‘addiction’, ‘addict’ and ‘suspension’. Articles
come from all sections of the newspaper (i.e. they
are not confined to sports news). Many of the
writers cited (for example Greg Baum, Caroline
Wilson, Mike Sheahan) are senior sports writer
for prominent Australian newspapers. Their
writing is well regarded and has potentially wide
cultural reach. We also sourced all public state-
ments (including interviews) Cousins made dur-
ing this period. These were included because
we were interested in how Cousins understood
himself and his drug use, because they may have
ramifications for understandings of the intersec-
tion between ‘fitness’ and ‘addiction’ and also
because they provide an important context for
subsequent media accounts of Cousins. Because
of the large amount of material that has been
produced about Cousins during this period, we
chose to focus on media coverage of a series of
Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
HSR
key ‘events’ in the Cousins timeline. These key
events are discussed in the sections that follow.
The materials were analysed using ‘discourse
analysis’ (Lupton 1992) which involves attention
to language, rhetorical devices, metaphor and the
broader structure. We paid particular attention
to the way in which Cousins, athleticism and
addiction were positioned and the intersections
between each of these. In the next sections we
discuss of the themes identified and what they
mean for understandings of agency and addic-
tion, as well as for drug strategies in Australia.
COUSINS IN THE MEDIA
Event 1 – The Cousins suspension
and video statement:
On the event of Cousins’ suspension in March
2007, two prominent sports commentators wrote
that Cousins ‘remains in denial’ about his ‘addic-
tion’ (Wilson and Hinds 2007). They reported
that Cousins had ‘resisted’ interventions and that
he believed he ‘could beat his drug prob-
lem without full-time medical and psychiatric
help’ (Wilson and Hinds 2007). When Cousins
released his video statement several weeks later,
apologising to the community for his actions
and confirming that he had ‘illness as a result
of substance abuse’, he was widely criticised in
the popular media. Jones (2007) described it as
‘a well-rehearsed, well-scripted statement deliv-
ered with the aid of an auto-cue’ and lamented
that there was no ‘heartfelt, off-the-cuff apology’.
Writing for The Age, Baum (2007a) described
Cousins as ‘cautiously sorry…blandly sorry…
formally sorry’. He suggested that Cousins’ apol-
ogy ‘was the sort that meant sorry to have been
caught. Sorry to have to do this’ (Baum 2007a).
Baum also lamented Cousins’ informal attire,
which he described as an ‘oh-so-casual T-shirt,
without a collar, or for that matter, a neckline’
(Baum 2007a).
After the release of the video statement,
Cousins experienced a short hiatus from the
game. Dalton Gooding, then chairman of the
WCE, stated that the club fully supported
HSR 181
 HSR Kate Seear and Suzanne Fraser

Cousins and although he faced ‘private and per-
sonal issues’, he was optimistic Cousins would
return (Anonymous 2007). Importantly, Gooding
acknowledged that Cousins’ mental strength and
football ability was not in question; similarly, the
then West Australian Premier Alan Carpenter
described Cousins as a ‘hero’ and stated that he
looked forward to seeing Cousins return to ‘do
the things he’s been admired for – playing football
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stand ‘tough’ on the culture of football (Gartrell
2007). Howard was also reported to say that ‘all
drugs are evil; they are bad’ (Gartrell 2007).
Cousins – who was captured on film with-
out a t-shirt – was described as being ‘shirtless,
gormless’ (Baum 2007c) in subsequent media
reports of the incident. Greg Baum wrote: ‘his
problem is an illness. But that cannot be an
excuse’ and claimed: ‘What he lacked, and lacks

brilliantly for so long now’ (Anonymous 2007).
Such comments reflected a widely-held popular
view of Cousins: that in spite of his addiction he
was – and remained – an outstanding athlete.2
This is a matter to which we will return.
Event 2 – the Northbridge arrest
After his brief suspension and rehabilitation
attempt in early 2007, Cousins returned to
AFL football. His return was accompanied by
demands for Cousins to ‘publicly…indicate
remorse or a change of attitude’ (Sheahan 2007).
Instead Cousins remained silent and played out
the 2007 season. In October 2007 (after the
completion of the season), Cousins was arrested
and publicly searched by police in Northbridge
(Perth) after they stopped a car he was driving.
The incident was captured by an Australian tele-
vision network and broadcast nationally. Police
announced that Cousins was to be charged with
a string of drug offences and the following day,
the WCE announced they would be terminat-
ing his football contract. Within days however,
the charges were dropped by police after it was
reportedly discovered that the drugs in Cousins’
possession were prescription and not illegal.
Nevertheless, his WCE contract was never rein-
stated.The then Prime Minister of Australia John
Howard described it as a ‘personal tragedy for a
very talented young man’ but urged the AFL to
still, is a sense of responsibility’ (Baum 2007c). In
the official WCE club statement after his arrest,
club chairman Mark Barnaba stated that Cousins
had ‘a very serious health issue’ and that the club
would ‘continue to support him in his quest to
regain his health and rebuild his life’ (Crawford
et al 2007). Barnaba also confirmed that Cousins’
contract was immediately terminated. The AFL
released a statement ‘fully supporting’ the club’s
decision to terminate Cousins’ contract. Andrew
Demetriou, CEO of the AFL, claimed that whilst
they had tried to ‘manage a player struggling
with difficult issues’, the AFL ultimately had a
‘responsibility to manage the game in a way that
protects our broader playing group, and allows
our supporters, members and the football fam-
ily to have pride in our game, and trust in our
administration’ (Robinson and Timms 2007). At
this point Cousins’ football career appeared at an
end, his only hope of returning to AFL football
dependent upon another club offering him a
contract.
Event 3 – the AFL tribunal hearing
Any possibility that Cousins may be able to return
to professional football with a different club
appeared over when the AFL charged him with
‘bringing the game into disrepute’ a few weeks
after the Northbridge incident. Cousins gave evi-
dence in defence of the charge in a closed session

2
The pervasiveness of this view is evidenced in the transcript from a 2007 debate about illicit drug use which took place
in the Western Australian parliament. In the course of a speech by the Honourable Giz Watson, Cousins’ case was raised.
Watson claimed: ‘The path that Ben Cousins has, for whatever reason, taken, in allegedly using illicit drugs is a path that
many other people have taken. The difference is that they do not happen to be footballers. The Honourable Sue Ellery then
interjected: ‘He is not just any footballer!’, to which Watson replied: ‘Clearly not! He is a very good footballer!’ (http://
www.mp.wa.gov.au/giz-watson/speeches/2007/drugs01.html; accessed 9 May 2009).

182 HSR Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

 Ben Cousins and the construction of drug use and addiction in elite sport
but was found guilty and suspended from the
game for a period of 12 months, thus ending any
prospect of him playing with an alternative club.
The Tribunal hearing was a major media event.
Cousins arrived in a ‘new and expensive suit’
(Baum 2007b) with none of the ‘famed Cousins
cockiness’ on display (Dubecki 2007). He again
‘apologised, and this time appeared to mean it’
(Baum 2007b). Baum, earlier a strong critic of
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Cousins, did not articulate the basis upon which
the former (video) apology was less credible or
sincere than the latter. Cousins apparently sur-
prised the media as ‘frank and honest’ (Lyon 2007;
see also Reilly 2008). In spite of this, Cousins was
deregistered from the game. An article appearing
in The Age detailing the Tribunal’s decision bore
the headline: ‘Sorry addict pays price’ (2007) and
it was widely believed that Cousins’ career was
at an end. The AFL Chairman Mike Fitzpatrick,
who presided over the hearing, found it a ‘dif-
ficult decision’ to make (AFL 2007). Ultimately,
however, Cousins had to be sanctioned because
‘players must take responsibility for their actions’
(Lyon 2007). At this stage it was unclear whether
Cousins might return to play football again.
Indeed, any future return to the game would
be contingent upon him satisfying the AFL
Commission of his compliance with a number of
rules designed specifically for Cousins including
co-operating with medical experts and avoid-
ing ‘relapse’; it would also be conditional upon
it being in the ‘best interests’ of Cousins and the
AFL (Lyon 2007). In spite of these conditions
any return to the game in future was constructed
as being within Cousins’ control: ‘It’s up to him.
It always was’ (Baum 2007b). Following the
Tribunal hearing Cousins disappeared from the
media spotlight for further rehabilitation.
Event 4 – the boxing press conference
In February 2008 an announcement was made
that Cousins was to compete in an exhibition
boxing match. The match was in part an attempt
3
Image reproduced with permission of the artist.
Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
HSR
to bring attention to drugs issues. Although
Cousins participated in the promotional press
conference he withdrew from the contest
shortly thereafter. Some media speculated that
his withdrawal came only once he discovered he
may be drug tested to compete. In the course of
the press conference Cousins stated: ‘I am not
ashamed or embarrassed to say I have had a drugs
problem because for a lot of people they don’t
choose to do it, in a lot of ways it chooses them’
(Buckle 2008). Baum (2008) later criticised
Cousins for his remark on the basis that he had
evaded responsibility: ‘We heard that drugs chose
him, not he drugs … But we haven’t heard him
say that before that, he chose drugs, and that he
would not on any account choose them again’.
Although Cousins was largely out of the media
spotlight throughout 2008 his case continued to
attract enormous media and public attention. In
one of the few public appearances by Cousins
during the year he was quoted as saying that
he had an ‘addictive personality’ (in Fotlin and
Robinson 2008) and that ‘to be left to my own
devices is in many ways a dangerous concept’
(Cousins in Fotlin and Robinson 2008). Around
this time, Australian artist Megan Roodenrys
painted a portrait of Cousins [Figure 13] which
was subsequently entered into the Archibald
prize, the richest portrait prize in Australia.
The painting portrayed Cousins in ways
perhaps unfamiliar to the general public, both
literally – the near-naked body, the private set-
ting – and metaphorically – vulnerable, alone
and pensive. One media commentator read the
painting as a metaphor for Cousins’ culpabil-
ity. In an article in The Age describing the por-
trait just days before Cousins learned whether
or not he would be able to play AFL football
again, Mark Russell wrote: ‘Vulnerable’ Cousins
had made his bed – now he awaits the verdict
(Russell 2008). If offered a contract Cousins
would have ‘a chance to repay football itself ’
(Editorial 2008).
HSR 183
 HSR Kate Seear and Suzanne Fraser

for offering him a chance to ‘resurrect’

his football career. Cousins was ‘proud
of the time and the effort that I’ve put
into my rehabilitation’ and expressed
confidence he could move on with his
life without the use of drugs. This was
tempered however, by what Cousins
described as the ‘harsh reality of my
affliction’ and the ‘ongoing stuff that
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I’m required to do’ as part of the reha-

bilitation process.
In a marked shift from earlier com-
mentaries media praised Cousins for
his demeanour and perceived honesty:
‘There was contrition and admission
in equal parts – probing questions
answered honestly’ (Hand 2008). John
Brumby, the Premier of Victoria was
FIGURE 1. ARCHIBALD PRIZE ENTRY BY MEGAN ROODENRYS, 2008; quoted as saying: ‘He’s got a chance
IMAGE REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION OF THE ARTIST.
to be a hero again’ (Unknown 2008).
Event 5 – The Cousins comeback Some remained opposed to Cousins being
On the 16th of December 2008, in the very last drafted, however. Tom Hafey, an elder statesman
opportunity for Cousins to return to AFL com- at Richmond and four-time premiership coach
petition, he was recruited by the Richmond reportedly said: “People ask me, ‘Doesn’t he
Football Club. Richmond had apparently wished deserve a second chance? I say,‘No, he doesn’t’; he
to offer Cousins a contract much earlier (includ- had his chance and he blew it” (McClure 2009).
ing during the period he was suspended from the As Cousins’ first match drew closer, broad sup-
game) but it was later reported that the AFL had port for his return grew, with Cousins described
blocked the move (Butler 2009). Richmond pur- as ‘honest…fit, motivated and grateful’ (Editorial
portedly had identified Cousins as the ‘nation’s 2009). Cousins was congratulated as he ‘appears
best uncontracted player’ and believed it would to have turned his life around’ (Editorial 2009).
be in his ‘best interests’ to be supported by a club In a newspaper column, Cousins later wrote that
during his suspension on the basis that a ‘strict he was seeking ‘another opportunity to earn
regime’ would help his recovery from drugs respect after what has happened’ (Cousins 2009).
(Butler 2009). The AFL reportedly refused on Cousins appears to have won media respect
the basis that a strong anti-drugs message needed in the time since his return to the game with
to be sent to the community (Butler 2009). some (e.g. Hinds 2009) now lamenting both the
After the announcement that Cousins had been previous criticisms of Cousins and the media’s
offered a one-year contract to play, he held what ‘obsession’ with his drug use. Cousins’ apparent
was (until then) his most extensive press confer- redemption culminated in August 2009, with his
ence. He described his time out of the game as 250th AFL game (a rare landmark).4 Widely cel-
‘humbling’ and expressed gratitude to the club ebrated in the football media, ‘reformed’ Cousins

4
Of the 11,800 footballers to have played in the AFL, only 168 (or around 1.4%) have reached the 250 game milestone
(Butler 2009).

184 HSR Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

 Ben Cousins and the construction of drug use and addiction in elite sport
was now praised for having traded ‘his millstone
for a milestone’ (Hinds 2009).
ADDICTION AND ATHLETICISM: THE
COUSINS PARADOX
The commentary surrounding Ben Cousins is
characterised by at least two sets of competing
expectations. On the one hand it often produces
and reproduces expectations about the way in
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which Cousins, as a drug-using subject, will inevi-
tably behave. He is constructed as simultaneously
diseased, hopeless, helpless and passive, but also as
inherently untrustworthy, actively dishonest and
manipulative. Indeed, commentators expressed
surprise at his apparent candour at the 2007 AFL
Tribunal hearing for ‘bringing the game into
disrepute’. His behaviour is constructed as that
of a ‘typical’ drug user: he is out of control and
arrogant; he cares little about others and primar-
ily about himself. He is unreliable, resistant and
in denial about his ‘problem’. On the other hand
there are expectations about how Cousins should
behave, in terms of accepting that he has a ‘prob-
lem’ and that he is an ‘addict’, embracing medi-
cal and psychological help, apologising to the
public, displaying sufficient contrition, accepting
time out of the game in the form of a suspension
and being honest and candid about the nature
and extent of his drug use. Much of the media
criticism of him relates to his perceived failure
to fulfil these expectations – his apologies and
public statements have been viewed as cocky and
too brief, his behaviour at times as insufficiently
candid and commentators have said he has not
been sufficiently forthcoming about his past.
In media coverage of Cousins we see two sets
of competing and partially incommensurable
expectations about the drug-using subject: how
such subjects should behave and how they will
inevitably behave. Moreover, we see multiple, but
differentially valued, subject positions simultane-
ously on display: the neo-liberal subject (choos-
ing, autonomous, rational, responsible) and the
drug addicted subject (irrational, passive, subject
to the ‘manipulations’ of his addiction). These
Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
HSR
competing and partially incommensurate expec-
tations reflect particular inscriptions of subjectiv-
ity in drug policy and practice and (among other
things) are informed by the history of ‘addiction’
described earlier in this paper; the former is cen-
tral to the injunctions about safety for others and
self care woven into contemporary harm reduc-
tion policy and practice (Moore and Fraser 2006),
while the latter operates as an alternative discourse
mobilised in constructing drug users as in need of
professional guidance or control. In this respect,
while these discourses are in some respects con-
tradictory, they can also work together to manage
the ‘transgressive’ capacities of drug users.
What emerges in our analysis is a discursive
field struggling to reconcile the powerful figures
of the sportsman and the ‘drug-using subject’.
Cousins is viewed by commentators and by him-
self as an addict at the mercy of his addiction, but
also as an agent. He is simultaneously in control
and out of control, manipulative and subject to
the demands of his ‘addiction’, criminal and vic-
tim, culpable and innocent, ‘sick’ and ‘evil’. Most
revealingly, he is consistently expected to apolo-
gise for and display contrition about his puta-
tively medical condition (or ‘disease’). His failure
to do this to the satisfaction of some observ-
ers is not greeted as a symptom of illness, but
as a moral failing. These competing representa-
tions of Cousins expose the tensions inherent
in the disease model of addiction, drawing our
attention to its limits as well as to the complex
arrangement of expectations under which drug
users labour (Fraser 2004).They also raise serious
questions about how agency can be conceptua-
lised in relation to drug ‘addiction’, a matter to
which we will return.
Of course, Cousins’ case is an extreme exem-
plar of the complex arrangement of competing
expectations to which drug users are subject.
Drug users face the extraordinary challenge of
claiming and articulating a self in the midst of a
set of contradictory expectations about how they
can, will and should perform these selves. We see
evidence of this insofar as Cousins has begun, in
HSR 185
 HSR Kate Seear and Suzanne Fraser

a sense, to enact a particular, highly complex ver-
sion of subjecthood in which he must both claim
and disavow agency so as to successfully navigate
the mixed expectations imposed on him by pop-
ular but insufficiently nuanced concepts of addic-
tion. In the process he has emerged as a compliant
subject: displaying apparently sufficient levels of
contrition, Cousins has embraced the position
of the ‘sorry addict’ (Lyon 2007) by displaying
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lacking in agency and agent of his own predica-
ment (the double meaning implied by Lyon’s ‘sorry
addict’ headline). As we have noted, these labels do
not sit easily with Cousins the elite athlete; indeed,
in many respects, Cousins disrupts the stereotype
of the ‘drug addict’ (as passive, weak-willed and
‘sick’), insofar as he is active, strong, disciplined,
masterful, physically supreme and commanding.
Indeed, the media and football bureaucracy have

a willingness to admit he has a problem and to
apologise to those he has ‘hurt’. He has received
help and is even making a documentary about his
‘battle’ with addiction (Unknown 2009).
An important question in this involves the
efficacy or usefulness of these various and con-
tradictory subject positions – how they are taken
up and deployed by Cousins and the political
and ethical effect thereof. A similar question was
explored in an earlier paper by Moore and Fraser
(2006). In positioning himself as the ‘sorry addict’
Cousins is potentially empowered, insofar as his
display of contrition and responsibility has seen
him extract more sympathy from commentators
and other key stakeholders. It has permitted him
to return to football and to be offered a ‘second
chance’ to compete in a sport he enjoys, excels
at and from which he can earn an income. It is
highly unlikely that Cousins would have been
permitted to return to the league had he not
been willing or able to enact the complex posi-
tion of the ‘sorry addict’ or to be any less demon-
strative in his display of contrition.5 In displaying
contrition and referring to himself as an ‘addict’,
Cousins seems to have won the admiration of
the media and other key stakeholders.6
In so doing Cousins has also claimed a version
of subjecthood that positions him as ‘evil’, ‘sick’,
never disputed Cousins’ footballing prowess, even
in reflecting on his performance during the time
of his regular drug use. This view is reflected in a
recent article recalling Cousins’ career, in which
Wilson (2009) described him as a ‘football genius’,
the ‘spiritual leader’ of his club, a club champion
and a leader of the midfield in two of the ‘most
thrilling’ grand finals in the past decade. She also
wrote: ‘We now know that Cousins was deep
into a long-term drug addiction by then’ (Wilson
2009).This paradox of agency as it emerges within
the specific intersection of athleticism and addic-
tion is especially clearly articulated through two
sets of comments from Cousins himself. The first
set of comments appeared in a 2008 interview
conducted by former footballer and media com-
mentator Garry Lyon on Australian television’s
The Footy Show. At the time of the interview,
speculation was mounting that Cousins would
seek to return to the game at the conclusion of
his 12-month suspension. Lyon had secured an
exclusive interview with Cousins to discuss his
ambitions. In the course of the interview, Cousins
and Lyon had the following exchange which is
worth repeating in its entirety:
Lyon: You’re smart enough to understand
it’s gonna be the intriguing footy question

5
The AFL has continuously reiterated the importance of Cousins apologising to the public and to complying with require-
ments including rigorous drug testing (see, for example, Wilson 2008). The AFL has also reminded Cousins of the possibil-
ity of his suspension from the game being reinstated if he does not comply with its requirements.
6
Moreover, Cousins’ popularity with the public does not appear to have diminished as a consequence of the events described
in this paper. It has been reported that in the week following the Richmond Football Club’s announcement that they had
recruited Cousins for the 2009 season, 6000 members signed up, taking the club’s membership to an all-time record high.
Moreover, more than two thousand fans turned up to witness his first training session with the team (Pawle 2009), a prac-
tice usually only seen in the Grand Final week.

186 HSR Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010

 Ben Cousins and the construction of drug use and addiction in elite sport
between now and then is why would clubs put
their hand up for Ben Cousins? Do you think
you’d have to sell yourself aggressively to these
clubs and are you prepared to do that?
Cousins: Well the question is why would they
or why wouldn’t they?
Lyon: Why would they?
Cousins: Why would they?
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Lyon: Yeah.
Cousins: Well I, I thought I played reasonable
footy over the course of my career.
Lyon: You’re being modest….
Cousins: (laughs) Well I’m being a bit sarcas-
tic. Why wouldn’t they? You know, you say
why would they, why wouldn’t they?
Lyon: Well why wouldn’t they is they say…
Cousins: (laughs) I don’t know, that’s my
opinion.
Lyon: But the question would be, can we take
this player into our environment, we know
he’s…
Cousins: That’s up to them, and the culture
and environment of their footy club, but that’s,
that’s, you know that’s for them to decide, so.
Lyon: Would you give assurances, from the
point of view of the path you’ve been down,
from the drugs point of view? Can you give that
assurance? Or is that an ongoing question?
Cousins: Yeah well, it’s an in-depth question
that can’t be answered, in the space of a couple
of minutes so, yeah.
In the same interview, Cousins discussed the
concern (widely held in the media at the time)
that he may no longer be able to compete at the
highest level of football. He explained:
Cousins: If I ever made the decision to come
back and play footy, um, it’s not the footy part
that I’d be worried about at all. It’s not prepar-
ing for footy it’s not being fit enough, it’s not
Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
HSR
wondering whether I’m going to get a kick but,
um, you know, it’s everything that comes with
it and it’s having to take into account every-
thing that comes with addiction.
Lyon: It’s hard for us to understand and get a
grip on that, but I guess the bottom line is you
still have this great confidence in your footy
ability if you can get the other parts of your
life in order.
Cousins: Yeah, yeah. And that’s always been
the case. You know I wasn’t playing bad footy
before I shipped off to rehab, so, you know,
from that point of view I’ve been highly func-
tional so it’s never been a case of it affecting
my footy or yeah, diminishing the impact that
I can have on a game, it’s just the off field stuff
that it runs into, so.
In analysing these comments we need to
return to the paradoxes of ‘free will’ and agency
articulated earlier in the article. In the latter
exchange, Cousins implies that the quality of
his football has never been affected by his drug
use. He maintains that he has always been ‘highly
functional’ and that drug use not only does not
affect his football but that it is not an issue of it
‘diminishing the impact’ that he ‘can have on a
game’. In this respect, Cousins not only resists
the notion that drug use or even ‘addiction’ and
(elite) athleticism are mutually exclusive, but
calls into question all that their mutual exclu-
sion would entail.The possibility of co-existence
is also reflected in the former (more lengthy)
exchange between Cousins and Lyon, especially
where Cousins explains, with more than a hint
of irony, that he thought he ‘played reasonable
footy’ during his career. In emphasising his belief
that other clubs should be interested in offer-
ing him a contract (‘Why wouldn’t they? You
know, you say why would they, why wouldn’t
they?’), Cousins establishes several contradictions
regarding addiction and agency. He calls into
question Lyon’s assumptions about agency, abil-
ity and the drug ‘addicted’ subject, thus resisting
HSR 187
 HSR Kate Seear and Suzanne Fraser
categorisation as either drug ‘addict’ or sports
‘hero’. He suggests it is possible to be both at
once. This is not to suggest that self-identifying
drug ‘addicts’ never experience their function-
ality as attenuated or constrained, nor that all
drug ‘addicts’ are capable of managing their drug
use alongside other tasks (and certainly not to
the standard Cousins is acknowledged to have
achieved). Rather, what we are saying is that it is
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important to take seriously how Cousins under-
stands his own agency, embodied reality and
functionality during periods of regular drug use.
If we do so, as we have argued, this has impor-
tant ramifications for how we understand agency
in relation to drug use and for the widespread
deployment of the disease model of addiction in
drug policy in Australia. We now turn to a final
consideration of these matters.
CONCLUSION: EXCEEDING THE ‘SORRY
ADDICT’
In this paper we have examined representations
of drug use in relation to Ben Cousins, a high
profile and highly decorated Australian athlete.
In exploring an otherwise rarely publicised
combination of attributes, we argue that Cousins
acts as a figure through which the complex chal-
lenges facing drug-using subjects and the con-
tradictory assumptions of the disease model of
‘addiction’ are articulated. As noted at the outset
of this paper, drug use is increasingly understood
in terms of the disease model of ‘addiction’. In
spite of the fact that the disease model ostensibly
excuses drug users for their behaviour, the pres-
ent study demonstrates that moral judgements
of drug use are not precluded even when drug
use is articulated in this way. Further, although
‘addiction’ is ostensibly understood as involving
constraints upon an individual’s will or agency,
drug users are assumed to be rational, choosing
and agential in some instances. Insofar as notions
of choice or will are not altogether abandoned,
drug use comes to be positioned as a kind of
‘disordered consumption’ (Seddon 2007:338)
for which the drug-using subject must account
188 HSR Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
and/or repent. In this sense the paper’s analysis
reveals the complex and contradictory web of
expectations to which drug-using subjects are
subjected in the contemporary context and the
challenges users face in articulating and enact-
ing an appropriate ‘self ’ in the midst of these
tensions.
Of course, although the Cousins case can be
used to illuminate the broader contradictions at
the centre of current approaches to drug use, it
also has a number of unique dimensions. Many
of the injunctions to which Cousins has been
subjected appear to reflect expectations more
pronounced for celebrities. As a public figure
Cousins is seen to owe particularly weighty obli-
gations to the community, including an obliga-
tion to confess his ‘sins’ publicly as a means of
securing redemption. By the same token, non-
celebrity drug-using subjects are also subject to
(albeit less public) injunctions, demands in terms
of responsibility and obligation, and expectations
around confession and contrition.They too must
navigate the paradox of ‘free will’ in addiction that
we have described throughout this paper. In this
sense, we argue that Cousins’ celebrity does not
explain away the findings in this paper; rather, he
acts as a figure through which the experiences of
non-celebrity drug users are amplified.
We might also wish to consider other rami-
fications of the paradox of ‘free will’ discussed
in this paper. In particular, how does the ques-
tion of (attenuated) agency in the disease model
of ‘addiction’ disrupt idealised notions of ‘mas-
culinity’ that dominate popular understandings
of masculine sporting virtuosity? Arguably, the
ideal of the ‘masculine sporting hero’ is formed
through a mutually constitutive process (Butler
1993) of exclusion and inclusion. The masculine
sporting hero is constituted through reference to
what it is not; this includes those characteristics
associated with the ‘feminine’, such as emotion-
ality, passivity, weakness of will and proneness
to disease. Male sporting heroes are ordinarily
represented as possessing an abundance of those
qualities associated with ‘hegemonic masculinity’
 Ben Cousins and the construction of drug use and addiction in elite sport
(Connell 1987); they are intrinsically masterful,
agential, commanding, physically exemplary and
rational subjects. Ben Cousins’ ‘addiction’ calls
into question this idealised version of mascu-
linity insofar as the disease model of ‘addiction’
reconstitutes him as sick, weak, passive and lack-
ing in agency. As such, just as the intersection
of ‘addiction’ and athleticism tells us something
about the paradox of free will inherent in the
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disease model of ‘addiction’, it reveals something
about the limitations of idealised masculinity
which circulate through popular representations
of the male sporting hero.
The findings of this study have ramifications
for the application and efficacy of the disease
model of addiction in Australian policy, law
enforcement and health service provision, and
for anywhere reliant on this model. There is a
need for much more critical work on the addic-
tion model and the contradictory assumptions
embedded in it regarding agency and responsi-
bility. How might underlying expectations about
the ‘sorry addict’ subtly play out in policy and
practice? One area in which these issues have
been approached before is the delivery of opi-
oid pharmacotherapy treatment. Critics have
pointed to the place of rewards and punishments
for client behaviour found in some programs as
inconsistent with therapeutic models. Likewise,
the common tendency to ban clients who sell on
their medication on the black market (Fraser and
Valentine 2008).
Also, there is a need to come to terms with
another set of issues indicated in Cousins’ com-
ments. As we saw, Cousins is well aware of the
undiminished quality of his sporting perfor-
mance across the timeframe in which he con-
sumed illicit drugs. Public estimations of his
performance have not disputed this assessment
of physical virtuosity and skill. There is, in other
words, no basis on which to make an assump-
tion that Cousins experienced his bodily integ-
rity as significantly disrupted or harmed by his
drug consumption. Health and law enforcement
campaigns about drug use, clinical encounters in
Volume 19, Issue 2, June 2010
HSR
which drug use is discussed, and policy in which
responding to drug use is shaped must somehow
find ways to engage with individual drug use and
broader issues of drug use that acknowledge the
specificity of subjective and bodily experience
of drug use and meet those who take drugs in
their own domain of experience. In engaging
specifically with the range of individual experi-
ences, and in recognising the problems inherent
in the current disease model of ‘addiction’ noted
above, responses to drug use can begin to exceed
the narrow ‘sick’/‘evil’, agency/passivity discur-
sive resources through which affected individuals
must constitute themselves and their opportuni-
ties for health and well-being.
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Received 25 September 2009 Accepted 19 April 2010

• • • C A L L F O R PA P E R S • • •
THE FUTURE OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION (TVET): GLOBAL
CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES
Special Issue of International Journal of Training Research – Volumn 9 Issue 1
ii + 126 pages – ISBN 978-1-921729-10-2 – April 2011
Guest Editor: Rupert Maclean (Chair Professor of International Education and Director of the
Centre for Lifelong Learning Research and Development, Hong Kong Institute of Education;
Foundation Director, UNESCO International Centre for Technical and
Vocational Education and Training, Bonn, Germany)
DEADLINE FOR PAPERS: 1ST NOVEMBER 2010
This special edition is in response to the resolutions arising out the 2009 UNESCO General Conference of
UNESCO’s 193 Member States where a major resolution was passed to promote the reform and strengthening
of TVET systems and the capacity of Member States so developed to equip youth and adults with knowledge,
competences and skills for the world of work.
The 2009 UNESCO General Conference identified TVET as one of three priority areas to be focused on by
UNESCO in its various programme activities. This includes: teacher education; development of adult literacy;
and linkages with lifelong learning.
In addition, the commitment to build TVET is extended in areas such as developing nations as well as those
nations in post conflict and post natural disaster situations.
The papers may also wish to consider issues relating to TVET and the relationship with education for sustainability,
education for all, elder education and capacity building for older workers as well as TVET and worker mobility.
This issue is guest edited by Prof Rupert Maclean, Chair in International Education and Director of the Centre for
Lifelong Learning Research and Development at the Hong Kong Institute of Education.
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