I suppose the biggest experience with mental health
was when my brother committed suicide.
I would have been 14 turning 15
I think it was,
so not fully understanding
all of that that's going on around
and just knowing how much I had to deal with myself
and not being able to really talk about it with anybody
because it is a touchy subject obviously.
Dad didn't really talk much,
he was very much old school
like a lot of men around that generation
around that age.
For a while there, I got a bit lost
in the social side of things
with drinking, footy.
The drinking lasts for only so long
and because you're so out of it
you try to find other ways to...
find that high or that feeling
and I fell into gambling as well.
It was a way just to get lost,
the thrill of winning,
it wasn't money it was just a way to
make the machine light up.
I was lying to a lot of people
and not being able to
look in the mirror
and I just knew that everything
was going to come to a head.
I thought about...
it would be just much easier
if I wasn't here.
When you are that low it's easy
for you just to do that
rather than think about how it effects anybody else.
Everyday it's an effort to
make sure that I don't
just get stuck in that guilt.
I don't let that drag me down again
because it would be quite easy to
you know
do it all again.
I was diagnosed with depression in 2011.
There is no easy fix,
there's no magic pill.
It's an ongoing, everyday thing
that each person has to deal with
and going to ProCare helped deal with a lot of that.
They helped me put a lot of things into perspective
about everything, about life, about myself.
Being open with everybody about it,
all the boys when they would ask questions,
a lot more of the boys came to me
and told me about what they were going through,
health issues,
there was a few of the boys dealing with depression.
For an environment like this,
a rugby league club,
it's a manly thing so
there's a lot of old school thought where
men don't talk about their feelings
or their thoughts.
I was so open about all of it,
if anybody had anything to ask me
about my gambling, my drugs,
and I was honest with them,
it makes other guys feel not so
uhh, you know, macho
because after hearing about
all the crap that I've been through
they felt a bit more comfortable about
being able to talk to me about
what they're going through.
My ultimate goal would be
making sure that our kids are alright.
First of all,
we have got to have stronger men;
not physically stronger,
I mean mentally stronger,
but you can't help anybody else
if you're not right,
so that's a massive thing
that I'm trying to work towards.