So what did you think of the Ben Cousins’ Such is Life doco? Just for a bit of background the title came from the large tattoo that Cousins has tattooed across his stomach and ironically were the last words spoken by bushranger Ned Kelly. Now there’s a role model–as good a role model as Cousins himself has proved to be.
It started off in a wave of controversy didn’t it. Promoting drug use some one said, then someone else said no it was anti drugs and then they got that clever kid psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg to say it was important, and by that time we were all hooked, weren’t we?
Anyway I’m not too sure that Ben Cousins and genuine remorse can be words used in the same sentence after viewing this documentary. It’s his smart arse grin. He smirked his way through the whole thing and that makes me doubt his motives. 800 big ones is a lot of coin for airing your dirty laundry. You could buy a lot of stuff for that sort of money.
But on a positive side if it got parents and kids talking about drugs then something good can come out of this. However I’m not really sure that what we saw of Cousins’ behaviour under the influence of drugs would be viewed as a bad thing by many teens.
Take that scene where he was so out of it he was twitching. Now while Gen X me was horrified to see anyone in that state, I know from conversations with Gen Y that it’s no biggie. Getting wasted or drug-fucked like that is apparently laughable, expected in fact.
I wonder what would have happened if they’d seen Cousins at his lowest? After he’d defecated in his trousers or collapsed unconscious and convulsing because make no mistake that would have happened if reports about the amount of drugs he’d taken are true.
The most effective anti-drug talk I’ve ever attended was delivered by a paramedic who held up the massive needle that is used to deliver adrenaline to the heart in drug overdose cases. He told the audience that the girl he’d used it on last had defecated, urinated and vomited when she was unconscious from a drug overdose. Then he added, poignantly, she’d gone to a lot of trouble to look nice for that night. I hope that at least one kid walked away with that image tattooed in their brain–I know I did.
So will boys in particular see the Ben Cousins doco as a means to an end? Will they walk away from watching it thinking that drugs are bad or that you can do what you like, and if you’re a good footy player well it will be ok. Because lets be frank, there was no real lesson to be learned from the doco. Cousins didn’t end up on the bones of his arse, he hasn’t changed his ways. He went for a sleeping pill overdose just this year. Can drug addicts take sleeping pills and caffeine pills and drink alcohol? I’d have thought no, but Cousins plays by different rules, doesn’t he.
Let’s hope our young people have enough common sense to realise that there are rules and consequences for successful sportsmen of Ben Cousins’ ilk and slightly different rules and consequences for the rest of us. Image
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