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LET'S get to the heart of my story from the first page, because I want this book to be a very frank insight into the life of a person who might well be a hero of thousands of footy fans, but really is a living contradiction.
The Joey Johns you saw on the football field is not the real Andrew Johns I know. When I set out to do this book, I was not interested in a conservative "that's my wonderful life" autobiography, simply back-tracking the football achievements that I have been so fortunate to have enjoyed. I knew I had to be open and reveal all – well, just about all – about my life and my personality.
I could not have done that five years ago when the idea of writing a book was first thrown up. There were too many things in my life I couldn't deal with.
To be brutally honest, I hated Joey Johns. I hated the superstar-type figure I was perceived to be and I hated as much the person I really was.
Now, and I'm only talking about since the second half of 2006, I am finally comfortable with who I am as a person. I am not complaining one bit about the many things that being a good rugby league player has given me. I am very, very privileged to have had such a career. It still seems extremely surreal to me that such an ordinary bloke from Cessnock could achieve what I have, with all my imperfections that I will soon describe to you. I know that without rugby league I would still be living in Cessnock, plying a living as some sort of tradesman – and enjoying it, I might add – or, far worse, having become a local no-hoper.
MY CONDITION
The "other" side of Andrew Johns I had planned to reveal here was that I suffer from bipolar disorder – but unfortunately that came out prematurely in the wash-up from my stupid act of being arrested for possession of an ecstasy tablet in London in late August this year.
Although it wasn't diagnosed until much later, I have suffered the condition – also known as manic depression – since my early to mid-teens.
Basically I suffer manic highs which can make me feel almost indestructibly confident and possessed with boundless energy on the football field, as well as sparking erratic, unforgivable behaviour off it, behaviour that I am ashamed of; then terrible lows which have seen me shut myself in my house for days, paranoid about the outside world and with a deep hatred of myself.
At their worst, these occurrences would be almost weekly during a football season. For many years I refused to confront the problem, to the extent that I turned my back on those who obviously knew I had the medical condition and tried to help me. At other times I have been a very good actor, covering up my true feelings and refusing to face my insecurities.
I suffered from manic depression my entire senior football career, although I didn't know it for most of that time.
This won't be any great disclosure for my teammates, coaches or people who have been close enough to witness my erratic behaviour and massive mood swings over 14 seasons.
But now they have a public confession and an explanation and medical label for it.
To be honest, once I made the decision to let it out for everyone to see, recording my inner thoughts over the past few months has been a good kind of therapy for me.
HOW IT AFFECTED ME
The mania is like a coil unwinding in my stomach and it is very, very difficult to stop. I can get an uncontrollable boost of energy and hyperactivity; it might happen when I was going into a football game and I would feel absolutely indestructible, be on an unbelievable high in confidence and go out and play the best game of my life.
After the game I would feel so exhilarated and energised I didn't want to stop. I'd drink with the boys and the alcohol would just amplify the phase, or an "episode" as it is medically termed, into a sort of frenzy. As too many people in Newcastle can testify, I go crazy. I get so fuelled with adrenalin, I can go on a three-day bender without sleep.
I became a major burden on (club doctor) Neil Halpin; I owe him so much for helping me get through it.
There were times I'd be "wigging out" at four or five in the morning; I'd scream down the phone and he would talk me down, saying: "Is Renae there?" or in later years: "Is Cathrine there? How is she dealing with it?" and often he'd come straight round.
Or I might be screaming and "going off" unnecessarily and Hages (then-Knights coach Michael Hagan) would ring; or I'd just be in a really bad low or off my tree, and it would get back to him and he'd call in and say: "Mate, this can be managed. You shouldn't live your life like this."
Neil referred me to a few specialists in Newcastle, then to Professor Gordon Parker, executive director of the Black Dog Institute in Sydney, who was a great help. He put in place what they call a "get well plan", which consists of putting energy into positive things, and making them your routine – for me it is reading, walking and surfing, rather than the destructive things.
I take medication for the chemical imbalance, which keeps me on an even keel. Originally I was scared to take it because I thought I played great when I was up, and generally I enjoyed being high and lived with being low.
But the medication keeps me on a moderate level. It cuts out the jaggedness. I'm not the life of the party or lying in bed for two days not wanting to get out.
WHY I'M TELLING ALL
The motivation behind exposing this part of me is twofold: firstly, to explain to people – including those in Newcastle who have seen me at my crazy worst at some nightspot – why the hell I tick like I do, and, secondly, that if my story helps just one or even a dozen young people identify that they have a similar problem and can get help, it might save them enduring the torture that I have gone through in my life.
I hope my story is taken in the right context and that my regrets are a motivation for others who might be thrust into the limelight – and into such an artificial life – to not retrace my steps and live on a razor's edge.
MY FEARS
I am worried about the reaction I will get. I am very worried about any negative publicity it might give the game of rugby league, which has provided me with so much – in material things, in friendships and in unforgettable memories.
That is something that I know I have to deal with, but the fact is I couldn't offer my memoirs as another version of the lie I feel I have lived.
Alcohol has been my undoing on too many occasions. I am mad when I'm on the drink.
I still cringe at the thought of being someone I'm not, somewhere I don't even remember being, and having little recollection of it later. I can't describe the shame and the guilt that has brought me.
I've now admitted to also having taken social drugs. I'm not using it as the only excuse, but that has been a product of my manic highs, when I get out on the grog and lose control and don't care for a second about consequences while I ride this powerful, all-consuming tidal wave. In a way it's about trying to escape from the real me. I am ashamed of that, too.
I know I am seen as a role model for kids. I understand how so many of them idolise successful footballers just as I did when I was young. I worry about the danger of shattering young aspiring players' perceptions of me.
I just hope my message is clear: that while I am proud of the joy I have helped bring to people through my football exploits (with the massive help of my teammates), I'm regretful I have sometimes negatively affected the lives of people around me.
THE LONDON INCIDENT
Words can't adequately describe the shame, the humiliation and the regret I feel about what that episode did, not just to me, but also people close to me.
On one hand the whole thing weighs very heavily on me. On the other hand – now that I have got through those first few dark days – I feel that maybe it was the jolt I needed to seriously confront how I'd lived my life, and it might end up a positive.
It started with an amazing surfing trip to Indonesia, was punctuated by British Airways losing my bags – and my medication – and ended in a police cell a few days later.
After a big night in London, I got about four or five hours' sleep before I was ready to go again.
By then I hadn't had medication for over a week. I dropped my bag off at my hotel, got changed and rushed out.
We went straight to The Church nightclub, a place where heaps of expat Aussies and Kiwis hang out, which is legendary for its Sunday afternoon party atmosphere.
I could feel myself getting wound up even more and I flogged myself that Sunday on the grog and, yes, I'll admit I took ecstasy before I left The Church. People don't realise how others will come up and just give the tablets to you, maybe because you are recognised as some sort of celebrity.
Just as I left, some bloke put an ecstasy tablet in my pocket.
I was too pissed to remember exactly how it happened, but I knew what he was doing.
When we got out at Kings Cross (railway station) about 4pm, there was a mass of people. I'll admit I was off my head from the combination of heavy drinking and taking ecstasy.
There were a few police when we got to the gates at Kings Cross. I thought nothing of it and went to go through with this girl but, for some reason, I went to a policeman and asked where I could buy a ticket.
He pointed in the right direction, and as I went to go there he called me back and asked to search me.
Whether my eyes or how I was walking gave me away, I really don't know, but just then I thought: "sh*t, I've got that thing in my pocket!" I panicked and slipped it on to the ground, thinking no one would notice.
The policeman picked it up and asked if it was mine and I said I didn't know whose it was.
They obviously didn't believe me and handcuffed me in front of everyone, and I stood there, my arms bound, for 20 minutes.
They searched all the other people who were with us and then put me in a Tarago-type van, took me to Central London police station and put me in a cell.
MY LOWEST POINT
I can only describe that experience as frightening. I was in a cell on my own, about 3m by 4m, with a toilet and a tiny gymnastic mat on the floor and I stayed there for five hours, because apparently there was some sort of blitz on with the Notting Hill carnival taking place over the long weekend and the police were flat out.
These big mad African guys were in the cell next to me and they were throwing themselves against the walls and banging on them screaming out.
The whole thing was terrifying, and degrading. I was photographed and had to take my clothes off and be strip-searched. I felt like a criminal.
The feeling of helplessness, of not knowing what was going on, of coming off the manic high into a deep depression – people talk about hitting rock bottom in their lives, well I was there right then. I could see my whole life flashing in front of my eyes and I'd stuffed it up by living so recklessly. I was thinking about the embarrassment, the humiliation I felt – the shame.
I felt sure what happened would get out, and I was thinking about what I would do when I got back to Australia, how all my prospects of employment would be lost. I was thinking of (son) Samuel and Cathrine and my family, and how I would explain to them.
I was on the verge of being suicidal. It was definitely going through my mind.
When I was in the lock-up someone asked me if I had any medical conditions. I told him I had bipolar disorder and how I'd lost my bags that contained my medication, so I was taken to a doctor who gave me my medication, Epilim 500.
One of the cops ended up entering my cell and said: "Are you the famous rugby player?"
I replied: "Why's that?" and he said they had a rule in the UK that if you haven't been in trouble there before, and you're caught with one ecstasy tablet, you'd be let off with a caution.
He asked if I would admit the tablet was mine and I said in that case I would. I went into the interview room with two policemen, we sat down at a big table and the tape recorder was turned on, just like on the telly.
I said the tablet was mine, I was going to take it and I wasn't going to sell it. One of the two coppers told me I was a silly bastard and to get my act in order, and said something like: "You seem like a good fella – just don't go down this road in life." Then they said I would be given a caution and could go.
It was well after 9pm by this time. I asked if what had happened was going to get out and they said they wouldn't tell the media. I still don't know how it snuck out – I can only assume someone at the police station blabbed.
One of the interviewing police actually asked for my autograph. When I was signing I felt so ashamed.
I'M TO BLAME
I want to make it clear here that I'm not blaming my predicament on British Airways for my medication going missing. I am not blaming bipolar, or the bloke who slipped me the ecstasy tablet. I blame me, no one or anything else. I put myself in that position. And I have to face the consequences. I had an ecstasy tablet, just as I'd had in the past, and I was going to take it.
GOING HOME
The news hadn't broken, but it was all I could think about as I prepared to return to Australia.
On the plane trip home I was having panic attacks. I had to reach for the vomit bag and was trying to control my breathing. I had the sweats really bad and couldn't sleep, even after taking sedatives.
When the plane touched down in Sydney about 6pm, I was paranoid about whether the Customs people at Sydney airport had a record that I'd been locked up or whether they'd search me.
When I got safely through Customs and it got to going around the corner to where everyone meets passengers, I froze. I couldn't walk around the corner. I got myself together and thought: "This is crazy," so I hurried out and saw Cathrine. We walked straight to the car park with hardly a word said and hopped into the car.
She instantly gave me a big spray: "I always told you something like this was going to happen and, you know what, I'm glad it has happened – maybe finally you're going to learn a big lesson from this."
THE STORY BREAKS
When the story made the papers a day after I'd been back in the country, telling my son was one of the toughest things I've had to do.
I had Samuel in the house and had to get him ready for school, but first I had to sit him down and tell him what I'd done, which was heartbreaking. He knew about drugs and he said they were bad – he asked me questions about them. I will never forget that conversation.
I THOUGHT OF SUICIDE
Then the circus began. There were media out the front of my house, some were ringing the doorbell on the front wall. I was on my own, pacing the house, going up and down the stairs, looking out the curtains, a prisoner in my own home with journalists and TV cameras parked on the footpath outside.
That's when I became close to being suicidal. I consciously thought of taking my own life. I was in a massive state of depression, thinking: "What have you done to your family and those closest to you? What have you done with your life?"
I'm not disclosing this to dramatise events or get any sympathy for myself or to make the media feel guilty. It's not easy admitting a tough big-shot footballer was on the verge of suicide because he'd got some bad headlines.
But it's fact, part of my story. And maybe it might bring home just how bipolar can affect someone. The fact that 15 per cent of people who suffer the condition commit suicide is a scary statistic. I'm sure as hell glad something stopped me taking that way out of my dilemma that day.
The most disappointing thing about the initial media reaction (to The Footy Show interview) was how it was apparently portrayed that my drug-taking was frequent, as if I was some sort of hopeless addict.
Sometimes I would go a whole season and not take any drugs but hit the alcohol so hard it was ridiculous, and self-damaging.
Drugs were sometimes part of my life, but alcohol was a much bigger problem, the major contributor towards my reckless and irresponsible behaviour, and that has been skimmed over.
From what I understand, Neil Halpin, too, was unfairly being smashed by the media for supposedly letting my lifestyle of alcohol and drug taking continue unabated, which is absolute bullsh*t. Neil couldn't have done more to help me, but I wasn't always ready to listen to him.
Like Neil, Mick Hagan could not have done more for me over my career without standing there and physically stopping me putting a beer to my mouth. I am so disappointed and regretful at the criticism levelled at them when this all came out.
THE AFTERMATH
I was beside myself for a couple of days after The Footy Show disclosures. I virtually locked myself inside the house, although Cath and my family made sure there was always someone with me, thank God.
The following Sunday was Father's Day and I spent it with Samuel.
I picked up day by day after that, to the stage where I could accept what had happened and could face the world again.
I went for a walk – I think on the Tuesday – past a group of schoolchildren and their teacher. I put my head down and was really self-conscious about what they'd think about me, and whether I'd shattered some of their illusions of me. They all cheered me and wanted to give me high-fives. They would never know what that meant to me. It was breaking the ice after days of bad depression.
The well-wishers and the phone calls got me through those few days, along with my close friends and family. I was blown away by their support.
I hope players who have watched how much public humiliation, embarrassment and shame I have brought on myself by living such a lifestyle and getting caught, found it to be a big deterrent. I hope it has changed some players' attitudes.
One good thing to come of this awful mess has been how it has increased the awareness about bipolar. Some people have come up to me in recent days and told me about people in their family who suffer from it and that my story has opened up dialogue between family and friends. And two NRL players have contacted me confessing they suffer bipolar disorder. Gordon Parker had already told me he sees first-grade footballers all the time. They are out there. I can often see who suffers from it in their behaviour.
MY FAMILY
I know out of this absolute chaos I have to take some positives, there are so many lessons that have to be learned. The whole family realised we should have confronted this earlier, but we always skimmed around it.
The one major positive of what happened was that it forced me and my family to stop sweeping my condition under the carpet, and for the first time we spoke openly about it, whereas in the past the word "bipolar" would make me scurry out of the room.
Cath has been an absolute rock beside me through all this, even though the London episode naturally put a massive strain on our relationship. I can't thank her enough.
She was very disappointed with what I did. She won't ever bullsh*t to me, and I need someone being straight with me like that – not too many people are.
Cath says she can genuinely see something different in me now. It will take more than willpower. I need to have specialised help and I am prepared to do that.
THE CONSTANT STRUGGLE
I'd like to say that I know I will never take drugs again. Of course, I can't guarantee it when I suffer bipolar disorder and may at some stage get out of control on a manic high.
A reformed alcoholic can't be absolutely sure he or she will never have another drink. But from the bottom of my soul I have no intention of ever touching another illicit substance. I don't want my life to be a circus. Any time I'm out now having a good time, there are going to be mobile phone cameras aimed at me or newspaper photographers just waiting to pounce.
That's part of the territory with where my life is at now. I don't want to be a George Best, seen as a pathetic drunk and fallen has-been, but to be honest, that's where my life was heading.
The strong part of me is going to be staying on the straight and narrow.
• Edited extract from The Two of Me by Andrew Johns with Neil Cadigan, published by HarperCollins, $45, available tomorrow
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22695891-5003409,00.html
The Joey Johns you saw on the football field is not the real Andrew Johns I know. When I set out to do this book, I was not interested in a conservative "that's my wonderful life" autobiography, simply back-tracking the football achievements that I have been so fortunate to have enjoyed. I knew I had to be open and reveal all – well, just about all – about my life and my personality.
I could not have done that five years ago when the idea of writing a book was first thrown up. There were too many things in my life I couldn't deal with.
To be brutally honest, I hated Joey Johns. I hated the superstar-type figure I was perceived to be and I hated as much the person I really was.
Now, and I'm only talking about since the second half of 2006, I am finally comfortable with who I am as a person. I am not complaining one bit about the many things that being a good rugby league player has given me. I am very, very privileged to have had such a career. It still seems extremely surreal to me that such an ordinary bloke from Cessnock could achieve what I have, with all my imperfections that I will soon describe to you. I know that without rugby league I would still be living in Cessnock, plying a living as some sort of tradesman – and enjoying it, I might add – or, far worse, having become a local no-hoper.
MY CONDITION
The "other" side of Andrew Johns I had planned to reveal here was that I suffer from bipolar disorder – but unfortunately that came out prematurely in the wash-up from my stupid act of being arrested for possession of an ecstasy tablet in London in late August this year.
Although it wasn't diagnosed until much later, I have suffered the condition – also known as manic depression – since my early to mid-teens.
Basically I suffer manic highs which can make me feel almost indestructibly confident and possessed with boundless energy on the football field, as well as sparking erratic, unforgivable behaviour off it, behaviour that I am ashamed of; then terrible lows which have seen me shut myself in my house for days, paranoid about the outside world and with a deep hatred of myself.
At their worst, these occurrences would be almost weekly during a football season. For many years I refused to confront the problem, to the extent that I turned my back on those who obviously knew I had the medical condition and tried to help me. At other times I have been a very good actor, covering up my true feelings and refusing to face my insecurities.
I suffered from manic depression my entire senior football career, although I didn't know it for most of that time.
This won't be any great disclosure for my teammates, coaches or people who have been close enough to witness my erratic behaviour and massive mood swings over 14 seasons.
But now they have a public confession and an explanation and medical label for it.
To be honest, once I made the decision to let it out for everyone to see, recording my inner thoughts over the past few months has been a good kind of therapy for me.
HOW IT AFFECTED ME
The mania is like a coil unwinding in my stomach and it is very, very difficult to stop. I can get an uncontrollable boost of energy and hyperactivity; it might happen when I was going into a football game and I would feel absolutely indestructible, be on an unbelievable high in confidence and go out and play the best game of my life.
After the game I would feel so exhilarated and energised I didn't want to stop. I'd drink with the boys and the alcohol would just amplify the phase, or an "episode" as it is medically termed, into a sort of frenzy. As too many people in Newcastle can testify, I go crazy. I get so fuelled with adrenalin, I can go on a three-day bender without sleep.
I became a major burden on (club doctor) Neil Halpin; I owe him so much for helping me get through it.
There were times I'd be "wigging out" at four or five in the morning; I'd scream down the phone and he would talk me down, saying: "Is Renae there?" or in later years: "Is Cathrine there? How is she dealing with it?" and often he'd come straight round.
Or I might be screaming and "going off" unnecessarily and Hages (then-Knights coach Michael Hagan) would ring; or I'd just be in a really bad low or off my tree, and it would get back to him and he'd call in and say: "Mate, this can be managed. You shouldn't live your life like this."
Neil referred me to a few specialists in Newcastle, then to Professor Gordon Parker, executive director of the Black Dog Institute in Sydney, who was a great help. He put in place what they call a "get well plan", which consists of putting energy into positive things, and making them your routine – for me it is reading, walking and surfing, rather than the destructive things.
I take medication for the chemical imbalance, which keeps me on an even keel. Originally I was scared to take it because I thought I played great when I was up, and generally I enjoyed being high and lived with being low.
But the medication keeps me on a moderate level. It cuts out the jaggedness. I'm not the life of the party or lying in bed for two days not wanting to get out.
WHY I'M TELLING ALL
The motivation behind exposing this part of me is twofold: firstly, to explain to people – including those in Newcastle who have seen me at my crazy worst at some nightspot – why the hell I tick like I do, and, secondly, that if my story helps just one or even a dozen young people identify that they have a similar problem and can get help, it might save them enduring the torture that I have gone through in my life.
I hope my story is taken in the right context and that my regrets are a motivation for others who might be thrust into the limelight – and into such an artificial life – to not retrace my steps and live on a razor's edge.
MY FEARS
I am worried about the reaction I will get. I am very worried about any negative publicity it might give the game of rugby league, which has provided me with so much – in material things, in friendships and in unforgettable memories.
That is something that I know I have to deal with, but the fact is I couldn't offer my memoirs as another version of the lie I feel I have lived.
Alcohol has been my undoing on too many occasions. I am mad when I'm on the drink.
I still cringe at the thought of being someone I'm not, somewhere I don't even remember being, and having little recollection of it later. I can't describe the shame and the guilt that has brought me.
I've now admitted to also having taken social drugs. I'm not using it as the only excuse, but that has been a product of my manic highs, when I get out on the grog and lose control and don't care for a second about consequences while I ride this powerful, all-consuming tidal wave. In a way it's about trying to escape from the real me. I am ashamed of that, too.
I know I am seen as a role model for kids. I understand how so many of them idolise successful footballers just as I did when I was young. I worry about the danger of shattering young aspiring players' perceptions of me.
I just hope my message is clear: that while I am proud of the joy I have helped bring to people through my football exploits (with the massive help of my teammates), I'm regretful I have sometimes negatively affected the lives of people around me.
THE LONDON INCIDENT
Words can't adequately describe the shame, the humiliation and the regret I feel about what that episode did, not just to me, but also people close to me.
On one hand the whole thing weighs very heavily on me. On the other hand – now that I have got through those first few dark days – I feel that maybe it was the jolt I needed to seriously confront how I'd lived my life, and it might end up a positive.
It started with an amazing surfing trip to Indonesia, was punctuated by British Airways losing my bags – and my medication – and ended in a police cell a few days later.
After a big night in London, I got about four or five hours' sleep before I was ready to go again.
By then I hadn't had medication for over a week. I dropped my bag off at my hotel, got changed and rushed out.
We went straight to The Church nightclub, a place where heaps of expat Aussies and Kiwis hang out, which is legendary for its Sunday afternoon party atmosphere.
I could feel myself getting wound up even more and I flogged myself that Sunday on the grog and, yes, I'll admit I took ecstasy before I left The Church. People don't realise how others will come up and just give the tablets to you, maybe because you are recognised as some sort of celebrity.
Just as I left, some bloke put an ecstasy tablet in my pocket.
I was too pissed to remember exactly how it happened, but I knew what he was doing.
When we got out at Kings Cross (railway station) about 4pm, there was a mass of people. I'll admit I was off my head from the combination of heavy drinking and taking ecstasy.
There were a few police when we got to the gates at Kings Cross. I thought nothing of it and went to go through with this girl but, for some reason, I went to a policeman and asked where I could buy a ticket.
He pointed in the right direction, and as I went to go there he called me back and asked to search me.
Whether my eyes or how I was walking gave me away, I really don't know, but just then I thought: "sh*t, I've got that thing in my pocket!" I panicked and slipped it on to the ground, thinking no one would notice.
The policeman picked it up and asked if it was mine and I said I didn't know whose it was.
They obviously didn't believe me and handcuffed me in front of everyone, and I stood there, my arms bound, for 20 minutes.
They searched all the other people who were with us and then put me in a Tarago-type van, took me to Central London police station and put me in a cell.
MY LOWEST POINT
I can only describe that experience as frightening. I was in a cell on my own, about 3m by 4m, with a toilet and a tiny gymnastic mat on the floor and I stayed there for five hours, because apparently there was some sort of blitz on with the Notting Hill carnival taking place over the long weekend and the police were flat out.
These big mad African guys were in the cell next to me and they were throwing themselves against the walls and banging on them screaming out.
The whole thing was terrifying, and degrading. I was photographed and had to take my clothes off and be strip-searched. I felt like a criminal.
The feeling of helplessness, of not knowing what was going on, of coming off the manic high into a deep depression – people talk about hitting rock bottom in their lives, well I was there right then. I could see my whole life flashing in front of my eyes and I'd stuffed it up by living so recklessly. I was thinking about the embarrassment, the humiliation I felt – the shame.
I felt sure what happened would get out, and I was thinking about what I would do when I got back to Australia, how all my prospects of employment would be lost. I was thinking of (son) Samuel and Cathrine and my family, and how I would explain to them.
I was on the verge of being suicidal. It was definitely going through my mind.
When I was in the lock-up someone asked me if I had any medical conditions. I told him I had bipolar disorder and how I'd lost my bags that contained my medication, so I was taken to a doctor who gave me my medication, Epilim 500.
One of the cops ended up entering my cell and said: "Are you the famous rugby player?"
I replied: "Why's that?" and he said they had a rule in the UK that if you haven't been in trouble there before, and you're caught with one ecstasy tablet, you'd be let off with a caution.
He asked if I would admit the tablet was mine and I said in that case I would. I went into the interview room with two policemen, we sat down at a big table and the tape recorder was turned on, just like on the telly.
I said the tablet was mine, I was going to take it and I wasn't going to sell it. One of the two coppers told me I was a silly bastard and to get my act in order, and said something like: "You seem like a good fella – just don't go down this road in life." Then they said I would be given a caution and could go.
It was well after 9pm by this time. I asked if what had happened was going to get out and they said they wouldn't tell the media. I still don't know how it snuck out – I can only assume someone at the police station blabbed.
One of the interviewing police actually asked for my autograph. When I was signing I felt so ashamed.
I'M TO BLAME
I want to make it clear here that I'm not blaming my predicament on British Airways for my medication going missing. I am not blaming bipolar, or the bloke who slipped me the ecstasy tablet. I blame me, no one or anything else. I put myself in that position. And I have to face the consequences. I had an ecstasy tablet, just as I'd had in the past, and I was going to take it.
GOING HOME
The news hadn't broken, but it was all I could think about as I prepared to return to Australia.
On the plane trip home I was having panic attacks. I had to reach for the vomit bag and was trying to control my breathing. I had the sweats really bad and couldn't sleep, even after taking sedatives.
When the plane touched down in Sydney about 6pm, I was paranoid about whether the Customs people at Sydney airport had a record that I'd been locked up or whether they'd search me.
When I got safely through Customs and it got to going around the corner to where everyone meets passengers, I froze. I couldn't walk around the corner. I got myself together and thought: "This is crazy," so I hurried out and saw Cathrine. We walked straight to the car park with hardly a word said and hopped into the car.
She instantly gave me a big spray: "I always told you something like this was going to happen and, you know what, I'm glad it has happened – maybe finally you're going to learn a big lesson from this."
THE STORY BREAKS
When the story made the papers a day after I'd been back in the country, telling my son was one of the toughest things I've had to do.
I had Samuel in the house and had to get him ready for school, but first I had to sit him down and tell him what I'd done, which was heartbreaking. He knew about drugs and he said they were bad – he asked me questions about them. I will never forget that conversation.
I THOUGHT OF SUICIDE
Then the circus began. There were media out the front of my house, some were ringing the doorbell on the front wall. I was on my own, pacing the house, going up and down the stairs, looking out the curtains, a prisoner in my own home with journalists and TV cameras parked on the footpath outside.
That's when I became close to being suicidal. I consciously thought of taking my own life. I was in a massive state of depression, thinking: "What have you done to your family and those closest to you? What have you done with your life?"
I'm not disclosing this to dramatise events or get any sympathy for myself or to make the media feel guilty. It's not easy admitting a tough big-shot footballer was on the verge of suicide because he'd got some bad headlines.
But it's fact, part of my story. And maybe it might bring home just how bipolar can affect someone. The fact that 15 per cent of people who suffer the condition commit suicide is a scary statistic. I'm sure as hell glad something stopped me taking that way out of my dilemma that day.
The most disappointing thing about the initial media reaction (to The Footy Show interview) was how it was apparently portrayed that my drug-taking was frequent, as if I was some sort of hopeless addict.
Sometimes I would go a whole season and not take any drugs but hit the alcohol so hard it was ridiculous, and self-damaging.
Drugs were sometimes part of my life, but alcohol was a much bigger problem, the major contributor towards my reckless and irresponsible behaviour, and that has been skimmed over.
From what I understand, Neil Halpin, too, was unfairly being smashed by the media for supposedly letting my lifestyle of alcohol and drug taking continue unabated, which is absolute bullsh*t. Neil couldn't have done more to help me, but I wasn't always ready to listen to him.
Like Neil, Mick Hagan could not have done more for me over my career without standing there and physically stopping me putting a beer to my mouth. I am so disappointed and regretful at the criticism levelled at them when this all came out.
THE AFTERMATH
I was beside myself for a couple of days after The Footy Show disclosures. I virtually locked myself inside the house, although Cath and my family made sure there was always someone with me, thank God.
The following Sunday was Father's Day and I spent it with Samuel.
I picked up day by day after that, to the stage where I could accept what had happened and could face the world again.
I went for a walk – I think on the Tuesday – past a group of schoolchildren and their teacher. I put my head down and was really self-conscious about what they'd think about me, and whether I'd shattered some of their illusions of me. They all cheered me and wanted to give me high-fives. They would never know what that meant to me. It was breaking the ice after days of bad depression.
The well-wishers and the phone calls got me through those few days, along with my close friends and family. I was blown away by their support.
I hope players who have watched how much public humiliation, embarrassment and shame I have brought on myself by living such a lifestyle and getting caught, found it to be a big deterrent. I hope it has changed some players' attitudes.
One good thing to come of this awful mess has been how it has increased the awareness about bipolar. Some people have come up to me in recent days and told me about people in their family who suffer from it and that my story has opened up dialogue between family and friends. And two NRL players have contacted me confessing they suffer bipolar disorder. Gordon Parker had already told me he sees first-grade footballers all the time. They are out there. I can often see who suffers from it in their behaviour.
MY FAMILY
I know out of this absolute chaos I have to take some positives, there are so many lessons that have to be learned. The whole family realised we should have confronted this earlier, but we always skimmed around it.
The one major positive of what happened was that it forced me and my family to stop sweeping my condition under the carpet, and for the first time we spoke openly about it, whereas in the past the word "bipolar" would make me scurry out of the room.
Cath has been an absolute rock beside me through all this, even though the London episode naturally put a massive strain on our relationship. I can't thank her enough.
She was very disappointed with what I did. She won't ever bullsh*t to me, and I need someone being straight with me like that – not too many people are.
Cath says she can genuinely see something different in me now. It will take more than willpower. I need to have specialised help and I am prepared to do that.
THE CONSTANT STRUGGLE
I'd like to say that I know I will never take drugs again. Of course, I can't guarantee it when I suffer bipolar disorder and may at some stage get out of control on a manic high.
A reformed alcoholic can't be absolutely sure he or she will never have another drink. But from the bottom of my soul I have no intention of ever touching another illicit substance. I don't want my life to be a circus. Any time I'm out now having a good time, there are going to be mobile phone cameras aimed at me or newspaper photographers just waiting to pounce.
That's part of the territory with where my life is at now. I don't want to be a George Best, seen as a pathetic drunk and fallen has-been, but to be honest, that's where my life was heading.
The strong part of me is going to be staying on the straight and narrow.
• Edited extract from The Two of Me by Andrew Johns with Neil Cadigan, published by HarperCollins, $45, available tomorrow
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22695891-5003409,00.html
