Defying the Enemy Within Read online

  DEDICATION

  To my parents for raising me, loving me and guiding me.

  To Courtney and my children –

  you are everything to who I am and why I am.

  To every person fighting their battle –

  dig in, cling on to hope, things get better.

  To every person who has ever lost anyone to suicide –

  I hope you find healing.

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Foreword by Johnny Lewis

  Nginha-la-gu ba Ngadhi (This Is My Journey)

  PART I: MY STORY CHAPTER 1 My Wiradjuri Roots

  CHAPTER 2 Getting By on Family, Sport, Music and Love

  CHAPTER 3 Growing Up Fast

  CHAPTER 4 Blatant Racism

  CHAPTER 5 From the Bush to the Bright Lights

  CHAPTER 6 The Top Grade

  CHAPTER 7 Drugs

  CHAPTER 8 Getting Clean

  CHAPTER 9 Turning to Prescription Drugs

  CHAPTER 10 Finding my Lifeline

  CHAPTER 11 Losing my Grip

  CHAPTER 12 Alive

  CHAPTER 13 Back Into Boxing

  CHAPTER 14 Making a Difference

  CHAPTER 15 Mentors: We All Need Them

  CHAPTER 16 The Enemy Within

  CHAPTER 17 Saying No to Australia Day

  CHAPTER 18 Spreading My Wings

  CHAPTER 19 The Fighting Spirit

  CHAPTER 20 Towards a Brighter Future, One Step at a Time

  CHAPTER 21 Choosing a Positive Life

  PART 2: DEFYING THE ENEMY WITHIN First Steps

  Recognise if you’re unwell and speak up

  Don’t be afraid to get professional help

  Consider medication

  Survive

  Have a wellness plan

  Look after your physical health

  Learn and practise mindfulness

  Learn and practise the 4, 7, 8 breathing technique

  Write it down

  Break it down and value each small improvement

  Focus on why you stay clean

  Thrive

  Build up your resilience

  Embrace your fears

  Let go of ego

  Remember it’s never a loss – always a lesson

  Ignore others’ labels and be proud of who you are

  Stare down racism or discrimination

  Connect with your culture

  Accept what you can’t control and find serenity

  Be grateful and compassionate

  Live a life of value, and show love, respect and humility

  Be positive and surround yourself with positive people

  Find a mentor

  Be a mentor and give back

  Last Word

  Acknowledgements

  Glossary

  Resources

  About the Author

  Copyright

  FOREWORD

  By Johnny Lewis, International Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee

  I first heard the name Joey Williams after my good friend Brian ‘Chicka’ Moore returned to Sydney from Wagga and told me about a trial match he’d gone to between his beloved Newtown Jets and the Wagga Magpies.

  A former rugby league champion himself, Chicka is a highly regarded judge of football talent, and I remember him saying, ‘Johnny, you wouldn’t believe this kid I saw on the weekend. He played against our first-grade team, and he played really well for a kid. I reckon he has enormous potential.’

  Chicka told me he’d found out the young kid was the son of a former Winfield Cup player, Wilfred Williams, and he thought that might be why the kid had some decent potential. Back in the day, Wilfred had played in the Winfield Cup in a team coached by another great friend of mine, the legendary Arthur Beetson.

  Anyway, Chicka went on to describe how after the game he’d gone into the dressing rooms to chat with this young kid, called Joey Williams. With a laugh, he recounted how after he’d said to young Joey, ‘You went well tonight, son. What are you doing this week?’ Joey’s answer was, ‘I’m going to school. I just started high school.’ This both shocked and amazed Chicka.

  Young Joe Williams was the tender age of thirteen when Chicka saw him that day, yet he was playing and dominating men who were fresh out of junior representative sides and lower-grade ranks of the National Rugby League (NRL). Chicka knew there was something special about this kid.

  When Joey burst onto the scene in the NRL competition at twenty years of age, I could see what Chicka had been talking about. As well as having great skill and ability, Joey had a maturity beyond his years. It was during his first year in the NRL that Joey and I initially crossed paths in a local coffee shop in Erskineville, when he came over and started talking to me, not about footy but about his love of boxing.

  I kept an eye on Joey from a distance over his initial few seasons and, like many others, I could see there were some inconsistencies in his on-field form. There were days when he was unstoppable and the best player on the park; other days you could hardly tell he was out there. One minute he’d be on top of the world and in the first-grade team, the next he’d be back in reserve grade. Being fairly observant, especially with regard to athletes, I put this down to a lack of experience, though I also thought something might be going on behind closed doors that was affecting his performances.

  One day Joey phoned me out of the blue and said he’d heard I’d been doing a bit of extra fitness work with his teammate, Jaiman Lowe. He asked if he could come in to the gym to increase his fitness and help with his confidence — both of which boxing can provide. I thought it’d be perfect because as well as helping with his fitness I could work on his mental ability so he could be more consistent with his football week in and week out.

  What young Joey Williams didn’t realise was that I’d already had quite a few dealings with his old man, Wilfred, as well as many of his other Williams’ relatives from Cowra.

  When Joey started coming down to the gym at Woolloomooloo PCYC, it was about a quarter of the way through the 2007 season. Though his team, the Bunnies, had got off to a great start to the season, they were going through a rough patch.

  I started off with Joey like I did with any other boxer who came through the doors — some chitchat, and then a little bit of boxing endurance to test his stamina — not only physically but also mentally. Like just about every single Aboriginal kid I’d had dealings with, Joey was a natural boxer. I’ve always said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are the most gifted athletes on the planet, and in the glimpses of rugby league talent I’d seen in Joey and just watching him swinging a few punches, I could tell the kid was a talent.

  Joey kept coming to the Woolloomooloo gym and then to the Redfern PCYC when I moved there. We continued to work on his fitness and confidence, and he managed to gain selection back in the first-grade Bunnies’ team and have a ripper of a finish to the 2007 season. The next year he moved very briefly to the Penrith Panthers and then to the Canterbury Bulldogs, but in the dealings we had together in 2008 I could see he was losing interest in the game he’d grown up loving.

  I would continually ask questions of Joey and test his physical and emotional resilience during the training we were doing on the pads, and if I had a fighter getting ready for a bout who needed some rounds, I’d ask Joey. He was always up for it and passed the test, giving as good as he got. There were times he was tested to the point where he was knocked to the ground — but he always got up and came back for more.

  At the end of the 2008 season, Joey decided he wanted to take boxing more seriously and committed himself to doing all he could in his preparations to become a boxer. After a while, we locked in a date for his first fight and increased his preparation. Watchi
ng Joey during that time was a treat. He walked into the gym with a reputation for not being a great trainer, but he soon blasted that talk out of the water, transforming his chunky 82-kilogram rugby league physique to 68.8 kilograms for his first professional fight. You don’t shed over 10 kilograms by being lazy.

  Joey went on to win twelve of his sixteen professional fights as a boxer, and I believe he could have gone on to even greater heights. But we weren’t really trying to make him the champion of the world, we were building a resilience and mental strength to help him get through much greater battles.

  I trained Joey Williams for his first three professional fights before moving back to the country, but I believe I gained a friend forever.

  Sydney, 2017

  NGINHA-LA-GU BA NGADHI

  (This Is My Journey)

  Dhalang ngiyanhi dumbarra yindyamarra, Ngiyanhi gingu mudyigaan, Marra dhalbu yaala (Today we show respect to the Elders past and present). When I was a young Aboriginal kid growing up in country New South Wales, I had a lot of ability at sports and was fortunate to excel at rugby league. I was only thirteen when I started playing representative schoolboy football as well as in weekend club competitions with much older blokes. By the time I was seventeen, I moved to Sydney to finish school and fulfil my dream of playing in the National Rugby League competition.

  In my early twenties, I wasn’t going so well with my league and took up boxing to increase my fitness. I ended up liking boxing so much that I gave up playing league and became a professional boxer, winning a couple of titles to my name.

  If I’d reached my full potential in either league or boxing, this might have been a book about my triumphs and successes in the sporting arena. But it’s not, because as I entered the prime years of my life I was cut down by alcoholism and drug addiction, which stopped me from reaching anything like my full potential.

  I was extremely fortunate to overcome my alcohol and drug abuse before they destroyed my life, but once all the substances I was using were taken away, boom, I had to face the head noise and paranoia I felt. I was swinging between manic highs and low depression. When I was really hyped or manic, I generally experienced positive dialogue. But when I was depressed, the dialogue was negative. It’s what I now call ‘the enemy within’ — the voices in my head constantly questioning every decision that I make, telling me I’m worthless, even that I don’t deserve to live, that I should end it all now.

  When I was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I realised I’d been using alcohol and drugs to try to fight those mental demons.

  I continued to have ups and downs with my mental health until a combination of a relationship crisis and not taking my medication for bipolar disorder pushed me to such a point of despair that I attempted to take my life own life.

  After my suicide attempt, I was thrust into discovering how to not only survive, but thrive. Over the years since, I have learned that I need to manage my life by always taking my medication as well as maintaining certain positive practices, which I’ve developed into what has become my ‘wellness plan’. I’ve also gained a lot since learning more about my Indigenous culture and have become a proud Wiradjuri First Nations man.

  Then, a few years ago, I participated in a short film called The Enemy Within. The documentary tells the story of how I managed to get back on top of my life through boxing, which taught me mental toughness.

  That film has helped me deal with the really dark times. These were all things that had happened as part of my life, but to see it scripted reiterated to me that I’d been doing something that worked, and other people realised it too! It allowed me to relay my messages of inspiration to many different communities all over Australia and now internationally, communities where people suffer from or are exposed to friends and family with mental illness. Messages such as if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, keep moving forward. The 1-per-cent efforts throughout every day are important, and every great person in life had to start somewhere.

  One of the reasons why The Enemy Within spoke to people was that most of us don’t want to talk publicly about mental illness or suicide. So many people reached out to me, over social media and in passing on the street, and it made me realise just how many of us are struggling in silence behind closed doors.

  Pretty much anyone looking for inspiration or hope in relation to mental health can relate to the film. It’s not because my story is the same as everyone else’s, but because, while my life looked fine on the outside, behind closed doors I was struggling mentally and with substance abuse, just like so many others. I was helping to normalise the conversation about mental health.

  I have since taken The Enemy Within project on the road to present in schools, youth and juvenile justice centres and to adults at corporate events. Wanting to spread my message even further, I set up a website and Facebook page, and I have now connected with tens of thousands of people in need of advice or just the odd word of hope to help pull them away from the dark shadows. I am very proud and humbled that people feel confident enough to talk to me and trust me to be able to guide them out of their troubled times.

  Doing this work on a full-time basis helps me to manage my mental illness by helping others. I feel extremely lucky to be alive and to be able to help so many others stay alive.

  A large proportion of my time goes to helping our First Nations communities with mental health issues and suicide prevention. Recent statistics about suicide in Australia reveal that First Nations men in Australia between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five have the highest suicide rate in the world. This hurts my heart as I know I was nearly one of those statistics. There is much work to be done, and I believe an important first step is to implement programs that empower communities to revive our traditional culture. Far too often, non-Indigenous organisations try to deliver what they believe is the answer to a more positive way of life for Indigenous Australians with limited success.

  Regardless of my achievements in league and boxing, I sincerely believe my journey with The Enemy Within will be my biggest and most significant contribution. Saving lives and impacting on individual people’s mental health and wellbeing has a tremendous attachment to my heart, and I see my work now as being much more important than any sporting success. Which is why I wrote this book. Because I know that the only way I can have a positive impact and help others is by being honest and telling my story — both the good and the bad. I think the toughest part for me will be when my children read this book — they know my story, but this goes a little deeper. I just want to break down the barrier to help others seek help.

  I haven’t always been a winner, but by showing where I went wrong and describing how I dealt with my demons in this book, maybe you can be.

  PART 1

  MY STORY

  1

  MY WIRADJURI ROOTS

  I grew up in Wiradjuri country, which encompasses the lands in New South Wales, Australia, that are the traditional home to the First Nations Wiradjuri people. I was born in the town of Cowra, one of five kids belonging to Wilfred and Lee Williams.

  My dad’s father was also called Wilfred Williams, though most people called him Willie. Granddad was an Aboriginal man from what was then called the Brungle Aboriginal Station or Brungle Mission, near Tumut in New South Wales. He was over six feet tall with a wiry and lean, chiselled body. He was a bare-knuckle tent fighter who travelled around from town to town, fighting in tents to make a few quid in order to feed his family and have the odd drink with the boys. If he didn’t win a fight, there’d be no drinks and no food for the family. As well as his tent fighting, Willie also played lead guitar in a local band, which might be why I love listening to and playing music.

  After Pop married my grandmother, Nan Olive, they immediately started having children. Sadly, my granddad died young, leaving Nan Olive to bring up nine children. She was just twenty-nine. Nan would later have another child, a daughter, so she had ten children in all, and she lost two more partners
after Pop Willie — John and Paul.

  Pop willie.

  My dad was nine when his father died, and he had a very tough life growing up in Brungle. Dad always laughs about how he, his siblings and pretty much all Olive’s grandkids, including me, took after her when it came to height (all of us being short). With me being closer to the ground than Willie’s six foot plus some, height is something I wish I’d inherited from him.

  People who knew my father when he was growing up talk about the strength and physical toughness he and his brothers had. I believe they have a lot to thank my Nan Olive for. The strength and mental resilience it would have taken her to raise ten kids must have been enormous. Dad often tells me stories about how Nan got into physical fights in order to protect her kids when the family moved from Tumut to Cowra.

  Even though she lost her husband so young, as well as a daughter shortly after birth and Paul and two of her sons in the past few years, Nan Olive continues to smile and has a great sense of humour. Every time I make my way through Cowra, I make sure to knock on Nan’s door for a yarn about the old days in Brungle and the many stories of the tough times and struggles the family went through.

  I always love hearing Dad’s stories of his youth, which make me understand why he is such a physically and emotionally tough man. There are stories of how, when Dad and his brothers — Arthur (deceased), Shane, Dennis (deceased) and John — were teenagers, they would sometimes have to stick up for the family in physical fights with men. At times you hear of ‘fight to survive’, and they were literally fighting for the survival of the family.

  Dad showed great potential as a footy player from a young age, but he didn’t take it too seriously. The way he tells it, when he was about eighteen years old, he was walking home with a few drinks under his belt. He walked past the local footy oval

  At times you hear of ‘fight to survive’, and they were literally fighting for the survival of the family.