Exclusive: Matt Stevens - cocaine, self-loathing and the moment I knew I was caught
There is one overriding question to ask Matt Stevens, the England and Bath prop who has been suspended for two years for his cocaine addiction.
Why, when it was all going for you, did you throw it all away?
'At the time, you are asking yourself, "Why?" - but you are doing it anyway,' he reflects. 'I wish I'd had the willpower to just not do it (cocaine) any more.
Time for reflection: Matt Stevens will serve a two-year ban for drug abuse
'In rugby, it is frowned upon. It's not as if we all go to these parties, like in (the American Football film) Any Given Sunday, where it's just lying around on plates everywhere. It's nothing like that. People immediately thought "All rugby players are coke-heads" but that's not the case. This is my issue.
'Your body goes through a lot of physical trauma and most people deal with it very well. Most of the guys I've played with at Bath and all of the guys I've played with for England, deal with the pressures and the physicality of rugby really well. They are true professionals. I just didn't deal with it very well.
'I'd had such high standards and I wasn't reaching them. There were also some major personal issues and one way I dealt with it all was to seek oblivion, try to escape. I did that by getting very drunk and taking cocaine, which gave me a release.
'The ironic thing about it was that I would do it, then spend the whole week hating myself for doing it and play badly, because I'd done it. Then I would do it again because I hadn't played well. There was lot of self-loathing and it was a vicious circle.
'It started out as a curiosity thing. I took it once and then it quickly became a problem. For me, there was always a selfdestructive nature lying just beneath the surface and it was almost arrogance that I thought I could take this drug and it wouldn't affect me. I thought I was bullet-proof, but I wasn't.'
Stevens knew that he was bound to get caught, but he could not stop himself. Today he is due to confirm that he has terminated his lucrative contract at Bath to save the West Country club from having to sack him as he comes to terms with his two-year ban from rugby for drug abuse.
Last week he learned that, after failing a dope test in December and confessing to using cocaine, he would be barred from any involvement in organised rugby until January 2011. The 26-year-old England prop was due to meet Bath officials this week to discuss his future, but he has opted to jump rather than waiting to see if he would be pushed out of The Rec.
Long-term goal: Stevens hopes to play for England again
During a frank interview with Sportsmail about the addiction that has shattered a potentially stellar career, Stevens says: 'I don't think I'll be having a meeting with Bath, I'm just going to resign. The club were very angry with me and rightly so.
'I can't have any involvement in rugby for two years - playing or training. I'm going to lose a salary for two years and I have to downsize a lot. I think those are quite big punishments. I'll be forced to sell my house to meet my debts. But I deserve what I'm getting.'
Despite only now coming to terms with what he has done and the full impact of the suspension on his day-to-day life, Stevens remains hopeful that he can recover from this ugly episode. His ambition is to play for England again, perhaps as early as the 2011 World Cup.
'The tragedy of this situation is that I'm in the prime of my career. But in two years I will still be in my prime,' he says. 'I hope and believe, for my own sanity, that I'll be back, whether for Bath or England or both.
'I definitely think I can make it back. It will be difficult to keep fit, but in the last couple of months before I come back, I'll step it up. Whether I will be mentally right to come back, we'll wait and see. I hope Bath will take me back. Hopefully someone will take me. Playing for England again is the long-term goal - I would love to be able to do that.'
The Stevens story is a cautionary tale of how easy it is to fall off the highest pedestal.
It is a story of how a prop on the verge of becoming an England regular and, possibly, a Test Lion in the land of his birth - South Africa - threw it all away with a mixture of arrogance and self-loathing. It is a story of how a bright, friendly character who sung his way to the final of The X Factor: Battle of the Stars and whose charity work led to an audience with Nelson Mandela, gave in to temptation and brought about a catastrophic fall from grace.
He knew shame and punishment were just around the corner, but he carried on hurtling towards them regardless.
'My cocaine use wasn't an everyday thing, but I was on a rollercoaster ride,' he admits. 'I would binge on a Saturday night. In some ways, getting caught was a bit of a blessing, because I don't know if it would have just got worse and worse. Subconsciously I knew I was going to get caught, but I did it anyway.'
Down time: Stevens remains hopeful that he can recover from this ugly episode
For a considerable time, although he will not say how long, Stevens had been on his path to selfdestruction and it led him into a trap at the Firhill Arena in Glasgow on December 14. Bath had just won a Heineken Cup game 25-19 against Glasgow Warriors when he was told he had been randomly selected for drug testing.
'The team manager draws your name out of a hat, you get taken to one side and they walk you round the stadium,' he recalls. Asked what was going through his mind as he took that long, fateful walk, he replies: 'Oh f***!'
Stevens adds: 'There was always a chance I might get away with it, but not when I'd taken it on a Thursday night before a Sunday game. Every day until the results were announced was my own little hell. Every morning, I would wake up and it was like I was a zombie. When the result came back positive, in a way it was a relief because it was out in the open. In general, friends, family and the public have been unbelievable. I don't know if I could have shown as much empathy. I expected to be ripped to shreds.
'My dad was very disappointed, though. He found it pretty shattering but it was good for him to realise that I wasn't the perfect son.'
Stevens, who started getting help for his addiction before the test results arrived, accepted his suspension as an inevitability. He also accepts the shame that comes with being a role model who has thrown so much goodwill back in the faces of people who supported, encouraged, nurtured and coached him, adding: 'That is what will live with me for the rest of my life.'
He is reluctant to discuss whether there is a hidden drug culture in English rugby but says that players are representative of the broader population.
'If you look at society as a whole, there is a massive drug culture among all of it, so why wouldn't there be in rugby?' he says. 'Rugby players aren't immune to drug abuse, just like they aren't immune to anything else.'
So where does Stevens go from here? For now, his energies will be devoted to his new business - a coffee shop he is opening in Bath with Lee Mears - and doing charity work for the NSPCC.
He is trying to block out thoughts of this summer's Lions tour that will pass him by. Gradually, he will start watching matches again. He may even go to The Rec from time to time, to watch his former team-mates. And he will fight to avoid the lure of cocaine.
'It's still early stages and it's something that I'll have to work at,' he says. 'I am clean now but I still get tempted. It's a day-to-day thing.'[/b]
