Beams: accident was ‘cry for help’
Pies star admits addiction
COLLINGWOOD star Dayne Beams has revealed his car crash in February was deliberate and a “massive cry for help”.
The 30-year-old premiership winner was at the wheel when his car struck a pole.
He was on leave from the Magpies at the time, dealing with the mental illness issues that saw him take a long break from training and playing during 2019 after rejoining the club from Brisbane.
“There was a moment where … I can’t remember to be honest because I was concussed in the incident … but I crashed my car deliberately,” Beams told The Last Time I Cried podcast.
“I didn‘t want it to be fatal, I didn’t want to die, but it was a cry, it was a massive cry … I needed help.”
Beams conceded there were several issues affecting his life at the time, including “addiction issues”.
Last June, Beams even took himself to a mental health facility for three weeks. “There‘s a lot of things that aren’t true that have been said about me,” Beams said.
“There‘s no doubt I had some addiction issues and there will be a time when I go into them and try to help people in depth, but at the moment I’m clean.” The father of two said it was a “selfish” thing to do, but at the time he didn’t know where to turn.
“I just didn‘t know how to get out of the s--- that I was in,” Beams said. “I feel like you need to hit rock bottom to go back up, and for me that was the lowest I got.
“I don‘t know why I felt like that. That was what I needed to do, but it just was at the time.
“The thought of putting my kids and my wife through that makes me feel sick.”
Beams remains contracted to Collingwood, but both parties are resigned to the fact he will not play again.