My battle with drink: hockey star
As Grant Hackett suffers a meltdown, Nikki Hudson reveals her hidden agony
No one would’ve known. Everyone thinks you’ve got this perfect life.
NIKKI HUDSON
AS Olympic golden girl Nikki Hudson watched this week’s Grant Hackett saga unfold from her pocket of paradise in northern NSW, a scary thought popped into her head.
“If I hadn’t been strong enough to do what I’ve done, I could have been one of the cases we’re talking about,” the former Hockeyroos captain says.
What Hudson has done is give up alcohol.
Not for February. Not for a few months. Forever.
And when she reflects on Hackett’s journey from sporting legend to broken soul, she knows she’s made the right call.
“I let alcohol start to take over my life,” Hudson says of why she quit drinking almost a year ago.
“It wasn’t alcoholism or anything that extreme. It just became too much a part of my everyday life. It was no longer just a social activity.
“I wasn’t messy all the time but some nights I was … I started to enjoy that drink at the end of the day but I would finish the bottle. I admire people who can just have one glass, but I can’t.
“It affected my health, my personality. I started to lose weight and look older … I wanted my health back. I didn’t want to die in 10 years.”
Hudson is the first to acknowledge her story is very different from Hackett’s.
While his arrest at his parents’ Mermaid Waters home this week – and all the drama that followed – is the latest in a long list of public meltdowns, her “unhealthy relationship” with alcohol, like so many, played out behind closed doors.
“No one would’ve known. Everyone thinks you’ve got this perfect life.”
All the more so when you’re an Olympic gold medallist who found love in retirement with property developer John Fish and spends her days between their farm near Uki and a Main Beach pad.
As has been proven again this week though, looks can be deceiving for many former athletes.
“I think you kid yourself when you retire into saying you’re not feeling lost and that’s the mistake I made for so many years,” says Hudson, who hung up her hockey boots in 2009.
“Everyone was saying ‘You must miss it’ and I would say ‘Not at all’ but that’s almost a face you put on … as an athlete so much of your life was structured by others and suddenly you have to fend for yourself. It was like ‘Hell, I’m 32, what do I do now’.
“I don’t want to blame. I’ll always be grateful for the support I got from Hockey Australia. They were wonderful, they didn’t abandon me, but it was up to me to set myself up in life.”
And a new life that no longer required the discipline of the previous one.
“There was no way you could train with a hangover but if you have to go to work with one, you can sort of cope,” Hudson said.
“My drink was champagne or red wine, which is pretty heavy stuff, and I’d just wake up feeling sick every day.
“Fortunately a year ago I realised it was affecting my relationships with my husband, my family. They were always worried about me so I made the decision to make a massive change and cut alcohol out of my life and it’s something I want to be forever.”
Herbal tea is Hudson’s drink of choice these days. She’s got more mental clarity than she’s had in years. Her relationship with her “darling husband” is stronger than ever.
“John still likes a beer but he cries every time he tells me how proud he is of me,” she says. “It’s almost like doing this is better than winning the gold medal.”
Such a transformation seems a long way off for Hackett and as far as Hudson’s concerned, there’s only one way he’ll get there.
“Unless he’s ready to help himself, nothing will change,” she says.
“They could drag him to the best rehab places around the world, but until he’s ready to accept the fact he wants to get well, it simply will not change … and that’s what’s so tough for his family.”