Former code-hopping megastar Sonny Bill Williams has admitted he was warned by doctors that he could have died from drug use in his new book.
The book sees the former NRL and rugby union star open up on racism, deep depression and drug use.
The book, titled Sonny Bill Williams: You Can't Stop the Sun from Shining details Williams' early struggles of being in the NRL limelight as a star of the game.
The Sydney Morning Herald quotes from the book that Williams struggled enormously, turning to smoking and sleeping tablets in, before a weekend-long bender led to a doctor telling him he could have died.
“Suddenly, I was a public figure,” he writes.
“How is a shy boy supposed to cope with that? That’s not in the script either. And I had no one to guide me. So I found my own ways to deal with it. By having a smoke before I went out or a couple of sleeping tablets to relax me. I was trying to take the fear away.
“One time I went on a bender that lasted from Friday night to Monday morning,” he writes. “The only reason I came home is I knew I had a surgery appointment at 11am. I don’t remember anything about the operations except waking up having my girlfriend crying next to the bed and the doc really gave it to me, telling me I had so many drugs in my system I could have died.”
In 2008, Williams exited the NRL mid-season. It was reported that salary cap problems were the reason at the time, however, Williams has revealed the full story in the book.
He had turned to Islam in an attempt to deal with his time in the spotlight, however, this drew comments and criticism surrounding his private life.
Williams revealed though that he simply had to leave for personal reasons, to restart his career.
“I thought, I’ve got to get out of here, make a complete break,” Williams writes.
“People were starting to talk about the fact that I was keeping company with Muslims, asking why I was hanging out with ‘those kinds of people’,” he writes.
Williams went on to represent the All Blacks and have a glittering career, before switching back to rugby league where he won a premiership with the Sydney Roosters.
The book Sonny Bill Williams: You Can't Stop the Sun from Shining is available from October 13.