Thought I'd start with a better story than match-reports of the demolition job last night ...
Milton Thaiday: a Knight on the tiles
Back from the brink … Milton Thaiday was rescued from obscurity by the Knights. Photo: Ben Rushton.
April 22, 2006
Partying hard was a habit for Milton Thaiday, but it almost cost him everything he had, writes Jessica Halloran.
THE grog still tempts him. It's a daily battle not to drink. He wrestles with it after games in the Newcastle change rooms when his teammates swig their beers. But Milton Thaiday is aware that alcohol has poisoned his life too much to go back to those troubling days.
Thaiday started drinking at 14. He and his mates would wag school to booze in the park for hours on end. The first time he got drunk on rum and bourbon was at an under-16s footy function in Townsville.
He didn't stop boozing until six in the morning and on two hours' sleep, he played two games of football. He played brilliantly that Saturday morning. From then on, the boozing then training or playing became habit. "I didn't stop after that," he said. "I just kept going."
He was always the last to leave the party. He didn't know how to stop, but still his natural brilliance carried him on the field. In country footy, and even when he was playing rugby union with the Waratahs, he'd get smashed the night before and still rock up to training - even games.
"I'd smell of grog," Thaiday said. "My sweat, in the warm-up, you could smell it. No one ever said anything to me. But it all caught up on me."
Since his teens, Thaiday has tumbled through an awful addiction. The one person who was alongside for the tumultuous ride was his partner, Ruth Shinn. It was when they became an item, at 19, that Shinn sensed a problem. The pair were in Darwin together in 1999. Thaiday was playing footy, living on dole money and drinking with "the boys" nearly every day. "When he got on it, he just went and went and went and went," Shinn said.
Shinn witnessed Thaiday at his worst when he disappeared for a week after losing a grand final. She found him on the back stairs of her apartment. He had passed out and was in the same clothes she'd left him in a week earlier. His eyes were swollen from alcohol abuse. She contemplated taking him to the hospital because he was feverish. She threw him in the shower. "He was drunk to high heaven," she said. "It was awful."
She sensed that something was awry but ignored it. "We were young," she said. "I was in party mode as well. You don't look at it as an issue when you're that young."
The years went by and the problem did not disappear. The next year they were living on a farm near Nimbin while Thaiday played footy in Lismore. He wasn't drinking as much but the benders still happened.
When the couple's daughter, Taita, was born, Shinn thought Thaiday's priorities would change. But they didn't.
Shinn was miffed. "That's when I realised, 'hang on, this might be a problem'," Shinn said. "'Because we've got bub now and it's not changing'."
Thaiday drank to escape and for fun. He drank because he was bored, to get away from the bills. But still his efforts on the paddock startled the crowd. He won the group 1 player of the year in 2001. The union lads in Sydney were tipped off that Thaiday could play, so in the space of a week in 2002, he went from playing league in Lismore to club rugby in Sydney.
Life wasn't easy in Sydney and everything started to tumble. Financially, things were incredibly tight. Shinn gave up her university studies to become a childcare worker as Thaiday tried to climb his way through the rugby ranks.
"I hated it," Shinn said. "After all the rent and bills and food, after all that was paid, there was about $10 left over in wages. It was just financially a huge struggle but it was also emotionally a huge struggle."
Thaiday was finally awarded a spot for the Waratahs in 2003. Shinn thought everything would get better.
"Things had started to pick up and I thought, 'this is awesome'," she said. "All the struggle has been worth it, but that's when the drinking started. The more money that came in, the worse the drinking got."
Thaiday would be away for long periods of time, and would drink away thousands of dollars. "I'd never want to go home," he said. When he was at home, he was constantly hung over. "It started to get out of hand," Shinn said.
Shinn was literally crying out for help in early 2004. She told officials at the Waratahs that her partner had a problem. They didn't listen.
"I got no help from anyone," she said. "I was told by one guy that this was just part and parcel of being with a professional footballer. Maybe you are just a little jealous of his profile and his success."
The Waratahs, however, feel they supported Thaiday through his battles and they were adamant that he had to "get himself right" before they'd let him pursue his rugby career.
"We are all happy that he's doing well at the Knights," a Waratahs spokesman said. "But we definitely supported him well with his issues. We put him in the program and paid his salary during that period. We are more than happy he's come out the other side and doing well at the Knights. He's at the Knights because of what we did."
Shinn remembers the time differently. "As long as he was playing good football, no one sort of wanted to know about it," she said. "I thought, 'I don't want my daughter to be raised that way'. I said, 'no, I can't do this', so I left at the beginning of 2004."
She moved to Brisbane with her daughter. "It was time I learnt my lesson," Thaiday said. Taita missed her father. She'd fall asleep in his footy jersey with his dad's old Super 12 season pass around her neck. Every time he called, he could hear his daughter crying in the background. Her cries stung his heart every time.
"That was the saddest thing for me," he said. "Not waking up with them. That was the most damaging."
Nearly every two weeks Shinn would load the car and drive the nine hours to Sydney, and every time she came to town, she saw her husband on the decline.
"In that year, things got worse," she said. "I just knew things were getting worse and worse and worse. I thought he was going to crash and burn."
Another binge drinking spree occurred late in September 2004 - a session that would finally turn his life around. He missed a training session on the eve of a Waratahs game and was dropped, fined and suspended. He then failed to front at a Norths game.
It was then he decided to tell the Waratahs he was going to get help. He went to the Salvation Army rehabilitation centre in Surry Hills on September 6, 2004. He spent 84 days there.
For days, he heard shocking stories of gambling, narcotics and alcohol addicts like himself. "I didn't think I was too serious until I started doing the meetings every night," he said.
"Every story that was said would almost be exactly the same as mine, in regards to the drinking and the pain I had caused."
Shinn reunited with him during rehab. When Thaiday was clean, the Waratahs did not want to take him back. "You've opened the door for somebody else," they said simply.
So they went back to the country. Shinn went to university. Thaiday started working three jobs, including teaching literacy skills to young Aboriginal children. And he started playing league again for the Ballina Seagulls.
"We were really struggling financially," Shinn said. "But we were really happy. He was the wonderful Milton I used to know. We were plodding along with things and then we got sideswiped by the Knights last year."
The Knights have provided a good home for Thaiday's family - the tremendous emotional support is nothing they have experienced before.
"It's an everyday battle for me," he said. "That's where my support network comes in with my partner, a couple of close friends down in Sydney and the team here. They look after me 100 per cent, the support is amazing.
"I've had a couple of close calls [in the past]. The one or two. But I haven't gone out on a bender.
"I don't know if I'll ever have another one again. Yeah, I try not to think too far ahead. I try to worry about what's going on on the day. That's all I can do. I'm still fighting it."
From: http://www.smh.com.au/news/league/milton-thaiday-a-knight-on-the-tiles/2006/04/21/1145344277726.html