Championship

New Leigh Centurions signing Blake Ferguson reveals harrowing child abuse and alcohol trauma

by
Callum Walker
May 6, 2022

Blake Ferguson has just been announced as a new signing for Leigh Centurions after a torrid few months.

On the brink of a huge deal with Japanese rugby union side the NEC Rockets, Ferguson seemingly threw it all away, assaulting a restaurant-goer and possessing cocaine.

That led to him spending almost a month in jail, facing the prospect of a ripped-up contract and a career in limbo.

As such, the former Parramatta Eels and Canberra Raiders star secretly spent 22 days in a Sydney rehabilitation clinic in an attempt to save both his life and career.

Ferguson confessed that he was trying to confront the problems of his past – most pertinently from his childhood.

“I wasn’t made to do it this time,” Ferguson told the Daily Telegraph. “I didn’t go in because a footy club made me.

“I did it for myself and my family. I decided to retire before I went in. I didn’t want to play again. I was going to walk away from it. I had signed up to work in the mines and play park footy for the Thirlmere Roosters in Group 6. I wanted to transition into everyday living.”

Ferguson revealed how one night quickly turned into a binge.

“I’d been on the wagon for 12 months,” Ferguson said. “I hadn’t had a single drink for a year but I decided to celebrate the end of the season with the boys. I just started drinking without even thinking about it.

“I had been a good boy, gone sober all year, and decided to have just one night.”

“I was going out and drinking every night,” Ferguson said.

“I was drinking heavily, blowing all my money. Over in Japan, it was a real drinking culture. The Japanese people love to have a drink and I got caught up in it. I drank way too much.

“And the worst part was that I was lying to my partner. I told her I was behaving and on the straight and narrow, even though I was a mess.

“I basically got into a lot of shit and it ended up with me spending time in jail.”

Ferguson’s trip to a facility in North Sydney was not only to address his alcohol problem, it was to confront childhood trauma issues from his past.

“This time around I went in there and confronted my childhood,” Ferguson said.

That childhood trauma came from being taken from his mother aged 13 after she was declared unfit to care to for him.

“It was a completely different program. It wasn’t easy … really draining, but I think I am in a much better place. It was something that needed to happen.”

“I had a lot of traumatic experiences in childhood,” he said. “I had to confront the fact I am not a functioning adult. You have a wounded child, an adult child and a functioning adult. I had to go back and repair myself. It is done through mindfulness and mental training. I had to repair myself. I had to go back to the wounded child.