Ben Cousins an uncomfortable reminder of AFL's failure

On Tuesday a drug addict was sent to jail. He had gone to court and listened, fidgeting and fretting next to his bereft parents, as his lawyer argued why he should go to rehab not a cell. The magistrate, sick of excuses, said no.

The drug addict was sent to jail for an accumulation of offences - including aggravated stalking of his former partner and persistent breaches of restraining orders. He will spend 12 months behind bars.

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This was just another drug addict in just another court on just another day. In the dock stood a man in his late 30s with an escalating drug problem. Failed attempts at rehab. Tortured relationships. Restraining orders. An inability to cope with isolation and the denial of contact with his children. Finally, a frustrated court lost patience.

"Previous efforts to bring about change in … behaviour hasn't worked ... any leniency it might be suggested has been exhausted," the magistrate said.

And so this man was sent to jail, an unremarkable case of another unremarkable drug addict. Except he wasn't.

This man's addiction was no different to any others. Yet this man was different to others. This drug addict was Ben Cousins. AFL footballer, Brownlow medallist, premiership player, captain, champion, drug addict and now criminal.

The sense of inevitability about this descent is not unusual for someone with a two-gram-a-day ice addiction but it is the height from which he has fallen with so many around trying to catch him that marks him as different. Drugs, and now the courts, do not discriminate.

"There needs to be a general deterrent for this sort of behaviour," magistrate Richard Huston observed as he passed sentence.

Yet Ben Cousins' life could be argued to be salutary.

It certainly should be to the AFL. At the beginning of a season of self-congratulation for mega crowds, expanded markets and new women's competitions, Cousins continues to be an uncomfortable and embarrassing reminder of the AFL's stark and utter failure.

Yes, Cousins was ultimately responsible for what happened to him.

It's worth remembering that he was sent to jail not for being a drug addict, but for offences that included "bombarding" his ex-partner with thousands of phone calls and text messages; on one occasion he contacted her 103 times in a day. He also breached the violence restraining order she had taken out against him, in a manner that was "persistent, sustained and intended".

But others were complicit in Cousins' fall. Warnings went unheeded and eyes were wilfully blind while victories were celebrated. A culture of win at any cost has underpinned the sport's most damnable moments. (See also Essendon.)

So a drug addict has gone away for a year. But his story – no matter how it now ends – is not going away.