Former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram has been promoting his book, ‘Sultan A Memoir’. The veteran cricketer opened up on his cocaine addiction in his autobiography. In a recent interview with the Grade Cricketers’ Podcast, the former left-arm seamer revealed that he was kept in a rehab facility in Pakistan against his will for two and a half months.
He also stated that keeping someone against their will is “illegal everywhere except in Pakistan”. Akram explained how he became addicted to cocaine after being offered drugs at a party in England, which led to an addiction.
“In England, somebody at a party said ‘you wanna try it?’ I was retired, I said ‘yeah’. Then one line became a gram. I came back to Pakistan. Nobody knew what it was but it was available. I realised, I couldn’t function without it, which means I couldn’t socialise without it. It got worse and worse. My kids were young. I was hurting my late wife a lot. We would have arguments. She said I need help,” he said.
“She said there’s a rehab, you can go there. I said alright I will go there for a month but they kept me there for two and a half months against my will. Apparently, that is illegal in the world but not in Pakistan. That didn’t help me. When I came out, a rebellion came into me. It’s my money, I stayed in that horrible place against my will,” he stated further.
It was a horrible time: Wasim Akram
Speaking further about his rehab experience, Akram stated: “In western movies, even in Australia you see rehabs have lovely big lawns, people give lectures, you go to gym. But I went to a place (in Pakistan) with a corridor and eight rooms, that’s it. It was very very tough. It was a horrible time,” he added.
“Then a tragedy happened, my wife passed away. I knew I was on the wrong path, I wanted to get out of it. I had two young boys. In Western culture, a dad is involved fifty-fifty (with the mother). You wake up in the morning, drop your child to the school, pick them up, and change clothes. In our culture, as a dad, we never do that. It’s the wife’s turn. Our job is to go out and raise funds. I was lost for two years, I never knew where I had to buy clothes for them.
“I didn’t know what they ate, I had to go to every class, and attend parent-teacher meetings, I had to be friendly with their friends’ parents. But I must say, every parent around my kids helped a lot,” he stated further.
