Joe Williams - Defying The Enemy Within: How I Silenced The Negative Voices In My Head To Survive And Thrive

To my parents for raising me, loving me and guiding me.

To Courtney and my children

you are everything to who I am and why I am.

To every person fighting their battle

dig in, cling on to hope, things get better.

To every person who has ever lost anyone to suicide

I hope you find healing.

CONTENTS

By Johnny Lewis, International Boxing Hall of Fame Inductee

I first heard the name Joey Williams after my good friend Brian Chicka Moore returned to Sydney from Wagga and told me about a trial match hed gone to between his beloved Newtown Jets and the Wagga Magpies.

A former rugby league champion himself, Chicka is a highly regarded judge of football talent, and I remember him saying, Johnny, you wouldnt believe this kid I saw on the weekend. He played against our first-grade team, and he played really well for a kid. I reckon he has enormous potential.

Chicka told me hed found out the young kid was the son of a former Winfield Cup player, Wilfred Williams, and he thought that might be why the kid had some decent potential. Back in the day, Wilfred had played in the Winfield Cup in a team coached by another great friend of mine, the legendary Arthur Beetson.

Anyway, Chicka went on to describe how after the game hed gone into the dressing rooms to chat with this young kid, called Joey Williams. With a laugh, he recounted how after hed said to young Joey, You went well tonight, son. What are you doing this week? Joeys answer was, Im going to school. I just started high school. This both shocked and amazed Chicka.

Young Joe Williams was the tender age of thirteen when Chicka saw him that day, yet he was playing and dominating men who were fresh out of junior representative sides and lower-grade ranks of the National Rugby League (NRL). Chicka knew there was something special about this kid.

When Joey burst onto the scene in the NRL competition at twenty years of age, I could see what Chicka had been talking about. As well as having great skill and ability, Joey had a maturity beyond his years. It was during his first year in the NRL that Joey and I initially crossed paths in a local coffee shop in Erskineville, when he came over and started talking to me, not about footy but about his love of boxing.

I kept an eye on Joey from a distance over his initial few seasons and, like many others, I could see there were some inconsistencies in his on-field form. There were days when he was unstoppable and the best player on the park; other days you could hardly tell he was out there. One minute hed be on top of the world and in the first-grade team, the next hed be back in reserve grade. Being fairly observant, especially with regard to athletes, I put this down to a lack of experience, though I also thought something might be going on behind closed doors that was affecting his performances.

One day Joey phoned me out of the blue and said hed heard Id been doing a bit of extra fitness work with his teammate, Jaiman Lowe. He asked if he could come in to the gym to increase his fitness and help with his confidence both of which boxing can provide. I thought itd be perfect because as well as helping with his fitness I could work on his mental ability so he could be more consistent with his football week in and week out.

What young Joey Williams didnt realise was that Id already had quite a few dealings with his old man, Wilfred, as well as many of his other Williams relatives from Cowra.

When Joey started coming down to the gym at Woolloomooloo PCYC, it was about a quarter of the way through the 2007 season. Though his team, the Bunnies, had got off to a great start to the season, they were going through a rough patch.

I started off with Joey like I did with any other boxer who came through the doors some chitchat, and then a little bit of boxing endurance to test his stamina not only physically but also mentally. Like just about every single Aboriginal kid Id had dealings with, Joey was a natural boxer. Ive always said Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are the most gifted athletes on the planet, and in the glimpses of rugby league talent Id seen in Joey and just watching him swinging a few punches, I could tell the kid was a talent.

Joey kept coming to the Woolloomooloo gym and then to the Redfern PCYC when I moved there. We continued to work on his fitness and confidence, and he managed to gain selection back in the first-grade Bunnies team and have a ripper of a finish to the 2007 season. The next year he moved very briefly to the Penrith Panthers and then to the Canterbury Bulldogs, but in the dealings we had together in 2008 I could see he was losing interest in the game hed grown up loving.

I would continually ask questions of Joey and test his physical and emotional resilience during the training we were doing on the pads, and if I had a fighter getting ready for a bout who needed some rounds, Id ask Joey. He was always up for it and passed the test, giving as good as he got. There were times he was tested to the point where he was knocked to the ground but he always got up and came back for more.

At the end of the 2008 season, Joey decided he wanted to take boxing more seriously and committed himself to doing all he could in his preparations to become a boxer. After a while, we locked in a date for his first fight and increased his preparation. Watching Joey during that time was a treat. He walked into the gym with a reputation for not being a great trainer, but he soon blasted that talk out of the water, transforming his chunky 82-kilogram rugby league physique to 68.8 kilograms for his first professional fight. You dont shed over 10 kilograms by being lazy.

Joey went on to win twelve of his sixteen professional fights as a boxer, and I believe he could have gone on to even greater heights. But we werent really trying to make him the champion of the world, we were building a resilience and mental strength to help him get through much greater battles.

I trained Joey Williams for his first three professional fights before moving back to the country, but I believe I gained a friend forever.

Sydney, 2017

(This Is My Journey)

D halang ngiyanhi dumbarra yindyamarra, Ngiyanhi gingu mudyigaan, Marra dhalbu yaala (Today we show respect to the Elders past and present). When I was a young Aboriginal kid growing up in country New South Wales, I had a lot of ability at sports and was fortunate to excel at rugby league. I was only thirteen when I started playing representative schoolboy football as well as in weekend club competitions with much older blokes. By the time I was seventeen, I moved to Sydney to finish school and fulfil my dream of playing in the National Rugby League competition.

In my early twenties, I wasnt going so well with my league and took up boxing to increase my fitness. I ended up liking boxing so much that I gave up playing league and became a professional boxer, winning a couple of titles to my name.

If Id reached my full potential in either league or boxing, this might have been a book about my triumphs and successes in the sporting arena. But its not, because as I entered the prime years of my life I was cut down by alcoholism and drug addiction, which stopped me from reaching anything like my full potential.

I was extremely fortunate to overcome my alcohol and drug abuse before they destroyed my life, but once all the substances I was using were taken away, boom, I had to face the head noise and paranoia I felt. I was swinging between manic highs and low depression. When I was really hyped or manic, I generally experienced positive dialogue. But when I was depressed, the dialogue was negative. Its what I now call the enemy within the voices in my head constantly questioning every decision that I make, telling me Im worthless, even that I dont deserve to live, that I should end it all now.