Akram, Pakistan’s main wicket-taker in each Test and ODI cricket, retired in 2003 after an 18-year worldwide career, however continued to journey the world on commentary and training assignments. The cocaine behavior, he says, started after he retired, when he began to crave a “a substitute for the adrenaline rush of competition”, and ended after the loss of life of his first spouse Huma in 2009.
Extracts from his ebook, printed alongside an interview in The Times, paint a frank image of Akram’s slide into habit.
“I liked to indulge myself; I liked to party,” he writes. “The culture of fame in south Asia is all consuming, seductive and corrupting. You can go to ten parties a night, and some do. And it took its toll on me. My devices turned into vices.
“Worst of all, I developed a dependence on cocaine. It began innocuously sufficient once I was supplied a line at a celebration in England; my use grew steadily extra severe, to the purpose that I felt I wanted it to perform.
“It made me volatile. It made me deceptive. Huma, I know, was often lonely in this time . . . she would talk of her desire to move to Karachi, to be nearer her parents and siblings. I was reluctant. Why? Partly because I liked going to Karachi on my own, pretending it was work when it was actually about partying, often for days at a time.
“Huma finally discovered me out, discovering a packet of cocaine in my pockets . . . ‘You need assistance.’ I agreed. It was getting out of hand. I could not management it. One line would turn out to be two, two would turn out to be 4; 4 would turn out to be a gram, a gram would turn out to be two. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I grew inattentive to my diabetes, which induced me complications and temper swings. Like lots of addicts, a part of me welcomed discovery: the secrecy had been exhausting.”
Akram went into rehab, finding the experience distressing – “The physician was an entire con man, who labored totally on manipulating households relatively than treating sufferers, on separating relations from cash relatively than customers from medicine” – and ended up relapsing.
“Try as I’d, a part of me was nonetheless smouldering inside concerning the indignity of what I’d been put by. My delight was damage, and the lure of my life-style remained. I briefly contemplated divorce. I settled for heading to the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy the place, out from below Huma’s each day scrutiny, I began utilizing once more.”
“Huma’s final selfless, unconscious act was curing me of my drug drawback. That lifestyle was over, and I’ve by no means regarded again.”
Akram has since remarried, and has three children – two sons from his first marriage and a daughter from his second. In his interview with The Times, he said he had written his book for his children.
“I’m a bit anxious concerning the ebook,” he said, “however I feel as soon as it’s out, I’ll be type of over it. I’m anxious as a result of at my age, I’m 56 and I’ve been diabetic for 25 years, it’s simply stress, you recognize . . . it was robust to revisit all of the issues. I’ve performed it for my two boys, who’re 25 and 21, and my seven-year-old daughter, simply to put my facet of the story.”