Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Koen Mazoudier was once so unwell he was locked in a jail-like mental health facility.
This week he will return to the ring hoping to one day become a world boxing champion. And that is possible.
Mazoudier tells quite the tale of inspiration and overcoming adversity after a life-and-death struggle with drug addition.
“I’ve lost my mind and been in psychotic episodes and manic states up until the point where I was put into a mental health facility for violent and mentally ill people,” the 30-year-old told AAP.
“I was pretty much schizophrenic, like I was having full-blown hallucinations and, forget about my boxing career, it was like whether or not I was ever going to be a sane human being.”
Mazoudier’s first episode came in his late teens, but his most recent was this year, not even 18 months after taking Nikita Tszyu to the darkest place of his own career in an epic Australasian super-welterweight showdown in Sydney.
Mazoudier’s battles began when the then-amateur star spiralled into depression after missing his last chance to represent Australia at an Olympic Games.
“I was using a lot of different drugs, like mainly psychedelic drugs and weed and marijuana, all different party drugs,” he said.
“It was a steady decline of having failures in the sport, trying to then find some joy outside the sport: drinking, drugging.
“I’d have another bigger loss and find an outlet, and then you’re really strict obviously doing everything right when you’re getting ready for a fight.”
The lowest of lows was being placed in a mental health facility and threatened with a straitjacket.
“I was originally arrested from my house and taken to hospital,” Mazoudier said.
“I said I don’t want to take any drugs, like don’t give me anything, and they said, ‘Either you take these pills or we’re going to hold you down and inject them’, so it was right on that borderline.
“I was on medicine they give to schizophrenic people, so I was in that sort of state, and in there it was pretty much jail for mentally ill people.
“I was locked in my room for certain hours, only allowed outside for certain hours, security guards and meals at certain times.
“It was just a rehabilitation centre to make sure that I’d be able to go back out into society OK.”
Having children saved his life, and now Mazoudier says sons Miles and Bowie, daughter Olive and wife Breanna are driving the Blacktown-born battler towards his dream of fighting for a world title.
“I don’t know where I’d be without my kids and boxing,” he said.
In a measure of his class, Mazoudier was supposed to take on American superstar Jermall Charlo last month, before the two-division former world champion was denied a visa into Australia.
Undeterred, he will instead square off with countryman Sam Beck in Brisbane on Wednesday night’s undercard to Tszyu’s stoush with Ben Mahoney.
After relocating from Sydney to the Central Coast for financial reasons, Mazoudier is confident more big-time opportunities will come, as long as he keeps winning.
“I’ve gone all in,” Mazoudier said.
“Even the beginning of the year I had another episode and wasn’t sure if I’d ever box again, but I’ve come out the other side.
‘But I was f***ed up. I was really in mentally unwell states so, yeah, I’m proud of myself to have dragged myself out again.”
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