Brumbies great Ben Alexander talks about depression spiral ahead of 2013 reunion

That's why he's so excited ahead of an ACT Brumbies 10-year reunion next weekend.

How did the 2013 Brumbies beat the British and Irish Lions? They had a great team. How did they make the Super Rugby final despite the odds stacked against them? You guessed it: a great team.

But not long into retirement he became lonely and, without that team around him, he formed an "unhealthy belief in my own ability" which led him down a dark path, and a spiral into depression last year.

He didn't want to leave the house. He lost his ambition. He couldn't see a way out after chasing the dream after the rugby dream. The most-capped player in Brumbies history feared what was next.

"I felt like my battery for life was empty, and I lost hope that it would ever recharge," Alexander says.

"I was bawling my eyes out every day wondering 'what have I done'. I sold our home, put our money into a start up and I had no back up career. The Dock being impacted by COVID for two years massively added to my burnout. I had three young kids.

"My brain was so exhausted [from the life transition stress] ... I had three days off [developing the app] Alfred in six years. I was in a hole I never thought I was going to get out of, I was worried I was dragging my family down with me.

"Slowly, with the combination of fresh air and routine, walks with family and the Running 4 Resilience community, I started to get everything out of my head and piece a plan together. There was no magic fix ... I was always looking for a silver bullet to fix things."

Alexander - the former Brumbies and Wallabies prop, pub owner and healthy-lifestyle app developer - speaks with such clarity now that it's hard to fathom how dark his world had become.

MORE CANBERRA SPORT

There will be reminders about that journey everywhere he looks next weekend.

George Smith, one of the greatest Wallabies of all time, will roll back into town. David Pocock will be there, too. Henry Speight and Tevita Kuridrani, Scott Fardy, Pat McCabe, Scott Sio and Peter Kimlin, among others from the underdog Brumbies of 2013.

That season was the most successful since the title-winning season of 2004.

The Brumbies made history on a chilly night in Canberra, becoming the first provincial team to beat the Lions in more than 40 years.

When Super Rugby action returned in what was Jake White's second season as coach, the Brumbies beat the Bulls in Pretoria in a semi-final, and then went within minutes of beating the Waikato Chiefs in the final in Hamilton.

Alexander, who is now a Brumbies board member, has organised a weekend of reunion functions for the players and officials who can make it on the same weekend the Brumbies are set for a top-of-the-table clash against the 2013 heartbreakers - the Chiefs.

White is coaching in South Africa and can't make it, while Ben Mowen, Stephen Moore, Christian Lealiifano and Matt To'omua are among those who have sent their apologies.

There will be plenty of embellished stories - most likely about Kuridrani's match-winner in Pretoria or Lealiifano's heroics in Hamilton. Apparently the most requested so far is a re-enactment of Kimlin's rousing pre-game speech before the famous Lions' victory.

But at the time, no one knew the personal struggles Alexander was trying to hide. If they did know, it was never spoken about.

He was playing some of the best rugby of his career, but he was sin-binned early in the third and deciding Wallabies' Test against the Lions. The Wallabies lost, and a dark cloud hovered over Alexander for the rest of his career, unbeknown even his closest confidants. He says he never "really enjoyed rugby again" after that.

When he played the last of his 154 games for the Brumbies - to go with 72 Tests for Australia - Alexander went searching for challenge after challenge, culminating in his mission to develop Alfred - a food-tracking phone app to help people have more energy. Personally, Alexander lost almost 30 kilograms in retirement.

And when the app hit a brick wall at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, so did Alexander. The undealt with trauma and emotions of the 2013 Lions campaign led Alexander to take great risks, like selling the family home.

"I never dealt with those emotions from the Lions series. I beat myself up massively and reading the online fallout was hard ... I didn't want to leave the house, I was humiliated and felt I'd let my family and country down," Alexander said.

"But getting back to the Brumbies made me get on with it. We started the finals campaign and it taught me a lot about resilience. I think resilience is the strength you draw from others. The only way I could bounce back was my Brumbies teammates getting around me.

"It all hit me last year. It took three months, but I started to get out of it. Part of it was an opportunity at KPMG to learn some new skills and get interaction I needed.

"It had become all suffocating for me and I didn't have the skills to make Alfred great for users. I didn't know that at the time, I just had the belief that because I'd played for Australia and the Brumbies and had a great pub that I could do anything ... I had an unhealthy level of belief in my own ability. I was delusional.

"The reality is I could only do those things [as a player] because I had great teams around me. It took me a while to realise that, and that team around me [in business] is taking shape. I'm as excited about life as I've ever been."

Alexander's message now is that post-retirement depression is a very real thing, but it can be managed.

The idea driving Alfred - an app where you take a photo or send a description of your food and in return you get nutritional data - is what Alexander learned from former Brumbies athletic performance director Dean Benton.

"Dean made me keep a food diary, because I wasn't drawing the link between what I eat and how I perform. It was an eye opening experience for me, and I've never had an issue with my weight since," Alexander said.

"I felt very passionate about toxic-diet culture. I remember beating myself up if I didn't eat perfectly and because I eat to deal with stress, my diet would then spiral out of control. I was stuck in a bad cycle.

"But tracking has helped me find balance with food and Alfred is about having more energy and losing kilos in a sustainable way.

"I want to help people who are struggling with self esteem like I did. And people are rightly sceptical about anything weight-loss related.

"But we believe losing weight is as simple as being mindful when you're eating ... Dean made me keep a food diary. That was a pain in the arse, so we just want to make it easy."

We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.