"I Googled how people die from this drug and they just stop breathing. That is when I realised I had to tell my wife. You can only hold a secret for so long and I was just getting tired.
"The night before I went in, I was sitting on the floor of my daughter's bedroom holding her hand for an hour just crying because I thought tonight is the night I am not going to wake up."
Cooper's addiction to painkillers started about a year ago after helping his father-in-law work with a jackhammer, triggering an old neck injury.
"Surgery was going to be too risky of being paralysed. I've seen some guys get operations where they come out and they can't even move their arm and it was a simple operation," he said.
"For 10 months I didn't do any training because I couldn't as my neck was too sore. I was sitting watching TV and pretty much not doing too much because I was in too much pain.
"It was a downward spiral from there.
"My doctor said I am lucky to be alive because of how much I was taking. You start with it and then your body gets used to it so you need to double it and it gets used to it again and you double that. I got to the point where it wasn't working. My doctor was blown away."
- AAP
