Former AFL player Heath Black has spoken of an incident in Thailand where he rushed a strip club owner who had pulled a gun on him.

Black said that night in late 2008 was the scariest point in his battle with depression.

The former Fremantle and St Kilda midfielder has urged current players to confide in team-mates if they are going through problems with depression.

Black's lowest ebb was when he was caught for drink driving in 2009, but said the night in Phuket was his most extreme behaviour.

It was his last end-of-season trip as an AFL player and Black told Channel Nine's The Footy Show that he intended "to totally destroy myself in every capacity.

"I wasn't a drug taker, but I was a very heavy drinker at that point."

On the first night of the trip, Black went to the strip club and was rude to a dancer.

"Her husband was the owner and lo and behold, he had me taken out the front, down a little alley way and pulled a gun on me," Black said.

"Instead of what any normal person would do - run away - I rushed him and tried to get the gun off him, which was pretty scary."

After that incident, Black ended up drinking with locals.

"I (woke up) on a mattress the next morning with 20 other people around me, with no shirt on, no shoes, just shorts," he said.

"I had no idea how I got there."

Black added he wanted to go to jail and rot in a cell after he was caught drink driving.

"I was on the bones of my arse," he said.

Black said he felt challenged every day to return to binge drinking.

He had a strong fear of failure during his AFL career and would vomit before matches.

"We tend to hide these things, but what I'm trying to say is, come out (among) your peers," he said.

"You feel a hell of a lot better, it's too hard to do on your own."

Black said he confided in two Dockers team-mates in his final year at the club that he was on medication.

"Lo and behold, they were too, so it's funny how it works," Black said.

Black played 192 games for Fremantle and St Kilda between 1997-2008.

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