Todd Carney had the NRL world at his feet but had to watch it all go down the drain due to a social media post of his infamous ‘bubbler’ incident at Northies in Cronulla.

At the time someone posted the footage of Carney appearing to urinate in his own mouth on Instagram, and that was the end of his both stellar and incident-filled NRL career.

Now the 2010 Dally M Medallist, who is living in Byron Bay and captain-coach of the Byron Bay Red Devils has revealed just going to the toilet in public makes him nervous as the incident has left him traumatised.

“I just don’t understand why people are so fascinated about it,” Carney told Seven News.

“I know it was stupid and I’ll live with it for the rest of my life.

“People try and do it next to me in the toilets. I actually sometimes get nervous to go to the toilet in case there is a big crowd in there.”

The 32-year-old accepts his NRL career is over as a result of the admittedly “stupid” incident, which was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back and came after a litany of off-field incidents involving alcohol which tarnished a career that on the field was often spectacular.

Carney it seems is filled with regret over throwing his career away in spectacularly stupid fashion in an NRL off-season that has seen several NRL players at the centre of much more serious incidents than the one that ended his own career.

“I know I could have achieved more, everyone knows I could have achieved more but I can’t change it no,” he said.

“I thought it (my career) was never going to end I guess, and I wish that I woke up like I have to myself a little bit now.

“I wish I had of done it a long time ago.”

The catalyst for the change in Carney — who now seems a lot more mature than the teenager who was at the centre of trouble from the time his NRL career kicked off in 2004 at the Canberra Raiders — has been a family illness.

Carney, revealing his mum battling cancer forced him to take a reality check and look at what he wants to do with his life, which is help those on the pathway to sporting success.