BRENDAN Fevola has opened up about the moment his life came crashing down while being treated in a mental institution.

The former footy bad boy shared the experience on his Melbourne breakfast program, Fifi, Dave & Fev, telling his co-hosts it all began after he was famously arrested on New Year’s Eve in 2010 for being drunk and jaywalking in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.

“My management came and got me out of the lockup in Brisbane and they took me into a rehab facility in New Farm which was a mental hospital and they put me in there for a week,” the 35-year-old said, adding the decision was made by his management and football club to “calm” the media.

But the stint lasted 70 days.

“I was in a mental institution, so it was lock down, there was all different ‘category fours’, people had been in there for a long time,” he said. “So obviously I had a few issues that I didn’t know about.”

During his stay, the Brisbane floods happened and the clinic had to be evacuated, with patients transferred to another hospital. Fevola says what followed led to a moment that “really changed my life”.

“So we were hopped on this little mini bus, getting transferred to a hospital which was across the bridge and we’re on the bus and one lady was running up and down screaming and another guy was hitting the window because they were scared,” he said.

“And they were obviously all medicated. I sat in the back of this bus and I rang my dad and I started crying and I said, ‘Dad, what’s happened?’

“It was the first time I’d realised that I need to change my life. That was a real turning point for me. So I rang dad and I’m crying (and thinking), ‘Four months ago I’m on the Gabba kicking goals, having a great ol’ time and I’ve found myself on this bus with some very sick people that I was part of, medicated, my life is going down the gurgler’. It’s at that point where I’m like, ‘Righto, I gotta man up’.”

Fevola said he began to change the “real issue” of communicating with people properly and getting “things off my chest”.

Earlier this year, he reunited with his ex-wife, Alex, whom he shares three kids with.

Fifi, Dave and Fev airs on The Fox on Hit 101.9