Former West Coast star Ben Cousins, who continues to battle drug addiction, says he cannot promise he will not relapse if he is given the chance to play AFL football again.

However, Cousins said today he was a single-minded person who would work as hard as he could not to let down any club who signed him next year.

He said playing again next season would be something which would hand him "a lifeline".

Cousins said he had yet to hold formal talks with any club, despite being strongly linked to Collingwood.

The Brownlow Medallist will try to convince the league he deserves to be re-registered over the next six weeks and says he needs to play at the top level again to help with his recovery.

However the 30-year-old, who said he was fighting addiction on a daily basis, warned he could not promise he would stay off drugs if recruited.

"I think there's no guarantees in football, I've missed a lot of footy in the last year and a half and obviously there's the associated risk with addiction, it being a chronic relapse condition," he told Channel Seven.

"But I am very single-minded and if I get given an opportunity I certainly don't intend to let the club down."

Cousins said he was comfortable with the amount of work he had put in to try to deal with his problems this year and believed he was progressing well.

"It's going okay. It's something I'm learning to manage," Cousins said.

"Living with and overcoming addiction is something which is done on a daily basis and I think over the last 12 to 18 months I've had the opportunity to step away from the football fraternity, re-assess my life and regroup.

"I'm looking forward to hopefully getting the opportunity to get back into the workforce.

"I think overcoming addiction, a big part of that is being integrated back into the workforce and getting back to doing what I enjoy," he said.

"Left to my own devices - idle hands are the devil's tools so I think the structure of football and the football environment can only help my recovery."

Cousins denied the West Coast environment was something which encouraged his descent into drugs.

"No, I don't think AFL exposed me to drugs, life and life experiences did.

"I speak about my experience in football very positively, it had nothing but a positive influence in my life.

"For that very reason that has motivated me to want to get back into it."

"Football's been a big part of my life, no question, and I guess the exciting thing now is to see what role it will play in the future - potentially handing me a lifeline.

"I've been reluctant to come out and say that's exactly what I want to do because there is a set of criteria that I have to meet from the AFL and I then have to go about trying to find a club that is willing to take me on as a footballer, but also what comes with it.

"I haven't worked out where I'd like to end up," he said.

"In a perfect world I would have loved to have stayed a one-club player at West Coast, finish my career on my own terms but I understand that with my unique circumstances the club has to move on and I guess so do I.

"At the moment I haven't been given the opportunity to be re-registered as a player by the AFL.

"So I haven't then been able to make any formal discussions with football clubs about the possibility of trying to come up with the right structure that can help me integrate back into the football community.

"That's left to the next six weeks once the AFL comes up with a decision on my future."

Cousins said he knew that to meet the AFL demands he would have to continue to work with the addiction specialists he has been working with this year.

"We just continue through that process and leave it up to the powers that be to make the decision."

Port Adelaide coach Mark Williams said he wouldn't advise Cousins to play in Adelaide as the environment was too similar to Perth.

Williams said Cousins should play in Melbourne where there were many clubs and he would not always be in the spotlight.

AAP