Australia’s greatest basketballer told the ABC's Four Corners program she turned to the medications to meet her contractual obligations in the world's best basketball leagues. 

Her experience raises concerns about Australia's elite female basketballers who can play all year round in the American WNBA from May until October and either the European, Chinese or Australian seasons which between October and March.

Jackson enjoyed a lucrative and successful career across those leagues while also playing in four Olympic campaigns and three world championships.

But she told Four Corners she was left with a knee which had "turned to mush", and used painkillers and sleeping pills to stay on the court.

"Because of the injuries that I had, there are high stakes," Jackson said. 

"You're getting paid a lot of money to perform, and when you're a franchise player or someone that is expected to perform day in, day out, you do what you have to do to get by.

"For me, that was painkillers and sleeping pills, generally."

Jackson didn't reveal details about which painkillers she used but said it was a "nightmare" to wean herself off them.

"Having to get off everything was really, really, really hard."

The program told the stories of numerous elite athletes who have struggled to adjust to life after the end of their sporting careers, including former Essendon footballer Courtenay Dempsey, former swimmers Stephanie Rice, Belinda Hocking and Daniel Kowalski, former Wallaby Brendan Cannon and former cricketer Nathan Bracken.

The program also covers the sudden death of former Wallaby Dan Vickerman in February this year.

Jackson went to the WNBL as a 16-year-old scholarship athlete at the Australian Institute of Sport in 1997, and continued to play until a series of knee and joint injuries ended her career last year.

While she started a university course during the latter years of her career and has developed a strong interest in human rights, Jackson still struggled to leave behind her identity as a basketballer.

"Once your career is over, you've got to recreate yourself in a way that other people just don't have to," Jackson said.

Dempsey spoke out about his lack of preparation for life after AFL football, and said he felt let down after sticking with the club throughout the turbulent supplements saga.

The Bombers life member was not one of the players who took part in the 2012 supplements regime, but was delisted at the end of last season after 133 games over 11 seasons.

"I've been stuck in this regime for 11 years, 12 years, most of my life, and all of a sudden I've got to go out into the wider world and fend for myself, which I don't have a clue about because I went from school straight into football. All I know is football," Dempsey said.

"You devote your whole life into that club and then all of a sudden they just take it away from you, and you're thinking, 'What have I done wrong?'" Dempsey said.

"I've done everything that you've asked me to do and yet, you still throw this at me."

Essendon chief executive Xavier Campbell told Four Corners that he and the Bombers' development manager had met with Dempsey several times since his delisting. 

Campbell said the Bombers were forced to review all parts of their player management after the scandal including how delisted players transition out of the AFL.

He also said the Bombers were considering giving players another day off training to focus on university or job training.

"It's a challenging one," Campbell said. "A lot of the time players are not finishing on their own terms and they feel they could play longer and that process can be confronting.

"With Courtenay, since his delisting, our player development manager has met with him three or four times, I've met with him a couple of times, to try to help with that transition and we'll continue to do that."

The AFL, NRL and other domestic football codes promote their sport to young athletes as providing more potential "job opportunities" than international sports like basketball or football but players are often recruited as teenagers. The potential for them to forgo studies or job training to "focus" on their sporting pursuits can leave players unprepared for their post-sporting lives.

Player unions have put countless hours into career management for athletes but the program shows there is still not a proper solution for the let-down during the transition from sporting star to regular person.

Injury-enforced retirements and the impact of head injuries continue to be a concern for those codes as the stories of former AFL listed players Darcy Daniher, Tom Hunter and Jarryd Allen showed in 2012.