Against All Hope: Chris Herren on Addiction, Sobriety & Redemption | Rich Roll Podcast

at 18 years old I'm just did a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated I'm one of the best basketball players in the country I'm in my first month in college finally and I said I'll take a chance at dying if you walk in my house honest to God you will not see one thing about basketball my is locked in right now I do not have one uniform one picture one article but you'll go to my sink and there'll be my 15year chip sitting there on the counter recovery is the greatest accomplishment of my life today we're going to chart a rather indelicate course through the dark abyss that is addiction it's an Affliction that holds the potential to decimate everything in its path and leave you but a shell of a human I've been there but my story just pales in comparison to that of Chris Haron one of the world's greatest basketball players a point guard for both the Denver Nuggets and his home state Boston Celtics whose disease took him to just unspeakable lows before finally getting sober followed by this extraordinary phoenix-like journey of recovery towards purpose towards service and Redemption as this powerful and leading voice on the topic of substance use prevention Chris story which I first came across in the ESPN 30 for30 documentary called unguarded is is truly a testament to the power of transformation and the unwavering belief that no matter how far we may fall we can always always rise again if you are suffering from some form of addiction then this episode is a must listen but even if you're not I encourage you to embrace this conversation as a means to better understand an Affliction that baffles a lot of people especially non- addicts and and which also likely touches somebody you know or somebody you love who needs help now in closing I want to say that we have additional resources on the topic of addiction and Recovery listed in this episode show notes at Rich roll.com so please refer to that I think it'll be helpful and with that being said without further Ado this is a powerful one with me and Chris Heron it's great to meet you thank you for coming out to do this I've been looking forward to this for years uh I know you just came from Alabama you were speaking to the the the college football team there yeah Alabama football I was I've been going there for about 12 years mhm and um I was there Monday then Texas here and finishing the week at Texas A&M right so so what is the mix between uh like college athletes versus high schools I mean high school high school kids is really your bread and butter in terms of yeah yeah I think you've spoken to like 2 million kids something like 2 million kids probably like 200 high schools a year wow and now middle schools uhhuh you know I first started telling my story middle schools wouldn't have me and then a decade later they know they know that it's it's it's the appropriate time to uhuh for them to listen yeah well that's a big kind of pivot or evolution in how you approach young people right this idea of not just sharing your story but also um this notion of the first day what does it look like in the early stages of this because it's very difficult for a young person for anybody but particularly a young person to put themselves in the shoes of the person at the very end of an addiction story but much more relatable to get them get their heads wrapped around what it's like in the very beginning after about six years of telling my story I said uh I'm kind of playing Into The Narrative of you know finishing my story with how horrible my life was uhhuh so I pivoted I did a thing called note to self for the Today Show and they said you have to write a note to your younger self and I've done two books I was like this is easy 500 Words you'll fly in and film me and uh it took me about a month tapping back into that little boy was brutal which then told me try to have the kids identify with the little boy not the heroin attic on the street right um like yourself I was visited it was I think it was maybe 9th grade maybe 8th grade when some guy came to my school yeah and got up in front of everybody and told his you know his his his alcoholic uh adventures and I remember not being able to relate to it at all I thought it was sort of interesting and fascinating I still remember when that happened but it didn't have any impact on me at all um I know you had a similar experience and now you're standing in the shoes of the guy who's going to all the schools and trying to do that a little bit differently you know that's that I felt like I was doing addiction or disservice right I think we focus so much on the worst day and we forget the first day MH we're always painting this picture of how addiction ends rather than why it's beginning so when I walked into schools it was a very uh difficult decision for me to do I was six seven years into speaking and I said um I'm going to Pivot and my whole team was like you can't pivot so I pivoted and as soon as I pivoted the Outreach from kids went up 300 400% wow yeah so that's when I knew you know that the first day the first St is what kind of sticks with the kids right you know cuz you're meeting them where they're at self-esteem selfworth trauma um my childhood yeah you know and kids kids would see me come in and say well he was a Boston Celtic but I was listening to one of your shows and um the guy said Broken Toy something about being a broken toy and it rattled me because I was a I was a broken toy and that's what I want the kids to see mhm yeah I think this is a a a newer kind of lens or approach to understand addiction I mean you and I both got sober and and have maintained our sobriety within the the traditional structure of of 12ep and I credit that program with saving my life and continuing to save my life I'm still extremely active in that um so this is not in any way uh you know a disparagement on but I think there is a sort Trope in the rooms around not overthinking why you became an alcoholic it's like you are because you are and and the wisdom in that is that there's not a lot of actionable uh uh advice in spending too much time in your head trying to understand how you got there we're going to focus on the tools and the steps to rebuild your life and create a better one for yourself and and I get that but I think now we're seeing with people like Gabor mate and a lot of you know social science research coming out the connection between Early Childhood trauma Etc that's contributing to these things and I think it is important to understand that so that we can catch people earlier on and address these issues before they become out of control listen I'm I am a 12-step guy through and through yeah you know I truly am if it wasn't for them if it wasn't for the 12 Steps um I want to be the dad I am the husband you know it completely completely changed me it's just there's other there's other avenues you know for years we shut those Avenues down and now there's other avenues mhm right supplementing what we already know works right um well let's get into it I want to do you know an old school like what it was like what happened and and what it's like now so you know paint the picture in in Fall River as a young kid what was going on my brother was a star my father was a politician and I was upand cominging and uh I grew up in a tough Town blue collar I mean it was very normal for kids of my age to be walking into uh the sons of Italy or the Portuguese American Club and and having beers um that was the culture and the culture caught up with me you know I went to BC and uh I was introduced to cocaine and not everybody can understand this but cocaine became like my therapy Like Cocaine was my truth serum what is it about that drug that unlocks that it allowed me to cry and just spill everything I needed to spill uhhuh so I kind of fell in love with the vulnerability of cocaine and it ran Wild right it just it followed me everywhere I went um came out to Fresno couldn't shake it uh went to treatment came back from treatment got married in college had a baby in college that allowed me to step away from the life for a little while um but I fell back into it and you know I was just starting my career professionally and I was introduced to oxycon and that was it that was it yeah so we find the drugs that work for us and part of the first day you know kind of idea is understanding that you know they they work you know you don't become an addict because it doesn't work out of the gate it's it's it's serving it's filling some need right and as a kid in Fall River kind of rough and tumble Blue Collar town you become this Superstar High Point score 2,000 points in high school and it's a town in which basketball looms large it's a Friday Night Lights sort of scenario right where everyone's turning up for the basketball games and you're the hometown hero and as a young person I mean starting around like age 14 you're suddenly in a position where you're shouldering all this pressure and all the hopes and expectations of this town I was playing in front of four or 5,000 people in high school that's crazy you know what I mean so that 14-year-old boy running through the locker room came out to 4,000 people and you have this Comfort you're in your Zone when you're on the court and you're able to do what you do so well and yet after the game when you're in your buddy's basement you feel like you got to get loaded just so you can hang out with your friends like that disconnect yeah I don't even know if I was comfortable on the court I might have been you know in hindsight I think of how I felt I was kind of in flight you know like I wanted to I wanted to get it over with you wanted the games to be over with yeah I wanted to get to the end I wanted the result before I had the result I wanted the points before I had the points and I wanted to run so I wouldn't even consider myself ever being comfortable on a basketball cour wow yeah you said that that you don't have a lot of love for basketball was it a situation in which you at one time you did or was it always like a Duty or you know it's like Friday Night Lights and and and the thousands of people in the gym screaming most of my time was spent on 102 Philip Street like my childhood home and every shot I took every dribble was was to be better than my brother better than my father um it was just this this Shadow it's hard to explain but it was just this shadow that I could never ever escape it so the love of basketball was gone I never loved it I loved soccer I loved baseball but I just never love the game of basketball because it was just this impending doom that I was going to fail but you didn't fail I didn't but I believe some of that success came because of fear of failure yeah and like you can get into it and try to figure it all out you know what I mean uh and trust me I've done plenty of work to try to figure it out um but when I go back to that little kid in the driveway like I'm not out there cuz like I enjoy this I'm not out there saying this is this is fun I'm out there for a reason and you know 10 8 10 12 year olds shouldn't be out there for a reason yeah yeah you should be having fun um and and of course you're too young to have any self-awareness around any of that you're just operating reactively to this environment and you're growing up in you know this blue collar town that that you know miltown right that's kind of having hard times that's why basketball was so important it was this source of Pride for this for this community um and very much a a a work hard play harder situation you play the games then you're in your buddy's basement and you're partying harder than you played on the court I played the games to get to the basement like that was that that that's where the piece was for me like let's get the games over with so I could finally get down into the basement MH and um that started at a young age you know that it was like Refuge down there like I can escape everything um for river is a tough town it's tough people I I believe um it played in to my future with drugs and alcohol but I also believe because of it it brought me out of it yeah and and that toughness um but as a little boy uh fora wasn't a safe place for me mentally mhm emotionally yeah you have the Spectre of of your older brother and the expectations that come with that hanging over you you've got uh an alcoholic dad a divorce um not an awesome healthy situation for a young person to grow up in but it feels like you had some guidance and some mentors around you but you were impenetrable I wouldn't say I was impenetrable right but what I would say is my parents tried hard you know their life was falling apart um it wasn't that they've ever intentionally put me in a wrong direction right they know exactly where I should be on the road I should be traveling on uhhuh but they just couldn't get me to it um and then Bill Reynolds walked into my life and you know he uh he said I want to write a book about you it's similar to Friday Night Lights I'm going to call it far of a dreams and I'm going to follow you for one season and I'd never been around someone like that before he went to Brown he was just unbelievably therapeutic for me calm um and he it it's kind of crazy like he almost showed me how [ __ ] up I am can I swear on here yeah all right sorry but do you know what I'm saying like he almost showed me like you you you are you're not an 17y old kid you're not a 15year old kid like we need to help you like he started started trying to help me I never heard of that word and at 15 16 years old he wanted to help me and which allowed me to kind of look in and that's when things started to get tough why did that make it tough I would think this Outsider comes in he's able to see things a little bit more clearly than somebody who just grew up in that town he pulls you aside he saw the truth yeah but on some level to say to you listen man you got this huge future you're unbelievably talented you have this gift and I'm watching you piss it away you're on a crash course With Disaster you need to figure this out I didn't know how yeah I didn't like that's the truth of it right like he wanted me to figure it out and you know I Bill Reynolds I was with them a couple hours a day maximum you know I was I I wasn't with him like my parents or you know an adult figure in my life he popped into for practice and uh he started just introducing me to like it sounds crazy but he's the first person I ever saw eat a salad I'm not I'm not kidding you I never saw anybody in my life this Posh guy from Brown I'm 15 years old and I've never seen anyone eat a salad uhhuh and he orders a salad and a Diet Coke and I'm like who is this [ __ ] guy yeah you call you say I'm [ __ ] up oh my God god um are you do you have recollection or uh a memory of like the first time you got drunk like you know you hear you know in the rooms that vividness of of that first experience and feeling like oh this is what's missing in my life like this is the thing that is gonna I drank Cold Duck champagne in my basement I think I was in sixth grade sixth or seventh grade it might have been for my like my 13 my my my my birthday party in my basement yeah um there was a bottle of warm cold duck and me and my buddies cracked it and started drinking it and it just gave me this ability to be something else like to experience something else MH you know not be so rigid and uptight and and worried and concerned like I could just kind of loosen up and that was I would say that's my first experience with alcohol m mhm but you still never felt super comfortable even on the court when you were doing your thing listen the truth is I don't feel super comfortable today that's the truth like I mean there's a lot of work that has been done and needs to be done and I just didn't have the vehicle to do the work back then my mom and dad didn't have the bandwidth in their world to help me through it right so I just kind of white knuckled it and and plowed through it at that age um and to a certain extent I kept doing that for for years yeah well in the unguarded documentary they make a a pretty solid point of of looking the other way as long as you were winning right like when everything's going great you're able to get away with a lot more than you probably would have otherwise because there was so much success happening so I think for of to a certain extent gets a bad rap with that there was so many people in that area that wanted nothing but good for me right um it was an internal issue right that they tried very hard to to point me in the right direction um people looked away in my life yeah I don't even I feel sad for the people who looked away from me because they just extended this world for me mhm you know like I wasn't look I guess what I'm trying to say is I wasn't looking at people saying like you're a sucker you're a sucker for looking away it was an extension for me like I I I can still go down this road further you know so high school was pretty much booze pot some psychedelics whatever was around uh but things kicked up into another gear when you get to Boston College right you say no to Duke you at Boston College stay local local hero boy playing in the backyard you uh early in your freshman year you come back to your dorm room couple girls in your room some lines of coke lined up in front of you and you're faced with a choice I am a big choice and and growing up as a Boston Celtic a kid in that area um Len Bas was was pretty fresh in my head at that time um that was was that 19 80 no it was 1987 maybe oh was that much later yeah yeah I think yeah um 1986 but I I saw this pile of cocaine on my desk and I was like [ __ ] Lenny bias and like he just did it once and he died right it just it kind of shows you how sad that situation is right like I literally believe that there's a very good chance that I'm going to die if I just do this one time and I still did it m you know what I mean like that think of how sad that is yeah that at 18 years old I'm just did a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated a book has been written about me I'm one of the best basketball players in the country and I'm in my first month in college finally out of for River out of my home and I said I'll take a chance at dying it's kind of wild you know but that chance it was and I'm very careful how I say this but it it was it was a sort of freedom for me and people who have done cocaine and certain people that do cocaine it happens to them it was my it was my truth serum it allowed me to just lay back open myself up and say come on in I'm going to introduce you to the real me m you know and that's that's what I that's what I was addicted to well there is something therapeutic about that and I think it's important when we talk about uh substance use I know you don't like the word abuse um that addicts find their way to the substances that actually fulfill a certain need it's an unhealthy Avenue but there's something about that that's working for them that they discover and as somebody who grew up in a community where maybe wearing your emotions on your sleeve you know it's probably not probably not a lot of that right um it it it was a it was a way to feel those emotions and express them oddly it made me feel normal you know it just it it it gave me this sense of Peace it slowed my world down allowed me to sit on a couch and just say I'm afraid like I you have no idea like I'm in Sports Illustrated but I'm petrified of what's next and you know you'd wake up the next morning and say did I really tell the truth you know did I really sit down and and and open myself up that way and again that's that's the thing about cocaine that I loved yeah um and then it becomes a way of life it it works until it doesn't it was a funny drug right like I I was never opiates are a different game like cocaine for me was more like 48 hours and two weeks off uhhuh you know it was never an everyday thing yeah it just it reintroduced them all the time you know and and so it allows you to think like I'm not not I'm not a drug addict because I haven't done it for a month you know but it will be 72 hours later and the shades are drawn and I'm sitting in my house and I'm you know listening to people stock their cars go to work get their book bags for school and I want to die uhhuh you know very it was a very depressing drug for me coming down mhm so you you have this kind of magical debut at Boston College but it doesn't last very long you end up failing a couple drug tests big news story um the hometown Hero has been taken down a peg uh and for somebody who's harboring so much fear to have that like RIT large you know in the newspapers and media figures talking about you in a less than compassionate way I can imagine only Amplified that sense of fear and Doom that was already inside you you know in 1994 right like there wasn't many athletes featured as drug addicts right and that's that was the headline that we got this problem child this waste of talent drug addict who threw everything away 50 mil from his home mhm I think the most difficult thing for me at that time was my mom you know my dad struggled with alcohol um I just didn't want to let her down yeah and she passed away before you got sober right she didn't yeah she never saw me sober yeah it was her dying wish you know mhm I never gave it to her when you think back about that 18-year-old kid mhm what is it that you want to say to him hug him I'm not going to say anything I'm hugging him I'm going to hold him mhm I'm going to hold him real close real tight and if you had to diagnose know what was going on with him the source of his pain and his trauma that led him to make those decisions and and walk the path that he did how do you make sense of that at 18 years old you couldn't you know no but you looking back now and understanding yourself with all the work that you've done on yourself I'd pull him out of the game you know I I'd take him away from basketball yeah um it's dark it's deep and uh I had no tools nothing so again and it's probably even 15 years sober it's it's it's probably wrong to say but I I don't know what I'd say to him I would just i' I'd hug him mhm and I I'd walk through it with him yeah yeah yeah he didn't have that kid just didn't have any kind of healthy mentorship in his life somebody who could see the kid behind the basketball Glory you know I'm I'm careful with that cuz my brother was a steady like as far as my life in basketball my dad um the only thing about my dad was his drinking got in the way uhhuh uh my mom was phenomenal but at 18 they were going through a divorce so I got kind of pushed to the side right so for the next 6 months I sat on my mother's couch terribly depressed and Jerry tanian called me and he said I'm a fan of Second Chances right I'll never forget that line I'm a fan of Second Chances MH and uh I needed that so he seems like he was an amazing guy and and really believed in you really cared about you a lot and invested a lot M he took to his own risk yeah yeah with you we were both of our backs were up against the wall a little bit right he was fresh out of Vegas he was going home to Fresno I needed to get out of New England 3,000 miles away I figured I I I truly believe and you hear it all the time in the rooms that me moving from Massachusetts to California was the solution right the geographic yeah and you know obviously it chases you right but in in unguarded you have you talk about you get you get there and you're like what am I doing here I don't belong here you're calling your yeah yeah I'm at Jack In The Box you're a jack yeah you're you're like there's the pay phone you know where I was telling her I can't I'm not going to make it here you know well she was the person that I could be truthful with right she she knew that boy you know not many people got to know me in seventh grade like yeah you met your wife in seventh grade yeah so she was one of the few people in my life that I could go to the Jack in the Box pick up the phone and say I'm crumbling I'm crumbling in Fresno California I've never heard of it it's 120° I need to get out of here um but the truth is I had nowhere to go right so it was Fresno a bust you make a good go of it for a while there it seems like it was a relatively healthy environment um with Jerry's sort of mentorship and belief in you and a certain you know sort of Team cohesion there and you had a good run for a minute I think it started off Rocky I was I was in a Black Angus parking lot and surrounded by you know the SWAT team I got into a fight in the bar it started off Rocky right you know um from an athletic standpoint it was great right like we're playing in front of 13,000 people selling Arena it's live Fresno is a lot like Fall River in a bigger sense it was it was a very blue collar town and I think they respected the way I played the game and I think they respected where I had come from and you know I I became the the long shot the underdog um so I think they and I played that way you know I played you know when people say Chris you were talented um I was emotional like that's what drove me not Talent emotion drove me like when I could kick it into another gear it was all emotion and fear M so that's where I believe I I excelled but part of me on the basketball court and Fresno knew at some point you're going to try to tap into this and it's not going to be there yeah there's that was it the first game where you come back and you're you're playing in Boston for Fresno oh God and and you know Boston fans not exactly forgiving right booing you you know here's this kid he's back here and and you just crush it right so when you say like like what you're saying is when the stakes are super high and you could tap into that emotional state and just play out of your mind I look at as honestly humbly I look at it as lucky like I just I made my first shot which allowed me to my esteem to feel comfortable out there I was I was paralyzed with fear walking into that Arena I just got my ass kicked to University of Oregon now mind you I get kicked out of BC I sit out a year I'm trying to get my drug problem under control I'm going to AA I'm working with my assistant coach and busted my ass to to to get back and I step on University of Oregon's basketball court and they destroy me they took everything from me that game and from Eugene Oregon to Boston Massachusetts I contemplated quitting like I can't do this I can't I can't embarrass my family I can't embarrass myself um I'm not a division one basketball player I'm so far from that McDonald's All-American um just transfer go to a division 2 school and play at that level so so for six hours on a plane I cried like I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this and I didn't sleep you know I'm in the hotel and we're practicing and my family's coming so there was an immense amount of pressure on me uhuh and I didn't do well with that you know I I I didn't I didn't do I had I had to create it in a sense yeah you know what I'm saying yeah yeah I get it I get it but I'm I'm imagining just this this young kid who's just so burdened by expectation and an outside sense of responsibility like it's life or death for you like if I don't play well in this game then this whole town is going to yeah turn on me or you know what I mean like and and I felt that about me you know like it was life and death for me no wonder you didn't have joy for basketball yeah how could you I didn't I think I and that's my that's what I was saying I think I excelled at being incredibly fearful like that drove the fire to rip your throat out on a basketball court right but not that I could like dribble really good and shoot un like it it was more of that intensity that was living within me that allowed me to thrive out there sure but fuel as a fuel source fear isn't going to isn't going to bode well long term and if you're harboring that much fear all the time it's only it's you're ticking time bomb in terms of when you're going to use against again because you can't walk around with that level of discomfort being an adct without picking up at some point and I knew it was I knew that this whole gig was going to end I just didn't know when like you got to think about it I at 18 years old I went on this journey to be a a professional basketball player but at 18 years old I knew at some point I'm going to self-destruct so every time I walked into a gym every time I played in a game I knew at some point it's not going to be the person across from me who beats me it's going to be me right and that's is it going to be tonight it's a horrible way to live meaning they're going to find out M they're going to expose me yeah and and you you know the amount of like energy that you have to Output to maintain this double life so no one no one really knows what's going on with you is is exhausting so fear exhaustion um Panic Doom all of that and like 19 I loved it like I'd be screaming on ESPN the cameras I'd be I'd be an absolute Maniac out there after the game I'd jump up onto the scores table and get the fans fired up and they loved it but there was just something about that 19 20 year old that as I'm celebrating I know deep down inside that this is not going to it's not going to be long yeah it's not going to last forever yeah and it didn't you're you're right about that yeah yeah uh you you you break Jerry's heart a couple times uh you know and it kind of you're you're sort of it's weird it's like this x like on the one hand your your career's continuing to go up like you get drafted you're playing for Denver then you play for the Celtics um but at the same time your problems getting worse and worse and worse right so so it's this this weird Confluence it is weird and at honestly I can say at that time if I look back on it there were times I was the healthiest I've ever been you know like at Fresno walking into a trailer for an AA meeting and you know opening up the big book and smoking cigarettes and hugging people like I felt phenomenal right so there were periods of time where I had some pretty strong sobriety at 19 20 21 years old um and then I went to Denver and you know it was well document documented that I went to rehab and uh you know Rowan Stone did a big piece and fox did a reality show so everybody kind of knew um kind of my Legend and I walked into that locker room and the guys in there immediately embraced me and said you're a second round pick you know you're 33rd you get two years guaranteed we're going to make it 10 years and as men who suffered through substance use with family members in the past we will I will not sit back and watch you suffer so we're going to do everything in our power for you to take advantage of this opportunity and they did Antonio mcdice George McLoud chony bips papey Jones they knew my history and they were like it's not going to happen here so they they babysat for a season and um I wasn't Perfect by any stretch right but I was better I was much better and that's why when I came back the following year and I got traded yeah it broke me do you think if you hadn't gotten traded to the Celtics and you stayed in Denver that ultimately you would have been able to figure it out you know what I found out in the NBA to be truthful um my emotion didn't work anymore then it was real talent then it was real size you know that fiery tough you know Blue Collar kid on the basketball court like that wasn't giving me an edge in the NBA so whether I self-destructed or not I don't think in hindsight looking back I would have had this this long successful NBA career because I was I was at my limit uhhuh you know when you're when your when Shaquille O'Neal tries to block your shot and you feel like there's a you know a a tree over you doesn't matter how angry you are no yeah that's not going to help but you got to find some kind of other gear right that's a little more sustainable if you're going to operate at the highest of the elite level and that gear required discipline it required sobriety and and I couldn't I didn't have it yeah you know if I was going to make this work I'm going to get sober and I'm going to lock in and I'm going to show up every day to put the work in I didn't have that ability so I knew I knew I was going to lose it um and that's why that's why I kind of enjoyed going to Europe you know I was running away again you know I I won't fail in front of I'm going to head to Europe and fail on my own yeah you're getting paid well you can do this thing you know how to do but the stakes are a lot lower and no one in the US is paying attention and you can [ __ ] around and you're so far away from home it's not going to make the headlines in the Boston Globe I just I'll never forget it I I I have a horrible story I don't even know it's appropriate to be on here right no tell it so my wife wanted me to get help obviously and there was this pain management clinic in Boston that puts a pellet inside of you right so sadly I can't even describe it because I went up there and it was $750 and we didn't have $750 so I walk into this office and my wife is sitting there and she's so happy that I'm going to get this block opiate blocker and planted in me that I uh I walk in the back to meet with the doctor and I had a razor blade and go gauze pads in my pocket uhhuh so I met with him for about 15 minutes and I said you know something sir I'm going to pass on the pellet may I use your bathroom I walked into the bathroom I sliced my stomach open I put gauze pads tape and I walked out and my wife saw it and she was like way to go babe yeah and there was no pellet the $750 addicts are crafty man yeah yeah but but but saying that is I I took an immense drug habit you know um intense drug habit to Italy with me mhm you know I was and and part of me if I could like those are people that I never made an amends to the Italians the teams that I played for um because they didn't get what they scouted you know I got off that plane and I was taking thousands 1,600 milligrams of oxies a day right that's the athlete that you just acquired yeah you know what I mean so so yeah so so uh opioids oxycotton enter the picture um what when was that it was shortly before you started with the Celtics M and then that quickly ramps up do A600 milligram a day habit of oxy while you're playing for the Celtics there's a crazy story where you're warming up for a game and you go out shortly before you're Dope Sick you go out to the parking lot to score so that you could just play the game and you end up having a pretty good game which is like you had this unreal ability to play high or stay up all night party your ass off and just be an absolute wreck and then like four hours later take the court and and crush it which is I did so at a younger age right like when I got that that doesn't that's not going to it's not it wasn't going to last for me high school right but um 1,600 migs of oxycotton a day and I'm sitting in my locker room and I'm like I'm not feeling good like the early withdrawal symptoms are coming on I'm kind of like I got a runny nose I'm sneezing and uh starting to get a little achy and I call my drug deal and I said listen I'm playing I need you up here before MH right I'll leave him some tickets I'll meet you after the game I'll give you a couple of thousand dollars and I'll get what I need but I need you now and he punched it and he drove and and I kept running off the floor know and like think of that moment like I'm starting and my family they're so proud of me and and this is the dream growing up in Massachusetts to play for the Celtics I guess so right I mean if you think about it I guess so I mean was it really apparently you know I don't know I mean if you really look back at it was that my dream maybe my dream was to like paint and like play music you know yeah I just never was exposed to anything else but that but my point is I was um I ran outside the arena with like eight minutes to go and the place was packed and I run I leave the locker room go left another left down the stairs through the players parking lot and he's waiting for me I pay him he gives them to me I throw them into my mouth I run back to the arena and they introduce me shortly after and that's normal like there's people who will watch this show you know and say w that's I get that yeah of course and there's people who watch it will say what a sick bastard you know but yeah and I think a lot of that has to do with not understanding that you need that just to be normal without it there's no way you're going to be able to play yeah and I I hate not about like being in some Peak state of being high of performance yeah you're just trying to get to a baseline you know I I think it's always it's it was in the beginning it was a really hard question to answer like did you ever play high and every part of me wanted to say no but the truth is I wouldn't been able to play unless I was under the influence with with the in the world of opiates mhm you know like I didn't do cocaine before the game because it was going to make me perform at a higher level um I did opiate so I could be normal and perform at a normal level and that's the chase right I think you know even as a professional athlete what what you start to fall into right I'm I'm strung out on oxies and I am I would try to like get myself away from it and get in the gym just as whether it's Sprints runs shots my body didn't feel right on him I mean w without him without him yeah so I knew that I was going to have to step away from the game of basketball for about 6 months to kind of rewire my brain and my body to the muscle memory to to be able to perform at that level without him wow so I just chased it was just it was just a constant Chase so your time at the Celtics ends yeah you go overseas you play in all these countries Poland turkey China Italy uh you bring like a big bag of oxy with you right did you travel internationally with that TR sh to you or how did how did you actually so I brought some to Italy with me I believe yeah so I brought I I brought it was probably like 300 oxies with me and I was like I'm going to manage this and then the next country I went to was turkey and I was like there's no way I'm bringing yeah to Turkey right yeah if you're of a certain age you saw a certain movie that terrified you oh my God yeah so I'm like I'll figure it out when I get there uhhuh and uh I went on that flight without I fought in my hotel room my father came with me he witnessed my withdrawals um you know I would wake up and the bed would be sideways um that's how active my my legs were kicking and um I started really trying to hustle some heroin you know some some opiates and uh couldn't find any so for like a month I'm sick so I call a guy at home and I said I just wired you 5,000 send me a bunch of oxies and he sent them and the plan in a newspaper you can't feel them FedEx so I get a phone call from my team that says use a package down at the the local shop but they for some reason they want you to come here to pick it up oh man it's a sting it's total sting wow in istano I went for it I didn't care about this thing like there was $5,000 worth of oxycotton in that package so I go there and as I'm sitting there at the counter signing ID with some of my uh like the team Personnel outside with me I'm like these guys are about to witness Midnight Express like I'm about to get locked up in turkey and uh the guy comes around the corner and he has the package wrapped in tape and I'm like [ __ ] it's it should I run should I say it's not mine I grabbed it so I turn around and as I'm walking out of there I'm like how come nobody's tackling me I get in the backseat of the car I start opening up when I get to where they were supposed to be someone in the airport beat me to it got rid of all the pills and wrote me a little note basically like get your [ __ ] together man this is this is sad whoa like a customs officer who knew who you were intered intervened wow mhm that was Turkey you can't make that [ __ ] up what you can't make up is the fact that I went you know like that's that's well that's I mean that's Addiction in a nutshell and I think that's what people who don't have familiarity with this disease don't understand like it's going to drive you to just make insane decisions because nothing else matters I'm on that drive over right to the um the FedEx in turkey and I'm like I have a child I have a wife but there's a chance I'm going to feel better and there's a chance I'm going to go to prison and I went for it that's wild and for many people maybe that would have been wake up call enough mhm not for this guy though no no it wasn't and and sadly right like I say I I I tell these stories with great pain and embarrassment you know what I mean like I never I don't get any enjoyment or or it's it's pain painful to say because I know on the other end of this like my son who's 25 and my daughter who's 22 they're going to go on and they're going to watch this interview but they know these stories and they know you and they know the way that you've showed up over the last 14 years but it doesn't mean they want to always hear them yeah do you know what I mean like I signed I I that's when I did unguarded our world changed that was a big deal I mean that that documentary is so powerful and unbelievable I had no idea honestly and it didn't even it happened by accident like John Hawk could tell you most of the footage the hours they spent with me was me teaching kids how to play basketball in a gym at the tail end of them wrapping up filming I got a couple of speaking events and he followed me and he said like this is this is the documentary right I'm going to tell it you're going to tell it in your story um and that's where ardu came from it was not supposed to be me telling my story and you know I had no idea 15 years ago 14 years ago how powerful that would be yeah the mission was to for outreach right someone just say hey I want help like if someone can hear my story and say I want to stop my recovery process that was really my mission at its core and I would walk into these schools and I would tell this story of my life and they would message me on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and say I'm so happy for you God bless you hope you stay sober for your kids I had 3,000 kids in that gym and nobody told me their story so I'm like what how am I not interacting with the like why can't I get to them um so I pivoted and did the first day and and you know I don't I mean it it was said long before I said it right but I think we put way too much energy and effort in the the worst day and we forget the first day you know everybody wants to say how bad it got not the reason it began mhm it makes you look in yeah you know when you think about it you're a parent right your son your daughter there's parents out there that they kid walks in shitfaced cockeyed you know like drunk first question is where'd you get it how'd you get it how much did you drink who' you do it with what time did you finish never why parents don't ask why right it's fear and Punishment basically um but the why is everything I think so I think that that allows us to kind of open it right right you know I'm like Dad maybe my self-esteem isn't as good as you think it is MHM why did you feel like you needed to do that to be with your friends and the first day idea is this notion of meeting kids where they're at by sharing what it was like for you at the beginning not necessarily the end because no high school kid can imagine that that's how their life is going to turn out but relating to them why it was that you made those decisions early on and then being curious about their lives and it's also a very compassionate way of communicating with young people because you're treating them like sensient beings as opposed to judging them or coming at them from this you know holier than thou you shouldn't do this if you do this this is going to happen like it just doesn't work it didn't work for me right but I became that yeah that's why I pivoted like I mean I we started off this interview Len Bias was the first thing I said and and that wasn't enough mhm Midnight Express in a Turkish wasn't enough right EXA that's not enough so what what can I do I can try [Music] to reverse go backwards get that boy under the bed on the bed pull him out of the bed and sit with him mhm and try to make peace with him yeah you know like I had a therapist who said to me how great would it be to spend time with that little kid you know like how great would it feel to like get to know him you've stored him away for so long like we need to bring him out and and what would you what would you say to that little Chris now I'm a I'm a super emotional I'm like a big I'm like a big baby right I would I would cry on his shoulder man I'd hug him like people say that to me all the time what would you say to you young self I don't I don't know if I'd be able to speak I would just hug and hug and hold and hug I think that's what that would be my my Approach with with the younger version of me yeah I've seen you do that with other high school kids too at the end of these talks that you give these presentations you Embrace these young people and you just hold them and you say You're Not Alone we're Huggers you don't even need to say anything more than that you know yeah they feel heard they feel seen they feel understood the recovery Community is a bunch of Huggers yeah right and um hugs feel good you know and and to walk up to to a kid who's struggling and give them a hug and hold them and and tell them that I hear them that's why I do what I do I want to get through the rest of the story I want to hear you know kind of uh how it all how it all falls apart and and ends up so you're in you're in Turkey you're in China I hear the heroin in China's pretty good you're spending all your money I'm smiling like how sick am I you said hero in China is good and I I'm smiling um yes heroin in China was is extremely good okay um I uh I'll never forget I I I walked into a nightclub in China and I was like 45 days sober and I asked this kid if he could get cocaine like I got a little buzz on in a nightclub in China and uh he said ah absolutely and he walks out comes back in gives me a little bag and I walk into the bathroom and I do the line of cocaine and I know within 15 seconds that he just sold me heroin so I was off and running was that your first heroin experience no that was in Italy trolling the train stations yeah the guy had it tied to his tooth so like think of that right he jumps in my car and he starts doing this and I'm like watching this string come up and he's got a little baggie oh he like swallowed it oh my god wow and and uh and then he does he shoot you up for the first time that's how it works and then I went away from shooting up right then I cuz I was complet a sniffer and then sniffing wasn't enough um and then I turned into like there were people that had to do it for me and then I went to the doing it myself where does the whole house of cards collapse on top of itself the House of Cards collaps um multiple overdoses um the last time I was 32 and uh I put Chris and Sammy on a school bus and daddy is going to walk up to the liquor store get my pint s vodka and I'm going to stop at a little cumbin farms and I steal the ashtrays right the cigarettes that were poked out be were my cigarettes so I would take a scoop of a bunch of stranger cigarettes and I would sit at my house and I would drink vodka and I smoke cigarettes and wait for my kids and I got a phone call that day come down I'm going to take care of you I jumped in my car drove I had about a pint and a half of vodka in me no and I shouldn't he pulled up on the side of me he threw it through my window I shot it and I immediately knew that I was overdosing and the only thing I can remember is saying the school bus like I cannot not be there when they get off the bus like I cannot have my kids live in that moment of fear like where's my dad mhm so I started driving and and they found me like a mile away crash into a cemetery and I woke up in the back of an ambulance and I thought okay I'm going to the hospital um and I'm going to kill myself like I'll go through the motions here but once I get away from the police I'm going to kill myself because I don't want to do this to my family anymore mhm I'm 32 Chris is n Samy's 7even Heather's pregnant like I'm over this and uh and basketball career is over yeah basketball's long gone um we had nothing left food stamps you know no lights some nights no heat in the house it was hard like we lived hard and and you're back in Fall River no I'm living in Portsmouth Rhode Island at the time my mom passed away and she left she left me and my brother a home and Heather and I were living in that with the kids yeah but not a lot of good friends around anymore I didn't want support you know a buddy of mine um sent me a cage of my mug shots and like one day they popped up in my phone like his his like the a collage of mug shots and one of my last mug shots um I was so broken like I didn't recognize myself right at all but the first thing I thought of was Heather she stayed with him like that she she she walked with me yeah you know whether it birthday parties in School parent meetings I walked with her and she pulled me along like that like that's what I thought of as soon as I saw the mug shot like my poor wife this woman that you've been with since 7th grade who stood by you through all of the insanity and there's two different ways of looking at that you can look at that and say what unbelievable fortitude oh yeah uh and and belief um that she held in you and your ability to overcome this and then on the other hand you can look at it and say she was insane to stick around yeah yeah I'm sure everyone in her life was telling her to run away many times always um she wanted that little boy back you know she saw me probably at my most innocent uh phase of my life sixth grade seventh grade eighth grade you know like I was just I was still in the driveway uhhuh you know what I mean I wasn't playing in front of 4,000 people there were no lights on me yet um you know she was someone I could talk on the phone all night to and fall asleep on the phone and and talk to my about my parents divorce right so she's been in it since the beginning in in the fight you know it was just a different type of fight yeah um but addiction it causes people to get sick and and we were both very sick as a family we were both very very sick um you know one year in active addiction like you close your eyes and it's 10 years later like you just wake up I woke up and I was 32 like holy [ __ ] um time f for all of us yeah but you're me you're emotionally stunted so it's like when you finally stop I'm still emotionally you have the uh maturity and emotional skills of the age of the person you were when you began so you're looking at like a 14year old right so where we at now like 19 yeah we're probably around I give myself maybe like 20 I'm hoping I hope in like 26 27 maybe I'm getting there that's pretty good yeah yeah I think so the uh prefontal frontal cortex is it's almost it's almost online right um so so the mug shots yeah the overdose the crash into the cemetery um is this where you end up in in in treatment courtesy of Chris Mullen yeah so it is but but before that and I I was going I'm walking out of the hospital and suicide is the plan like the handcuffs were taken off I was discharged and I'm walking out and I said I'm going to kill myself and a nurse intervened in my life and she intervened by telling me that she saw me play basketball when I was a kid and she was friendly with my mother and my mom had passed away so her saying she knew my mom I broke and I'm like I'm thinking about killing myself but you know my mom hugged me and she she brought me back into the hospital and created the opportunity of Chris Mullen to come in Chris Mullen might have never walked into my world if she didn't walk out of the hospital and chase me down and she's a nurse like you don't have to leave the emergency room and run down the street um that's not in her job yeah so her name is Diane Reed um it's because of her Molly and his wife Liz um gave me the gift Molly calls me up and says I got a buddy named murf and murf is going to help you go to a treatment center I've never met murf M right murf facilitates navigates the treatment center for me and um I checked into this Center called daytop in Rybeck New York and murf talked a couple times on the phone thank Tim how you doing checking in y so um I go home and relapse murf stops calling me um they doubled down on my wife Liz Mullen murf said you know what we're going to focus on Heather's well-being at this point which I wasn't aware of MH so fast forward um 9 years sober Maybe 8 years sober and Molly's getting inducted into the Hall of Fame and murf is coming I never met the man that put me in treatment hadn't met him so I was so incredibly emotional and ready to hug this dude and he died that day he never made it to Springfield Mass wow I never met them I've never hugged or met the man that saved my life murf yeah so you just never know like be somebody's murf murf didn't need the to be out front you know yeah but he just did the work for me he got me there yeah yeah and and that lingering feeling like you don't have closure there cuz you couldn't you couldn't give that guy a hug and and also knowing your mom your mom didn't you know didn't survive to see you get sober oh I've hugged murf I've hugged them I've hugged them extremely close and strong for the last 15 years you know like without murf I wouldn't be here um my mom that was her dying wish she never saw her son sober I wish I'm so I love sitting down with people and saying like you have an opportunity for your mom or dad to see you sober and I I lost that um but I believe she sees it mhm you know I believe my mom's kind of walked with me in this journey I think I got the murfs and moms behind me yeah um in that Treatment Center where you lived for 11 months M you went out for a minute came back uh you you you basically find God in this tiny little kitchen what's it called the pot wash the sink uh you know and unguarded there's a there's a scene where you're standing there it's this tiny little room with a bunch of sinks right and you're like this is where I was from dawn to dusk every single day it was my punishment for relapsing right so so it was behavioral modification they can't really do it anymore so it's it's wearing signs saying I'm a scumbag announcing yourself as a loser so really um that was that was kind of the bulk of my punishment for relapsing when Drew was when Heather gave birth to Drew MH I went home I relapsed I failed terribly and I went back completely broken and they said get in the pot sink so from 4:30 in the morning till 8 at night you're going to wash dishes for this community and there was 96 of us living in there and um lunch breakfast lunch dinner guys would walk by and just throw trays and dirty stuff through the window and I had I had hoses sinks and I would spray him down and I would get him in the dishwasher um I had no contact so I couldn't lie to my wife I couldn't promise my wife I couldn't over I couldn't do anything it was just me in the pot sink and that's when things started to turn for me a little bit because you know it's kind of like I let go and I let her kind of come in and uh the next time I talked to Heather she was pulling up with a two-month-old infant and my two children walking into daytop to have a family meeting yeah this surrender the letting go uh the the the finally putting to bed any idea that you're there to save your marriage or to be whatever like letting go of all of that and just focusing on being present with what you're doing just be still right allowing whatever is meant to happen happen I know that uh one of the counselors said something to you like you know the most compassionate benevolent thing that you could do is to call your wife and and tell her you're never coming home and it went it went even up a little deeper um he said play dead for them like why don't we fake your death car accident and and let them go let your children emotionally you know get rid of you in a sense and um I said that to myself countless nights like I knew that there was a better man out there than me I knew my wife deserved a better man than me MH I knew my children should have had a better dad than me provider and um but when he said it it kind of hit me you know like I went to bed with that now narrative um but him saying that out loud to me was probably extremely Reckless therapeutically MH but it's one that I'm extremely grateful for yeah I mean I feel like among the you know countless relapses and many stabs that you had that you had made into sobriety nothing was really able to penetrate your core until your wife said that's it I'm done and this guy said pretend your family dead right and that that seemed to seep into you in a in a in a way that really changed you yeah really profound moments right like Heather the nurse right all of a sudden the Mullins with murf and you know the counselor the Angels the eskimos yeah yeah the sharpers yeah to get me up everybody needs one to get me up that mountain absolutely and anybody can be that person for somebody else and I'm really proud of that like I I I am so incredibly blessed that in my recovery I've I give it to others in a sense you know like it's I'm here because of them MH and I've always lived that way from the f I went to bed at night dreaming of being Chris Mullin that was my dream not Chris Mullen the the shooter Chris Mullen that man who picked up the phone and helped me and my family I dreamt of that like that was my the game of basketball and millions of dollars was no longer my dream my dream was just to be on the other end of that phone call and I think I've made that dream come true you 100% have um it's it's one of the principles our primary purpose is to stay sober and help another alcoholic achieve sobriety but you have taken that to an entirely new level my friend because you are not only of unbelievable service to so many people you've repaired your life you've you know repaired all of your relationships with your family Etc you're this incredible incredibly present dad and your entire life is about giving back this gift that you've been given and that's rare I mean service is part of what it means to be sober in this program but um but to really shoulder that responsibility and take it so seriously that you're you know delivering I don't know 200 speeches a year like you're constantly on the road you have a self-awareness that your story resonates because of you know the extraordinary things that you've done with your life and that gives you a rare opportunity to connect with all kinds of people because they're going to pay attention to you in a way that they might not to somebody else and for some of those young kids it's their first introduction to what a sober man looks like you know and what their stories sound like um Heron project you know my Foundation that was the dream um Heron talks evolved into me traveling and telling my story and uh and now you have a treatment you have two treatment centers right and I love it mhm I like I keep it real Raw that I'm not a clinician I'm not I'm the furthest thing from that I don't pretend to be because I'm have a foundation around substance use I have a a Wellness Center I'm just I'm just how they say like a bozo on the bus you know and but I get a front row seat I watch families husbands like me fathers like me walk in on day one and then to sit in their Year celebration and see their children like that's not many people get that opportunity yeah you know not many people that's that's what's so incredibly beautiful about alcoholic synonymous is you know the guy used in old time he used to tell me wait till you see the miracle mhm and I honest to God in the beginning I thought he was talking about me I'm like okay one day I'm going to look in the mirror I'm going to see the miracle so you believed in that from the get-go no not what I believed in is that I was the Miracle wrong it was the newcomer that walked in at like 18 months and I witnessed I witnessed their CH see the lights go on in somebody else right that was the miracle yeah yeah yeah you just got a big smile on your face yeah like your whole facial expression just changed and that's how I know it's for real you know um in all of the talks that you've given all of the kids that you spent time with like what have the kids taught you about how to communicate with young people and how to understand them I mean there's a lot of parents I suspect listening to this who maybe have a kid who's having a hard time maybe it's substances maybe it's not maybe it's something else but like just being a teenager no matter who you are and where you live is [ __ ] hard and I think a lot of parents myself included it's like how do I understand this young person how do I connect with them how do I get on their level and you're almost like a like you're uh what do they call it like a not a souser like you're you're like a Whisperer like a teen whisperer on some level I'm me just to me I look at it as I'm I'm a vehicle right like there's plenty of people that are going to follow up on my message that can deliver what they need right and that's why with Heron project years ago we hired clinicians because I felt irresponsible walking into a school telling my story because there was nothing there on the back end so now we have the back end right so when I walk into a school and I tell my story those kids reach out those kids will be helped you know we we will find we will we deliver for those kids um so I'm I'm just a small I'm just a small part of it you know like and I like that I like the fact that you know I'm in that school for an hour and a half and I'm going I'm I'm going to tell my story and I'm gonna hopefully get whether it's good or bad get kids to walk out and and tell a little bit of theirs did you ever imagine that your life could have so much impact like it's crazy it's so far beyond anything that you could have ever achieved even if your wildest dreams as a basketball player that come true like what you're doing now is so much more meaningful and and profound it is and and I but I in full transparency I got to be careful with it mhm you know like I've run run hard for the last 14 years I've run really hard and getting up and sharing your story and talking to all these kids is not recovering you can delude yourself into thinking well all I do is recovery all day long not even close actually it pulls you away from it it's working at Cross purposes and I'm very I'm very open and honest and I tell people in my Center that are current currently living there year 12 to 15 were the toughest years of my life why because I I I drifted away I drifted away from the core I isolate I put I isolated myself you know covid all of it it just pulled me away from where I needed to be and it was an extremely difficult three years and when I celebrated 15 years the other day um congrats man yeah no doubt I uh that's right August one right yeah yeah I Shar that you know that it was 15 was a a [ __ ] like to get there you know it wasn't it wasn't easy um and I had hip replacement surgery on June 8th uh July 8th and um after hip replacement I lost Bill Reynolds and I lost the man by like he's on my arm I got it way before he passed away I lost Chucky Monas I lost the two men in my life that were willing to tie themselves to me during the storm like the two men who would they would anchor to me in a heartbeat no matter how high how low they were with me and uh I came out of surgery and I I was told that I lost them both two days apart oh wow and I'm laying in bed and I'm recovering from from hip replacement but I guess you got access to drugs if you want it I guess yeah but I guess the point is is for me where what recovery allowed me to see is God kept me still like hip surgery like I was in I was in his hands mhm I was still I couldn't run I couldn't do anything but face what I was facing and uh you know it's it's a perspective that recovery has that allowed you to to kind of reinvest in what you know Works totally and get back yeah yeah I mean I went through that Co was rough man I really struggled with the zoom thing and it's only recently that I've really tapped back into like my core guys Co was like the exact opposite of what I need yeah you know what I mean like let me drag you out way into the woods and try to find your way out of here and my disease is telling me like oh isolation I can do this I like this yeah right why I I was living saying how come they didn't have covid when I was shooting heroin you know what I mean like I would kill for covid back then oh my God yeah yeah man I think it was not great for the recovery Community um I'm not you listen 12 to 15 was a beast 1 through 12 I walked right through it 12 to 15 was was a battle Yeah you know how do you think about the languaging we you know I'd mentioned earlier like you you you shy away from saying substance abuse you like to call it substance use um and you're very conscious about word choice when it comes to how you talk about this condition I am I think it's necess area I think it's it's kind of softened the stigma that's that that is attached to it I um I don't like the word Rock Bottom um why refer to probably your saddest moment in life as Rock Bottom um I just think we have to be better I think we be well I think the I think behind that at least for me is uh is the fact that we already hate it we already hate ourselves we're already like our own so let's so when yeah on top of that you know a headline in the globe that says what a shame or whatever it's like we're already ashamed of ourselves ter so you're just you're just basically putting kerosene on that fire and and amplifying the guilt and the shame and the fear and all of that and a compassionate approach to treatment and Recovery requires or or could use a little bit more of of empathetic languaging around it I think so you know you know I try very hard at it I think it's it's necessary I think you know again I don't think they could have the headline what a shame today right I think if I found myself in a Dunkin Donuts Drive-thru overdosed with a needle I don't think the newspaper would say what a shame and I think that shows you how far we've come in the last decade two decades around substance use and addiction you're out talking to professional coaches and athletes what is the state of the union in terms of of kind of recovery awareness in the professional leagues or on the college teams so that there's some kind of safety net or something in place for the kid like you who shows up and has a problem the safety net is that they're bringing me in yeah but but that's not enough yeah there needs to you know what I mean like there's not there's not a there's not a lot of of alternative support in a sense when it comes to that type of stuff like I go to schools very wealthy successful division one football programs and I'll sit down with a coach who's been there for seven eight years and he's never sent a kid to treatment how is that possible how is that possible he's got 12 18 to 22 year old kids and you never sent one kid to treatment and then there's other coaches and without even getting into it because I don't I would I would I'd want permission um he's one of the best coaches to ever Coach and he's all about it he's all about sending kids away mhm he's one of the best coaches that will ever step on a football field and to me that's his greatest achievement that when his players are struggling he sends them yeah yeah if you were in charge if you were running the nc2a or you were the commissioner of the NFL or whatever what kind of programs would you try to create would just be a lot of awareness right a lot of like I I don't I don't even think there's kids out there that understand what recovery is you know I think we show up to a college campus and it's like here's the weight room MH here's the locker room here's the gym but what about there's the frat house and there's the bar what about my mental health you know how about when things get really low for me where do I go then who do who's going to kind of catch me when when I'm when I'm struggling we don't do enough of that you know I think I think we're getting better but I think athletes have been looked at as race horses we got four years of this kid in college and we'll see what happens right and to even discuss or bring up the topic of of mental health is to is to kind of imply weakness and you're not here to be weak you're here to be strong so you're struggling keep it to yourself and you know buck up but most people show up with mental health yeah of course like who doesn't of course you know what I mean of what kid isn't going to show up to a college campus and have some type of trauma something that he's going to need help with MH um but we have to wait to Rock Bottom yeah or or something happens the cops get involved yeah that's when we react right so um what's the advice that you give to the parent who comes to you and says my kid's got something going on I don't know how to communicate with him or her um I don't know how to get this kid to pay attention and understand that he's headed in the wrong direction I'm sure you get that question a lot let a professional step in let it let somebody step like for instance my dad like I hate saying this but he's drinking himself to death currently my dad's dying from alcoholism and he lives 10 minutes from me and it's crazy because obviously he knows what you're doing and what you've done of course and that just speaks to the insanity of the whole thing I've never listen I've sent away through Herm project and I say this very humbly like thousands I think 4,000 people in the last 10 years to treatment through Heron project through my Foundation um I can't help my dad it's too close it's too raw it's too intense like I have to let others uhuh intervene and have a conversation with him um I can't do it as much as as as as with everything I've been through the experience I have the the wellness center the foundation I'm still a boy talking to my dad yeah and it's really hard for parents also because you don't want to be codependent you want to keep the channel of communication open but you don't want to be a doormat either yeah uh and and it's very confusing and I think a lot of parents they're afraid to share their vulnerability you know I think there's a lot of parents out there like I get listen I kids email me all the time after I go to the school and I think there's a lot of parents out there today acting like high school was the best time of their life and their daughter is completely lost and clueless because she's not living up to that expectation like high school is really really hard and it has been hard and I think parents don't want to share those vulnerable moments you know and just an example like so Jordan Shaq Kobe I played against them there's a guy named Richie melon who bullied me in sixth grade I can I can tell you everything about Richie melon what he want to school some days where he waited for me I can't tell you anything about Michael Jordan but I can tell you about Richie melan uhhuh that says a lot and I think there's there's there's a lot of parents out there that don't want to share those moments M those losses with their children which it could be an opportunity to identify yeah you know yeah yeah I think that kind of vulnerability is always rewarded and appreciated me too um there's so much talk about the op the opioid crisis and now increasing awareness around Fentanyl and what's going on there it's insane um but I don't think there's enough solid conversation around what's going on with marijuana and marijuana psychosis it's almost as if Mar Marana has become so mainstream that there's this idea that it's benign at worse and as somebody who's on the front lines with all of these kids like what cuz I know what I'm hearing and seeing like what are you hearing on the scariest it's the scariest thing I see in my Center as a father right like I have a 22y old a 15y old and a 25y old um when a kid who shows up at my center with Mom and Dad holding their suitcases and he's in a psychosis it is it it it rocks me to my core it hits me in places that I don't normally get hit and uh I've never seen it um I've been in psychosis crystal meth and and cocaine but the marijuana psychosis that I've witnessed um with kids and young adults is is one of the scariest things you know marijuana and alcohol have gotten a hall p pass mhm you know like fentanyl has become the the headlines and the truth is 70% of this country currently of people in treatment are in treatment for alcohol but nobody says it yeah you know and now marijuana like you said benign they they framed it they structured it they marketed it they sold it as benign right I mean in Los Angeles there's billboards dispensaries everywhere and the dispensaries look like Apple Stores so the messaging and the marketing particularly to young people is this is aspirational right this is nothing to be scared of or to have any kind of trepidation about and I can just tell you as somebody living here who's apparent to young people it's so unbelievably accessible alcohol is is far secondary to to marijuana yeah with young people it it has now taken over right it's it's like you said it is alcohol is secondary um it's I never thought that I would see the impact I've seen around marijuana I was uneducated on it right I almost thought it was benign right it gave me the munchies and made me eat you know like little paranoya when I was a kid today's marijuana is different than yeah it's it's so potent potent and um it just breaks my heart from a again and I'm very careful with this right although I've dedicated my life around parts of recovery I'm also in the room right and I'm one of MH so I tend to stay away from that little expert seat and stay in the middle of the pack and um it hits me on a on a level that um that I haven't been hit on in in the long time when I see kids coming into my center with marijuana psychosis so what does that look like a little schizophrenia um outbursts complete isolation and going inward um it comes out in different forms right um but the SK scary thing is you don't know when it's going to clear mhm you know like a doctor can't walk up to and say your daughter's psychosis will be done in 12 days you just don't know you know we've had young adults come into our Center that stayed 6 to n months and still struggle M and then we've had we've had young adults that came in and after a month you saw Improvement just it's just you can't call it yeah what is it uh that you're doing in your in your centers in your treatment facilities your wellness centers um that maybe is a little bit different than what one might find at a typical Treatment Center when I opened it six years ago I said I'm going to offer as much as I can right so I didn't go to a center like mine um there was kind of the narrative like you got to go to a place that it's hard in order to get it you know and I didn't want to live there um so very holistic nutrition sleep yoga guided meditation breath work um personal trainer you get all of that at my right like all like yeah yeah yeah so it's not just cig cigarettes you know sitting around a circle yeah no no no no no I couldn't live with myself you know what I mean like I couldn't be that guy you can make a lot more more money being that guy in the business yeah like if I just threw a bunch of big books and and throw out cigarettes and and said come back come back here in an hour it'd be a lot different um but people find peace in so many other places and again like why don't people track sleep in early recovery right like let's kind of gauge when you're going to be at your best the next day you know like maybe you only slept 4 hours maybe that's not the best time to go sit down with your life coach your therapist why don't you take a couple of hours get some rest and we'll revisit this later mhm you know what I mean like we can be much more um dialed in yeah you know I think there's so much room for impr improvement oh in this space I mean I was lucky enough to go to a great treatment center and I was there for a 100 days and saved my life and I just you know I can't say enough good things about it but I know there's a lot of [ __ ] in this industry you know it's heartwarming to you know sit across from somebody who's doing it right and is thinking about how to really serve because there's a lot of I don't I don't I don't even want to call them treatment centers like uh you know so we're living houses Etc they're like hedge fund guys real estate plays renting Mansions what it is and they can they can rent out those bedrooms for a multiple on whatever their you know whatever the mortgage is and they're just churning cash and has nothing to do with helping people get better and that's someone else's story right like for me I get I go so far into it that I track the obviously the length of stay male or female average age I track I have data on which life coach in my Center is best with young adults women men you know under under 30 over 30 so if someone comes into my center and and she's 45 years years old and she's a mom I'm putting in her I'm putting her in a specific room with a woman who's like 42% with women her age right you know like I'm I'm identifying that before you know you you you you have a a small window of time with this you know it's like 30 days 60 days 90 you don't have a lot you don't have a lot of time they're going through detox they're going through withdraw they're they're not sleeping at night they're struggling with their nutrition they don't have enough energy um so I wanted to kind of come in from every angle I possibly could at my center and at the end of the day it's I'm very proud of it um but it's also the community MH that you create mhm right like that's what kind of keeps keeps you sober yeah of course of course do you have any read on what distinguishes the person who makes it from the person who can't because this is the the baffling question of all time right like I've been in rooms with people thinking that that guy's never going to make it and that that person becomes like just a a pillar of sobriety and you know vice versa I'll tell you this time matters like success in long-term sobriety the the length of stay within your Center is a complete um it can't be denied you the amount of people who celebrated one year two year three year four year 5 years at my Center that stayed 30 days or less is minimal right the ones who stayed 90 days or more I mean we have a whole Squad of them yeah I can remember I I've never understood the 28 day 30-day thing I I I just don't think that you can you can really make a change in that I when I was in treatment at 30 days I was barely awake who's the [ __ ] that came up with it I don't know I don't know where that came from 5-day detox 28-day program 9 day outpatient program like who came up with this you know like there's people who were detoxing for a month and a half and you only giving them five days on your health insurance like there's people that come to my center and 40 days into it they're still struggling you know but they're not considered medically in detox at that time um and the truth is at my Center we meet the real person on like day 25 like seriously like no [ __ ] I got four days I'm like days I know three weeks of you but we got to throw that out now I know who you really are let's start over you know and introduce yourself um that's when people start trusting you know three three weeks three and a half weeks in they start feeling a little better about themselves and they they trust and they're going to start being open and transparent and vulnerable and that's where you that's where the work begins right that's where it begins yes but 28 days they're out 4 days later right meanwhile uh you know we need a lot of reformation in terms of how Insurance works with this access to you know legitimate uh treatment in patient care all of these things need to be modernized and and updated to what's actually happening I mean I'm proud of it yeah like I'm should I'm super proud of it and I'm a a man in recovery and who spent a lot of his life in the last 15 years of my life around recovery and um it's it's my greatest accomplishment you know Heron Wellness Heron project Heron talks it's uh I'm I'm I'm extremely proud the way we we have all carried ourselves meaning the runners in Heron project the students who I spoke in front of and um the people who trusted me at her and wellness like that's [ __ ] big time like when a mom and dad like I see a mom and dad coming in from you know Colorado and I'm like they're opening up their trunk and they're grabbing suitcases and they're coming to me yeah like you just flew 4 hours to drop your daughter off at my place yeah you're the guy in the pay phone in front of Jack and the bo [ __ ] big time man that's big time you know and that's I I never lost sight of that I never lost sight of the what a what a complete honor um that I've been given by servicing right but I see somebody who who relishes and Embraces that responsibility which is a huge responsibility in comparison to the responsibility when you were young which was egod driven of like acquitting yourself on a basketball court because you lived in a town that you know wanted you to do that I mean these are totally different things that one I mean obviously you were young and you didn't have tools Etc but that all that did was create fear and now you have this responsibility that's much greater and Graver literally people are putting their Liv lives in your hands wild and you're like fired up yeah [ __ ] right yeah well like like I I can't paint the picture or or tell it any better like there's a mom and a dad in the parking lot pulling out a suitcase to come live at my place like what a [ __ ] honor man like what a responsibility what a duty you know and I'm I'm extremely proud of that like we've created something really special there and you know we hope people stay longterm become part of the community and uh and we do everything I do everything in my power to to service them while they're there yeah you know how does this work as a parent you have three kids and none of them drink or use right no and never have no which is wild yeah yeah how did you accomplish that I don't know I think it's their accomplishment you know that's their it's their story um you know interesting is that although they've never drank or used I see some of my behavior in them mhm right and my but that should make you even more impressed yeah no son you know what I mean yeah but there's parts of them especially Christopher and Samantha they were nine and seven they saw N9 and seven years of a horrible side of me you know reactionary and aggressive and constantly in Flight pushing everybody away um and that comes out in them once in a while and I was in the kitchen like a year ago and my little guy um reacted to something and I was like [ __ ] there it is that's me and he sat down and I walked up to him and I um I put my forehead on his forehead and I said sorry and then I realized that's the first time I've said sorry to Christopher that way I'm coming up on 15 years sober at the time and um I haven't made an amends like that we cried like for 30 minutes my wife who is a crier like she just sat back in the kitchen and watched us and was like you know what the hell is going on right now we all that motion guttural like came out of us um but I said sorry and it was I think what he needed and what I needed yeah you know which is pretty [ __ ] cool yeah so honesty open communication vulnerability owning up your your mistakes as a parent yeah yeah I mean it's superpowers really yeah right um they've been able to witness for thems what recovery's done for my life for their life for our family um they've had a front row seat and it scares me because they have not done drugs or gotten drunk um cuz I feel like I hope I didn't scare him away from you know like and I say that like I hope it was attraction not promotion right I hope they say wow dad sober like that's that's dope that's [ __ ] cool but in honesty it's probably a little of both totally there there's nothing wrong with that yeah yeah no doubt take if at some point down the line they dabble with it or whatever the longer they wait the better they you know the better chance they are of being uh you know like not having that kind of like addictive response because their brains are more developed back to the brain yeah 25 26 years old yeah yeah well you're kind of back to the X like you're you're at the same emotional age right now so you guys should just be like a house on fire yeah no [ __ ] right H oh man um there's something so you know you would you you had said earlier like I I don't like you know you still struggle with some regret and some guilt around your behavior and and and you know the the the graveness with which you take sobriety but there is something about levity in the rooms that I think is beautiful and it's just incredible to sit and witness somebody get up and tell their story and just own every aspect of it every embarrassing you know sort of Shame inducing you know corner of what they experienced and doing it in service to other people so that we feel less alone and I think that takes a lot of courage and a lot of vulnerability and when I started this podcast I mean I've been so impacted by that that I wanted to bring that sensibility to this for everyday people because I believe storytelling is such a a powerful connector and I think we learn through stories like you can say don't do this do this and here are the reason or whatever but when you're on the receiving end of an incredible story well told that will take up residence in you and and linger and remain with you and influence you in ways that you know you may not even imagine and I think you're very gifted at that um and I know that you know kind of in in more recent years you're like I'm I'm getting sick of telling my story or whatever bored of myself or whatever but I I think that you you have to remember like there's a lot of people out there who haven't heard it yet totally you know and it is so powerful yeah and I walked in here today and I said you know like I said how incredibly blessed is he to have the people come in and just open up to you you know like like you said take up residency like it's it's amazing um the people that you've met just doing this and the people that I've connected with in the past 15 years um my story will always be hard like if I'm comfortable telling it get me the [ __ ] out of the room like if I'm that guy then like people ask me am I nervous I'm nervous 24/7 to be honest with you I'm on the edge of my seat right now I'll I'm speaking tomorrow and I'll be pacing before I walk out in front of a small crowd right if I'm not nervous like get me take care of me because I'm not as healthy as I as as I'm presenting to be yeah yeah yeah that's interesting I would have thought you would have had more peace with it because you share it so much you know yeah it's still haunting you quite a bit it is in a good way though right like I I think and and and again 15 years like H it's The Echoes right like I'm telling it and I'm worried about my children you know and the impact it has on them yeah it was very like it was very hard in the beginning like I would walk into a high and speak and my son was in high school I mean the amount of little hate little messages he gotten on Instagram because his daddy the drug addict was at this school like it was painful you know we had some major moments as a family like is it worth it for us you know hurt people hurt people right you know and they they went out my children wow for my story I didn't know that yeah so he that there's been a there's there's been a lot of sacrifice on both ends yeah I would imagine it's a little a little different now because when you started speaking you only had a couple years of sobriety at that point right like you you you hit that hard early most of my presentations are the first day that's what pretty primarily right there probably 220 a year and the majority is for first day I probably tell my story 20 times a year where it used to be the opposite yeah you know but again at a certain point I started feeling too scripted like you got to start checking yourself yeah that's that's not good no yeah like am I too [ __ ] am I too scripted and then you're like did it happen that way just [ __ ] it's weird I know i' I've had that experience yeah it's not it's not a great feeling and that makes you not want to share your story or or to really deconstruct the whole thing because you're like I've said it so many times is that what happened or is it because I keep saying that that I've convinced myself that that's the way that thing happen and you say it so many times it's tough to connect to yeah like you keep going to it and you got to latch on to it right so then you get into self-preservation and it's like stay away from that because you're exhausted mhm you know like now you you've you've gone across the boundary of you you're exhausting yourself you're hurting yourself therapeutically by saying this stuff so much yeah so you try to kind of get some separation in it and then it's I mean it's it's yeah it's tough to manage yeah yeah yeah no I feel I mean I can't imagine doing that much public speaking you know I can only do it a couple times a year yeah that's it um well we should round this out but I I I want to end it um yeah with uh with a word about a word towards the person who's out there who's still suffering um maybe somebody's listening to this they're confronting their own behavior for the first time maybe maybe they're snapping out of their denial maybe they're wondering whether they have a problem or not and maybe need to look at it what is what is the message you want to leave people with before we end this thing again you just you gave me a snapshot of about 15 different I know sorry I 15 different people I was like I'm gonna ask this one question and then I complicate no no I I I think this the freedom you know the freedom to look within the the the the freedom to take a chance on yourself to to find a different version of you um again recovery is the greatest accomplishment in my life it has nothing to do with the Boston Celtics if you walk in my house honest to God you will not you'll walk through my home and you will not see one thing about basketball I do not have one uniform one pitcher one ring one article in my home so anybody who walks into my home doesn't say like oh there's a basketball player who used to live here but you'll go to my sink and there'll be my 15-year chip sitting there on the on the on the counter you know you'll go to the coffee stand and you'll see you know something with recovery you'll know that before you'll know basketball and I'm just proud of it right I'm I'm I'm super proud of it and never in a million years did I think on June 4th 2008 when I was walking out of that hospital life is going to get good life is going to get real good and life got good there's always hope totally yeah you did the work man you know I love it um thank you you're a gift dude uh it's super inspiring to talk to you I love um hearing your story but also really appreciate the humility that you bring to the whole experience you know and and and at times discomfort with sharing some of that stuff you know I could sense that but I think it's really powerful and uh you're a Beacon of Hope for so many people and there's a lot of people suffering out there right now you know so we need more guys like you I'm blessed to be a beacon right you are so you are and you wear it well you look good man thank you brother yeah um At Your Service if there's anything I can do to help you and uh yeah man I'd love to stay in touch love you awesome cheers thank you peace that's it for today thank you for listening I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation to learn more about today's guest including links and resources related to everything discussed today visit the episode page at Rich roll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive as well as podcast merch my books Finding Ultra voicing change and the plant power way as well as the plant power meal planner at meals. roll.com if you'd like to support the podcast the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple podcasts on Spotify and on YouTube and leave a review and or comment supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated and sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course awesome and very helpful and finally for podcast updates special offers on books the meal planner and other subjects please subscribe to our newsletter which you can find on the footer of any page at Rich roll.com Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Cameo with additional audio engineering by Kale Curtis the video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis with assistance by our creative director Dan Drake portraits by Davey Greenberg graph traffic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel CIS thank you Georgia W for copywriting and website management and of course our theme music was created by Tyler Patt traper Patt and Harry matthys appreciate the love love the support see you back here soon peace plance [Music] namaste [Music] he

Channel: Rich Roll

Views: 188,680

Keywords: rich roll, rich roll podcast, self-improvement podcasts, education podcasts, health podcasts, wellness podcasts, fitness podcasts, spirituality podcasts, mindfulness podcasts, mindset podcast, vegan podcasts, plant-based nutrition

Id: 12elvd2pSkE

Length: 117min 33sec (7053 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2023