Talking about overcoming addiction
Chris Herren talks to students, gives public presentation
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| A packed Sterling High School Centennial Auditorium listens to the story of former NBA player Chris Herren. Rock Falls High School senior Keith Conklin raised the funds to bring Herren and his story of overcoming drug addiction to the Sauk Valley. (Philip Marruffo/pmarruffo@saukvalley.com) |
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STERLING – Former NBA player Chris Herren commended Sterling school students for their attentiveness.
They listened and conducted themselves well Wednesday afternoon, while he talked to them about how his drug addiction ruined his career, he said.
He didn’t do such a good job when he was a kid, sitting through similar presentations. He judged the speakers and thought it never could happen to him.
He was wrong.
The former Celtic turned motivational speaker was in local schools Wednesday, and will be again today, to talk to kids about his experiences.
Wednesday night, he gave a public presentation to a packed crowd at Sterling High School’s Centennial Auditorium.
A sample of cocaine his freshman year at Boston College led to an out-of hand addiction, Herren said. While playing for the Boston Celtics, he left a ticket for his dealer at every home game.
He was injured and began playing in a professional summer league, but he quit because traveling took him too far from his dealer. When he went to Bologna, Italy to play professional basketball, he tracked down a drug dealer. Unable to speak Italian, he pointed to his arm indicating that he wanted heroin, a drug he told himself he would never do, he said.
He played ball in China, Iran and Poland, and found heroin in each country, he said.
He was kicked off the Polish team because of his addiction, and he returned to Fresno, Calif., where he had played for Fresno State. After several days of doing drugs with an acquaintance, he got in a car to pick up his wife and children at Oakland International Airport. He was so high that he thought every car on the road was out to attack him.
His paranoia and dissatisfaction with his life caused him to run into oncoming traffic, hoping to be killed, he said. He was arrested that day. He was 28.
When he was released from jail the next day, he was too ashamed to look his family in the eye, so he took his $17, which was all the money he had to his name at the time, and found a trash bin behind Dunkin’ Donuts, where he decided to live next to a cardboard box.
A homeless guy persuaded him to call his wife and beg her forgiveness. She found him hours later.
Five years prior, he was making $500,000 a year playing ball, he said.
Now Herren has been clean for 3 years. He founded the Herren Project (theherrenproject.org) that helps addicts and their families.
On his own, Rock Falls High School senior and basketball fan Keith “K.J.” Conklin, 18, went to local businesses and raised the $10,000 needed to pay Herren’s speaker and travel fees, plus about $4,000 more that he is donating to local youth groups.
