Former NBA Guard Speaks to Local Students About Drug Use
Chris Herren was a former College Basketball star at Boston College, and Fresno State. He also played in the NBA for the Denver Nuggets and the Boston Celtics, but drug use derailed his career as a basketball player as he went on to play overseas in China, Israel and other countries. Chris recently spoke to students at Chatham High School on drug use and how it affects people's lives. Before Chris spoke I got a chance to ask him some questions about his presentation!
Chris Herren Interview:
Question: “Chris, what’s another point that you want to get through to these students, besides the obvious point to not do drugs?”
Answer: “To ask them why they do it, you know we can sit down and talk to kids about how bad drugs are and ultimately the ending that most drugs will bring you to, but the focus should be on why they’re doing it and the emphasis should be on the beginning of addiction rather than the ending. If I walked in here today and asked every student to draw me a picture of a drug addict, 99% of the students in this auditorium today would draw me a picture of a drug addict in the last year of their life. That's who kids think of drug addicts. They think of their last year. They don't think of the whole process which brought them and that's what this is all about.”
Q: “What was the turning point in your life when you realized you absolutely had to stop using drugs?”
A: “You know I overdosed four times on heroin, I had a beautiful family, amazing kids, a lot to be thankful for, and a lot to live for. Ultimately you have to believe deep down inside that you are worth a better life, and I had to challenge myself in many areas just to overcome certain things as well as believe in myself that I can and you know, sobriety and recovery is not easy, you know it takes a lot of work and I understood what work was, I became a professional basketball player because I worked really hard at it. So I just had to kind of pivot and focus that type of passion and energy towards recovery over addiction.”
Q: “Who was a big role model in your life?”
A: “I think anybody who's been sober for me, who showed me the way, who took time out of their day to walk into AA and sit in rooms and help people like me when I first walked through those doors, were true role models, because their are a lot of people who make mistakes in life and the goal is to forget them and not relive them and not apply them in a positive way, so people out there who found recovery and have been blessed with sobriety, the ones who stay in it and continue to give back because of it is people who I truly mind.”
Q: “Last question for you, what was the highlight of your basketball career?”
A: “You know, um my basketball career went in stages, I wasn’t growing up saying I was gonna be a professional basketball player. It was just so far fetched I never saw it happening. My goal was to be the starting point guard for my varsity team as a freshman and I accomplished that goal and it was not an easy goal to accomplish. You know we had thirty-eight hundred students in our high school, it was a very rich basketball tradition and that's what I wanted so you know, the early stages of my basketball career were probably most memorable. Scoring two-thousand points, starting as a freshman, that's what meant the most to me.”
Catch the Interview Here:
