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PREP Athletics Basketball Podcast
PREP Athletics Basketball Podcast
From NBA Stardom to Sobriety: Chris Herren on Overcoming Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction
In this powerful episode of the PREP Athletics Podcast, we sit down with Chris Herren, former NBA player and recovery advocate, to discuss the critical issues of substance abuse and addiction among young athletes. Chris shares his personal journey, offers invaluable advice for parents and players, and provides insights into current trends in youth substance use. This episode is a must-listen for anyone involved in youth sports or concerned about addiction prevention.
đź“ŚKey Topics:
âś…Youth substance abuse trends
âś…Addiction prevention strategies for parents and athletes
âś…The importance of early intervention and wellness education
âś…Personal experiences with addiction in professional sports
âś…Recovery and maintaining sobriety
âś…Resources for those struggling with substance use disorder
🗒️About Chris:
Chris Herren is a former NBA player and high school basketball legend from Fall River, Massachusetts, whose promising career was derailed by substance abuse. After scoring over 2,000 points in high school and being named a McDonald's All-American, Herren played college basketball at Boston College and Fresno State before being drafted by the Denver Nuggets in 1999. He later fulfilled his dream of playing for his hometown Boston Celtics, but his struggles with addiction continued throughout his professional career, which included stints in several countries. After achieving sobriety, Chris has dedicated his life to sharing his story and helping others overcome addiction. He founded Herren Talks, Herren Project, and Herren Wellness to provide education, support, and treatment for those affected by substance use disorder
đź”—Connect with Chris:
Website | https://herrentalks.com/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/herrentalks/?hl=en
Twitter | https://twitter.com/herrentalks
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/herrentalks/
Website | https://chrisherren.com/
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/c_herren_
Twitter | https://twitter.com/c_herren
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/chrisherren24
đź”— Connect with Cory:
Website | https://www.prepathletics.com
Twitter | https://twitter.com/PREP_Athletics
Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/prep.athletics/
Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/PrepAthletics
Email | coryheitz@gmail.com
Phone | 859-317-1166
đź”– Subscribe to the PREP Athletics Podcast:
iTunes | https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prep-athletics-podcast/id1546265809?uo=4
Spotify | https://open.spotify.com/show/6CAKbXFiIOhoHinzsReYbJ
Amazon | https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/3c37179d-3371-47f9-9d97-fd569e8802a7/prep-athletics-basketball-podcast #AmazonMusic
Cory Heitz (00:00)
Welcome to this week's episode of the prep athletics podcast. And I couldn't be more happy to have Chris Herren on as our guest today. Now, Chris, as you might know, was on my opinion, the best 30 for 30 that ESPN ever made called unguarded. And it talks about his basketball career, but it also talked about him, you know, delving into drugs and alcohol at the peak of his career to include playing, you know, high during his MBA career and
wanted to have Chris on for a long time because our main audience here is parents and players. And just want to make sure that, you know, there's a lot of drugs, alcohol, peer pressure out there. Chris has seen it and done it. And he now talks to youth all over the world, mostly the U S but all over the world about, you know, his story, you know, what to avoid tips for parents. And he's even opened his own recovery center in Massachusetts to help people who are struggling with this.
We also started out talking about, know, when I was at Air Force, we played against Fresno State. And in that 30 for 30, there's a highlight where the best man of my wedding, Dylan Pope, gets the ball stolen from him and Chris gets it and slams it. And we're going to put a picture in the video of, you know, we sent this mug to a lot of friends and family. And if you're listening right now and can't see it, just know I got a mug made that shows the screenshots of my good friend Dylan.
getting the ball taken from them and then Chris Herren dunking. So we sent that out to family and friends. We all took funny pictures and made a book for Dylan. And the last picture in that book is actually Chris Herren holding this mug, dunking a donut in it. So Chris helped us out a couple of years ago with this fun little thing we did for our buddy. And we chat about that at the beginning too. But if you have any questions on this, go to chrisherren.com. He's got a lot of resources. If you're struggling, if you know someone that's struggling,
with drugs or alcohol. It's out there now vaping too. You know, we talk about that a little bit and how that's kind of insidious. but anyway, great, great episode. it's a short one today. but very powerful, a lot of good lessons and I hope you enjoy it. So thanks for tuning in. Enjoy the podcast with Chris Herren.
Cory Heitz (02:29)
Chris, welcome to the podcast.
Chris Herren (02:31)
Thank you, thanks for having me on, good to see you.
Cory Heitz (02:33)
Yeah, you too. Real quick story. We played against you and I was at Air Force back in the day and my best man and my wedding at one of the games they played against you got the ball stolen and you went up and slammed it. This is at Fresno State and that happened to be caught in your 30 for 30 documentary unguarded. So what we did is we had a mug made of the scenes from this happening. And then, you know, we got a bunch of pictures of his family and friends taking pictures of this mug and we made a book form.
And the last page of that book was you dunking a donut into this. it was just, it was just a cherry on top. So I was watching the documentary on Cal, saw my best friend get dunked on and it was just, it made me so, so happy. So anyway, thanks for creating joy and Dylan's listening now. So Dylan, thank you for being a part of this.
Chris Herren (03:05)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Thanks for bringing me in.
Cory Heitz (03:20)
Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Well, look, one thing I want to talk about today first is, you know, our big audience right here are parents of high school players and high school players, right? That's our audience right here. And obviously you've been sharing your story and talking to high schoolers across the country about addiction recovery, what that looks like. And it's now November 20, 24, Chris, you've been all these high schools over the past few years. What's the trend you're seeing our kids?
Drinking and doing drugs more? it about the same? Is it less with everything going on? What's the zeitgeist right now around that?
Chris Herren (03:51)
I think it varies, right? I think it varies in communities. I think, you know, I could be in the middle of the Midwest and huge, huge substance use. And, you know, inner city schools where primarily drinking alcohol is the substance, you know, of choice. Do I feel like it's slowed down? I think it's slowed down somewhat since I started doing this.
I do, I think just the awareness and the education and the support that's been presented to kids over the last decade. You know, and I also seen a shift in, you know, the harder drugs, right, from the Percocets and the painkillers and the opiates and fentanyl. You know, where five, six, eight years ago, I was walking into schools and meeting kids who were dependent on, you know, heroin and fentanyl.
Cory Heitz (04:22)
So, you.
Chris Herren (04:43)
And now that's kind of shifted somewhat. Unfortunately, what happens is we do so much work around that and we educate and we kind of operate from a place of fear and yet other substances kind of find their way in.
Cory Heitz (04:59)
Yeah, and the fentanyl one, just one little dose of it in the wrong thing and it can be over with, which is scary. Let me ask you about that too. You're seeing and talking to families that are addicted. You've got some recovery centers now out there. Help me on this. If you're a family and you've got a member of your family addicted to one of these substances, how do you support that? I know there's books written on this. It's a lot more than just a quick answer, but like
When do you know to let someone go to rock bottom or when do you enable them? Like, what balance do you advise families on taking when one of their loved ones is struggling with this?
Chris Herren (05:31)
I just think enabling is, right, it's not cookie cutter, right? Certain families can handle certain amounts of struggle and pain and working with their loved one who suffers from addiction and others pay an ultimate price, right? I can say from my perspective, I have family members who struggle primarily with alcohol, one being my father and...
you know, what recovery has done for me over the years, it's kind of taught me how to love from a distance with him. You know, it's okay. You don't have to be in the trenches with them at all times. You know, and with my father, it's always about supporting recovery and not supporting addiction. So I'm very careful with that because I've seen parents who completely unplug.
Cory Heitz (06:15)
Okay.
Chris Herren (06:21)
and walk away and kids die. And I've seen parents stay very close and connected and supporting and they pass away too, right? So it's, I believe it's a very personal journey on how much your emotional health can withstand going through that process with the person you love.
Cory Heitz (06:40)
Yeah, and that's a frustrating answer because families want a prescription of, do this and you'll get this outcome. But yeah, with every situation being different, that's a challenge.
Chris Herren (06:49)
Yeah, and I say that all the time, like to me, the scariest thing, especially being a parent, right? The scariest thing about addiction is nobody knows who has it, right? Like, knows when we're 16 years old, what life's gonna be like at 24. Nobody knows when we're 21, what life's gonna be like at 32. And, you know, as a parent, you don't know, you don't know if your kid's the one that's gonna struggle.
with substance use. You don't know if your child's gonna battle addiction. But I'll tell you this, know, doing this for as long as I've done it and the amount of families that send their kids to my center, most moms and dads, most loved ones, if they had an opportunity, they would do it differently. You know, they wouldn't be as...
Cory Heitz (07:18)
.
Chris Herren (07:37)
they would stay on top of it a little more and not kind of wave the surrender flag and say, okay, you're a kid, go out and do what kids do. know, that's, I feel like we've given up on that. don't think kids at 15, 16 years old need to start experimenting with drugs or getting drunk on Fridays and Saturday nights. I just don't see the point of it.
Cory Heitz (07:58)
All right, so what's your prescription to parents? You've got 15, 16, 14-year-olds. To prevent this from happening, what's your advice?
Chris Herren (08:07)
You know, for me personally, like my kids, my son's 25, my daughter's 23, my youngest is 16. I've never told them not to go out. I want them to be able to socialize with their friends. I want them to be comfortable in that environment. I just, if they decide to engage, if they decide to drink or to use, I want to understand why as a parent.
You know, I think when it comes to most parents, you know, when you, when your 15 year old son comes home drunk or he's been smoking marijuana, it's like, who are you with? Where'd you get it? How much did you do? When's the last time you did it? How often do you do it? And they never ask why. Understand why. Understand why your kid has to put that substance in his body to spend three hours on a Friday with kids he's known since he was four years old. I mean, there's an answer there.
Cory Heitz (09:00)
Do you think it's trying to feel the buzz? Do you think it's trying to fit in? Do you see a pattern among all your talks?
Chris Herren (09:04)
No, yeah, I think it varies, right? I think certain kids use it for certain things. But at least we know why, right? At least we understand why. And again, I think, you know, we challenge our children in classrooms, we challenge them athletically, we push them, we give them the support they need to become the player or the student that they really want to be. I don't know how many parents out there
really dive in socially and emotionally to make sure their kid is a star on Friday night in a basement in a house that's two miles away from your house with 15, 20 of his classmates or her classmates. You know, again, I don't know why and times are different, but I wish somebody grabbed me when I was 16 years old and said to me like, you know, you have basketball figured out.
like you kind of got this going in the right direction, but let's work on some other parts of your life. Let's dive in to some other areas that you're really not displaying to be very strong with, right? Like I want to challenge you socially. I want to get to know you emotionally. I want to know what's going on in your home, what's happening in your house, how are your family doing? So it's just kind of, it's kind of switching up the approach a little bit. And I think we've done a good job over the years with that. think in the last 10 years,
You know, the work I do in college athletics, you know, things have changed, right? Like kids get emotional support, right? There's avenues for kids to go down if need be, where 10 years ago that wasn't available.
Cory Heitz (10:40)
Yeah, now we've made a big strides with that.
One thing I want to do is let the listeners know kind of what the state of mind is when you're deep in addiction, right? And the biggest scene that stuck with me and unguarded is when you were outside Boston Garden in your uniform, in your warmups, 15 minutes for playoffs, waiting for your dealers. You can get a hit and someone who's not been through this would be like, well, can't you just wait or, know, couldn't you have done something else? But obviously the addict mind has its own thing going on. So.
taking you back to a dark place, like, tell people that don't know what that voice is like and what that feeling's like, where that's all you're thinking about.
Chris Herren (11:13)
Yeah. I mean, honestly, and I'll give this to you, think, you know, hanging outside the Boston Garden in the players' lot, waiting for my friend to meet me so I can get some pills in my system so I can feel better. You know, people often say to me, how did you ever play high? And the reality is, like, I wouldn't play if I wasn't. My body wouldn't respond. So the answer to the question is, is
Yeah, every time I played in a basketball game, 99 % of time I had drugs in my system because if I didn't, my body wouldn't have responded to be able to play in that game. I was playing in Istanbul, Turkey, and I was coming off a heroin, Oxycontin addiction, right? And I figured I had some experience in Europe. I found heroin in Italy.
I'll be able to hustle in Istanbul. But, you know, there's that movie, Midnight Express, right? That like, you play with heroin, you play with those drugs in Istanbul, Turkey, things can look a little differently. So, that being said, I couldn't, I couldn't find it. So I had a buddy, I I wired him $5,000, send me $5,000 worth of Oxycontin. I want you to put it in the Boston Globe.
Cory Heitz (12:09)
.
you
Chris Herren (12:38)
I want you to tape them to the paper. I want you to fold the paper. I want you to put it in a FedEx and I want you to ship it out to me. A week later, I get a phone call from my team, Galatasaray in Istanbul and they said there's a package waiting for you at an office in downtown Istanbul. You have to go pick it up. And I'm saying to myself, that ain't good, right? Like they want me to walk into a trap. But addiction, there's a chance it's not a trap. So I jump in my car and I drive and I walk in there and I'm sitting at the counter.
And I'm saying to myself, like, I have two children and there's a chance I'm never going to see them again. All for this package. Long story short, the woman comes out, I sign for the package, she hands it to me. It's wrapped in tape. So someone had opened it. And when I got in the car, I opened the Boston Herald and someone in Logan airport intercepted it and wrote a little note to me to get my life together.
Because if he didn't intercept this, who knows where I would have ended up. But that's addiction, right? Like that's addiction. I have two children, a wife, a family, and that Boston Globe and what's in that Boston Globe. At that time, I don't like to say more important, but the level of desperation I had, I was willing to take those chances.
Cory Heitz (13:39)
you
How often do you think about that note?
Chris Herren (14:01)
yeah, it's a pretty sad. I wish I had it. I wish I had the note because whoever that was, it was a special little note and it was very to the point. It was like, get your shit together. You know, like this is so disappointing. I watched you when you were a kid. I watched your whole career and to see where you're at now, smuggling drugs, you know, you need to get yourself together. But it was devastating.
Cory Heitz (14:03)
Thank you.
Okay.
Chris Herren (14:24)
Right? Like here I am. mean, I am in full-blown addiction, withdrawal, sickness. And that was my answer. That was gonna cure me. The story is that I eventually found it in Istanbul, just like I found it in Iran and just like I found it in China and just like I found it in Poland. Unfortunately, addiction is a universal language.
Cory Heitz (14:38)
Yes.
Yeah, absolutely. And let me ask you this, Chris, if you were king of the United States, right? Whatever you wanted to have happen, would What would you do to help with the drug problem, the addiction problem we've got in the US?
Chris Herren (14:58)
I would make substance use, would make wellness, it would be the focus, it would be a core class in our school system. And that's a realistic move, right? Like obviously I could sit up here, if I was king, would get rid of all drugs. That's never gonna happen, but what we can do is we can change the way we educate our kids and we can change the way the investment we put in to their future.
Cory Heitz (15:17)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Herren (15:28)
whether it's to mental health, to substance use, we don't do enough. We don't do enough. We don't focus enough. It's not, unfortunately, and even in 2024, addiction and substance misuse, substance use, it's all, we react to it. You know, it's always a reaction. It's okay, you know, now what can we do to fix this rather than...
Cory Heitz (15:49)
Great. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Maybe instead of doing another...
Chris Herren (15:54)
What can we do to prevent it?
Cory Heitz (15:59)
European history class, we switched that out with something that's actually tangible and could be used.
Chris Herren (16:03)
Like, it's wild, I mean. I mean, if you think about it, right? I mean, let's be honest. I think every person 45 and older in this country would say, gosh, these kids have it tough today. Like, can you imagine growing up with cell phones and social media and Instagram and Snapchat and all they have to endure? Not to mention the fact that drugs and alcohol, they're all stronger, right? The substance, the potency is...
Cory Heitz (16:29)
Yes.
Chris Herren (16:31)
so much stronger than it was when we were children. But yet we don't do anything to kind of curb it and like help those kids with growing up in this generation. You know, I've yet to walk into a school and say, you know, we've been teaching wellness since first grade. You know, most curriculums throughout the country, health and wellness get implemented probably sophomore year of high school. And, you know, it's too late.
Cory Heitz (16:59)
And when you talk about wellness, what do you mean specifically under that umbrella?
Chris Herren (17:03)
You know, just life skills, right? Coping skills, life skills, breath work, yoga, meditation, all these things that we can, nutrition, acupuncture, all these things that I do at my treatment center, right? I've watched the, in the last seven years, I've watched the results. I've watched what acupuncture do for people, how it settles them. It puts them in a much better space. I, you know, what sleep, what nutrition can do, what physical activity, exercise.
physical training, know, breath work, meditation, all this stuff that these kids should be learning right from the get-go. And then also giving an opportunity to be vulnerable and transparent and be like, yeah, I'm not doing well today. Like you should have a class that you can walk into from kindergarten to 12th grade. We have it. We have them and we don't do enough for them. And like you said, you said it and...
Cory Heitz (17:48)
Thank
Chris Herren (17:59)
And a lot of people don't really think much about it, but the word rock bottom, right? It's like, let's wait till rock bottom because then they can respond. And it's the only illness that we say, let them get as sick as possible before we treat it. You know, let's let them blow their whole life up so they could finally say life's worth living. Like, come on, man. It's wild to me. And it doesn't have to be
Cory Heitz (18:14)
All right.
Chris Herren (18:28)
there doesn't have to be a specific rock bottom. And what I've noticed over the years doing this is early intervention, the younger the intervention takes place, the better chances we have at getting that person to where they need to be. At that time of life or later in life.
Cory Heitz (18:46)
So what age would you ideally start this? Would you start junior high?
Chris Herren (18:50)
God, junior high all day long. Listen, I, I, you know, there are some schools, communities I go into when I look at the kids in the audience and I say to myself, like, these kids might be too young. but the truth is if they are, it's going to fly over their head. If they understand what I'm talking about, they need to be in there. Right. And especially now in today's culture with vaping, with marijuana,
with all these substances that these kids are presented with as harmless and flavorful and black cherry and raspberry ice and blueberry mango. These kids think it's candy. I'm walking into some schools and sixth, seventh graders are getting caught in the bathroom with their vape pens. So.
Cory Heitz (19:31)
Thank you.
Chris Herren (19:41)
Again, I don't think the education, the curriculum needs to be focused on drugs and alcohol. I think we can empower them at a younger age and give them the skill set, the tools to cope with that as they grow. And I don't think we've done enough of
Cory Heitz (19:58)
Yeah, now what's your personal wellness routine to keep you sober every day? Do you have a morning routine or some stuff you go through?
Chris Herren (20:03)
Yeah.
So, you know, again, it fluctuates, right? So, you know, there's times in my life where I'm not working out. There's times in my life when I'm not eating well. And those are red flags for me, right? Like to the people who love me, like, wait a second, like, where is he really? If he's not, if he's willing, you know, to not take care of himself, what's next? Right? So.
I had hip replacement surgery. I was put in a bad situation for a couple of years. had hip replacement surgery. I was unhealthy emotionally, physically, mentally. I had no real regimen of physical activity because of my hip. And I paid the price for it. It was the hardest two years. I've been sober for 16 years.
Cory Heitz (20:44)
.
Chris Herren (20:56)
13 to 15 was the hardest years of my recovery. And that's because a lot of that stuff was taken out of my daily practice, right? I'm super faithful, I'm super spiritual. I lost my mom at a young age and she left me that gift. It was that to have faith and that spirituality and the strength it brings you. I'm very much so a part of a recovery community. I'm surrounded by it on a daily basis.
But that being said, right, it's me versus me in a lot of areas of my life. And lately, thankfully, I can honestly say I'm winning. I'm winning that right now. I'm that battle.
Cory Heitz (21:38)
That's great, man. That's great. I'm glad to hear that. Let me ask you this. If five years from now, if everything keeps going as planned for your speeches, your recovery center, and it keeps going the way you want to keep it progressing, what does your life look like in five years from now?
Chris Herren (21:51)
Gosh, listen, if I would have put my life, if you asked me five years ago, I wouldn't be, I would have come up short, right? Like it's, you know, my kids are older, I'm still sober. Honestly, the last year and a half, the focus has been therapy for me and being the best father I could possibly be. You know, I was introduced to therapy a year and a half ago and...
You know, that form of therapy, IFS, it's something that's kind of opened my life up. It's, you know, there was a time in my life where sobriety was enough for my children and like, dad's sober again. Dad's got another year sober. But then they become adults and they're like, wait a second, dad, you know, like we need to talk about some stuff, right? Like this, you know, just staying sober is not enough. Like I want to...
want to kind of review some things. So I'm a one day at a time guy. It's a long way around to answer your question, but you know, I'm just a one day at a time guy and it's worth for me for 16 years.
Cory Heitz (22:56)
Yeah, absolutely. Last big question here, what's your favorite movie?
Chris Herren (23:00)
favorite movie.
Listen, I grew up on Cool Hand Luke. I grew up on Cool Hand Luke. My father would spend the day in a bar room drinking and make me sit in the living room and watch Cool Hand Luke with him. I probably watched it with him 150 times. I love Silver Linings Playbook. You that's a special one. I love Walter Mitty, if you know him. Walter Mitty's a star.
Cory Heitz (23:04)
Great one.
of this.
Chris Herren (23:25)
But yeah, mean, for me, unfortunately, the movie space has kind of been pushed out of the way and it's TV, right? Everything's TV nowadays. And I'm a big British television watcher. So when you travel as much as I travel, it's a tough question because I'm constantly in the middle of some movie, some documentary, some TV show.
Cory Heitz (23:36)
Yeah. What's the British one you would recommend the people out there that might not know that genre as much?
Chris Herren (23:58)
there's a couple of them. The Bureau is a cool one. The Bureau is about the French intelligence agency. I love Ripper Street. Ripper Street is a period piece. So yeah, mean, I'm all about subtitles and diving into shows like that.
You know, like I said, when you travel as much as we travel, man, it's constant.
Cory Heitz (24:27)
Yeah, I'd love it. Is there anything you want to discuss or talk about before we get off here that we didn't touch on in this short time we had?
Chris Herren (24:35)
I'm good brother, I'm good. Whatever you need.
Cory Heitz (24:38)
Awesome. Well, where can people find you, Chris? Do they want to learn more about your story or your recovery center or just follow what you're doing?
Chris Herren (24:43)
Yeah. You know, listen, you know, I, Herren Wellness, right where I'm at right now doing this interview is, is, that's my wellness center. That's been open here for seven years in Massachusetts. you know, my foundation Herren Project for anyone who's struggling that needs support, whether it's financially, or just jumping on meetings, is Herren Project. And Herren Talks is, you know, what we do all over the country.
and delivering this message of prevention, education, and recovery. So I'm easy to find. I'm not a big handle guy, you know? Just I'm more of a Google. Google Chris Herren and there's plenty of spots you can get me.
Cory Heitz (25:28)
Perfect. And your documentary, 30 for 30, is the most unbelievable one I've ever seen. Obviously, because we're the same age, know, played against each other and just, you know, knowing what you went through and just how you've recovered from that and are trying to, you know, prevent a lot of that from happening with a bunch of our youth in America now, I think is just very commendable. And I just appreciate what you're doing out there sharing your story, Chris.
Chris Herren (25:50)
You know, what's interesting is, is that wasn't supposed to be the documentary. When ESPN decided to do the 30 for 30, they kind of settled in in the basketball gym with me, teaching kids how to play hoop. It had nothing to do with recovery a little bit. And then right at the very end of filming, four and a half months of filming, I got a speaking engagement. And he said, hey, you mind if I take my camera with me? And he filmed it. And we went from being...
you know, presenting one documentary to this in a 24 hour period. So it was an unbelievable risk. Unguarded is something I'm unbelievably proud of. And the fact that, you know, more important than all of it is, that it's used as a tool for, you know, at every treatment center in America pretty much. So something that my wife and I underestimated at the time when we did it.
Cory Heitz (26:44)
Yeah. Well, that's where I first heard your story and I just found it amazing. Chris Herren, thanks so much for coming on the Prep Athletics Podcast. Wish you all the best in luck and good luck in the future. All right.
Chris Herren (26:52)
Bye.
Thanks, brother.