Former NFLer recounts harrowing tale of drug abuse
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Former NFLer recounts harrowing tale of drug abuse
STEPHANIE MYLES
The Gazette
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Hero of the Underground: My journey down to heroin - and back, by Jason Peter with Tony O'Neill, St. Martin's Press, 289 pages.
"I have no thought of the past or future, just the present, in which I crave absolute mayhem. My breathing is ragged and shallow, and I can feel it building now at the base of my skull, from somewhere deep inside of me, the greatest drug that I have ever felt, some God-given natural narcotic that will never again let me be."
Former NFL defensive lineman Jason Peter isn't referring to painkillers, cat tranquilizers, GHB, cocaine, crack, or heroin, all of which he consumed in superhuman quantities.
He's talking about playing football, about getting on the field and crushing a 300-pound offensive lineman before 80,000 screaming, crimson-wearing University of Nebraska fans.
It was the greatest drug he took. And once his football career ended, too soon, he tried desperately to replace that high.
The result was a decade of addiction, of self-destruction. That journey, one that - at least so far - has a happy ending, is chronicled in an extraordinary book.
It is, by far, the most gripping athlete autobiography I've read. It's not just the subject matter; that is compelling enough. It is Peter's vivid, rather profane, raw retelling of his story.
He changes a few names and details, but otherwise is unstinting with his descriptions of an aimless, desperate, pathetic period in his life.
For years, it was a life he did not want to leave behind. Through a half-dozen rehab stints, through the pain and devastation it caused his family, through the physical ravages, all he wanted was more drugs.
Every kind of drug.
Peter's NFL contract, about $4 million, meant he could afford it. His size (6-foot-4, 295 pounds while in the NFL) meant his body could absorb nearly as much as he wanted to ingest. It was a dangerous combination.
It's incredible enough that he can recall those lost years in such detail. But his self-awareness is astonishing, as is his ability to describe what he's feeling.
"I felt like a new person. A new man. A superman. Every single bit of worry, sadness, anger and my sense of being adrift, lost in an alien world following the abrupt end of my career in football, was suddenly lifted. ... It reminded me of something I thought I would never feel again. It reminded me of the dizzying, mind-numbing rush of stepping out onto the field, my body in peak condition, my mind focused into a sharp point. That superman transcendental moment of becoming something more than just Jason Peter, the man. I was once again Jason Peter, killing machine."
His description of heroin withdrawal is just as vivid.
"You are vomiting, (soiling) yourself, your body is twitching and spasming so hard you can involuntarily throw yourself out of bed. You feel like you have white hot sulfur in your veins in stead of blood, and your brain is literally screaming out for some heroin to take the pain away."
The addictions started off innocently enough, with six pain pills given to him by a doctor at the University of Nebraska for a knee injury his freshman year.
You won't find a football player who doesn't take them, just to get on the field each week.
It escalated quickly once Peter reached the NFL, where shoulder and neck injuries immediately surfaced, leading to many surgeries. After three years, the dream was over. It shattered him. Football was all he ever was, all he wanted to be. When it was over, at 25, there was nothing left.
He was nothing.
Peter's mission in life from then on seemed to be to find a high to replace it, in essence trading one addiction for another. And he devoted the same level of enthusiasm he had for football into doing cocaine.
It is shocking that Peter is still alive. He took enough to kill an elephant. Maybe two elephants.
About 18 months after leaving the game, he tried to commit suicide at his parents' home. He wrote a suicide note, emptied a bottle of 60 Vicodin, added 20 Ambien and a bottle of vodka.
It didn't work. He was saved by his body mass and the incredible tolerance to prescription drugs he had built up. But that didn't wake him up; he kept up the pace for several years.
Ultimately, Peter found the right treatment program. He met and married his wife, Sarah, a former reality-TV director, and relocated from Los Angeles to Lincoln, Neb., the college town where he was the king, where he was at his happiest.
Still only 34, Peter hosts an afternoon show on the local ESPN affiliate.
It's been two years. You hope that's only the beginning.
smyles@thegazette.canwest.com
Copyright © 2008 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.
"He's talking about playing football, about getting on the field and crushing a 300-pound offensive lineman before 80,000 screaming, >> crimson << -wearing University of Nebraska fans."
i call foul!
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