Pressure, Drugs and Basketball

Chris Herren was a talented star.  Growing up in a tough city outside of Boston called Fall River he was a prodigy to most.  Chris however was into the boozing and the fighting also, he was under a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.  Following in the shadow of his older brother Mike who led his high school to forty plus consecutive wins, he was expected to live up and surpass those talents.  Chris attended Boston College after high school were he first discovered hard drugs in his freshmen year of college in his dorm room, peer pressured into doing lines of cocaine.  He explained this experience as "opening doors he could not close for 15 years." During one of the games he had broken his wrist and failed 3 drug tests that led to him being kicked out of school.  He then went to Fresno State along with his lingering drug problems and proceeded to have one hell of a basketball career before being kicked out of there also.  He was talented enough though that he was drafted into the NBA and bounced around and ended up in Denver where teammates took him under their wing and watched over him until he was traded to the Boston Celtics which was one of the worst things that could have happened to him.  Here in Boston he found a new drug of choice in Oxycontin.  This led to other drugs such as Heroin.  While in Boston he suffered a season ending injury that put him over the edge.  He was found one day passed out in the front seat of his car with a needle hanging from his arm.  After this through extensive rehabilitation Chris has been Alcohol and Drug free since 2008.  He trains basketball prospects and is a motivational speaker and tells them about the harms of drugs and alcohol abuse and how it can destroy your life in such a short time and it only takes one time to get hooked.