Former NBA player shares his story of addiction, recovery

Former college and professional basketball player and motivational speaker Chris Herren brought his powerful and deeply personal message of addiction and recovery to Mountain Brook on Thursday, Oct. 27.

Sponsored by All-In Mountain Brook, a civic organization purposed with protecting the community’s youth, Herren appeared three times at the Mountain Brook High School auditorium, speaking to the high school and middle school students, and addressing a mixed crowd of adults and teenagers.

“We focus on the worst day and forget the first day,” repeated Herren during the evening appearance. Throughout his talk, Herren directly challenged parents for their tolerance of a certain amount of substance use in their children or not confronting their own addictions.

“Don’t be afraid to ask your kids why,” Herren said to the parents. “‘Why do you need to get drunk in order to hang out with kids you’ve known since you were five-years-old?’”

Born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts, a middle-class textile manufacturing town an hour south of Boston, Herren excelled on the basketball court. Herren played guard at Durfee High School, graduating with the most points in school history, and earned recognition as The Boston Globe at Gatorade Player of the Year.

Despite his success on the court, the Herren household was far from stable. His father Al was a prominent local politician, representing the 6th Bristol District in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Mr. Herren described his father as an alcoholic who was “making our home miserable.”

Herren told the audience he first became drunk on his father’s Miller Lite. His troubled home life and the pressure placed on him as his star rose led to a long period of addiction and self-destruction that derailed his college and professional basketball and almost cost him his family.

Herren first encountered cocaine while at Boston College. He was forced off the team due to drug use, eventually transferring to Fresno State. Despite the second chance from controversial coach Jerry Tarkanian, Herren failed a mandatory drug test and was marched off to 21-days in rehab - his first rehab stay of many.

Still a high-profile and productive basketball player, Herren was drafted by the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and also spent time with the Boston Celtics, eventually playing overseas in Europe and Asia. All the while, his addictions to drugs and alcohol were spiraling out of control. At one point, Herren was spending $25,000 per month on Oxycontin pills while also turning to “cheap vodka” and heroin.

In December 2007, Herren overdosed on heroin in the drive-thru line at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Falls River and crashed his car into a utility pole. “I woke up with a police officer on top of me. He said to me, ‘look at your arm son.’ The needle had broken off in my arm,” Herren told the stunned audience.

After completing a series of intense rehabilitation programs, Herren has been sober since Aug. 1, 2008. He now travels the country sharing his story, a second act that began by accident.

“I was two years sober, and I got a phone call from a teacher who was teaching a health class at a school about 10 miles away from my house, and she asked me if I’d be interested in speaking to her class,” Herren said in an interview prior to his third talk of the day.

Herren admits he had no idea what he was going to talk about that day, improvising his way through his speech.

“I was still kind of sifting through the wreckage of my past,” Herren explained. “I walked into that room that day and spoke, and I’ve been speaking ever since.

“I do this 250 times a year and, 12 years into it, I still feel it,” added Herren. “It’s really no different from day one as I recall the emotion. I still feel the angst, and the nerves are still very present.”

Herren and his wife of 24 years, Heather, have raised more than $8 million in scholarships for people unable to afford quality rehab services. In 2018, the Herrens established Herren Wellness, a residential health, and wellness program with two locations in Massachusetts.