Addiction was the downfall for ex-NBA player Chris Herren. Here is his story.

NEWARK − The greatest days of former NBA player Chris Herren's life — the births of his children, scoring 30 points against No. 1 Duke, becoming a member of the Boston Celtics — were all overshadowed by his addictions.

Herren, 47, now travels the country telling his story more than 200 times a year of a life consumed by a quest for alcohol, cocaine, heroin and pills, until finally turning things around in 2008.

Herren shared his emotional experiences in recent speeches at Licking Memorial Hospital's quarterly corporate breakfast and at Granville High School.

“Over the last 12 years, I’ve dedicated most of my life to traveling all across the country sharing my story," Herren said Tuesday morning at the breakfast event. "I’ve had a responsibility of walking into rooms and presenting in front of almost 2 million children. And I truly believe in my heart that I’ve been able to make a difference for some.”

Herren said the most common question he hears from students is, "How do I help someone that I care about?"

"Kids are looking for some info. on how to intervene in somebody's life," he said. "It's at every school. You want them to reach out for resources at school."

Herren's story is full of broken promises and lost opportunities as well as wise advice and ominous warnings he ignored, always choosing his addiction over everything and everyone else in his life.

The beginning of Chris Herren's struggles with addiction

At age 10, when his mom first threatened to leave his alcoholic father, he made a promise that still haunts him.

“I said to her, if you’re going to leave my dad, please take me with you,” Herren said. “I don’t care where we go. I want to be with you. And I want you to know something, mom, if you take me, you’ll never have to worry about me, I promise you.

“I broke that promise four years later when she started worrying about me. She caught me getting drunk in the woods behind my house with my father’s Miller Lites.”

His parents separated when he was 18 years old. Despite being recruited by marquee college basketball programs like Kentucky, the Massachusetts native went to Boston College to stay close to his mother. But, after a month on campus and a photo shoot with Sports Illustrated, he went to his dorm room and discovered his roommate had cocaine.

“At 18 years old, I looked at that one little pile of cocaine in my dorm room desk on the campus of Boston College and I said to myself, 'Do this drug one time and I’ll never do it again.' I had no idea at 18 years old when I promised myself just one time, that one line would take 14 years to walk away.”

Four months later, he was kicked out of Boston College with three failed drug tests.

“I remember waking up in my mom’s house when she’s going through the divorce with my dad, to see her crying and this time it was about me," Herren said.

Six months later, coach Jerry Tarkanian gave him a second chance at Fresno State, where he averaged more than 17 points per game in his first season.

A year after coming to California for college, though, he partied with some friends, drinking alcohol and doing cocaine. Then he admitted his drug use prior to taking a random drug test. He said the athletic director told him, “Christopher, this drug problem is never going to leave you, son. It’s always going to have a hold of you.”

They sent him to a 28-day treatment center. He had to announce on national TV he was a drug addict. But he played that next season, when his wife was pregnant with their son.

An NBA career derailed by addiction

Ultimately, he was selected in the second round of the NBA draft by the Denver Nuggets, whose players knew his struggles and tried to take care of him, not letting him drink, smoke or leave the hotel by himself. He appeared in 45 games that season, averaging about 3 points per game.

“That rookie season was the best I ever had in basketball,” Herren said.

But the good times didn’t last. In the offseason, he was watching TV with his son when someone knocked on the door. It was a childhood friend, who sold him one pill of oxycontin for $20.

“I went back into the house to finish watching cartoons with my son, having no idea that decision just changed our lives forever," he said. "That $20 that day turned into a $25,000 a month oxycontin habit. Two months later, I was fully dependent."

Training camp the next season began with five days of detoxification.

“When I went back for that second season, I made a promise to myself and to God that I would never, ever take another pill,” Herren said.

He was traded from the Nuggets to the Boston Celtics, which was his favorite team as a young boy. It should have been a dream come true, but his nightmare of addiction continued.

At the press conference introducing him as a member of the Celtics, he could only focus on his addiction.

“I was so embarrassed of myself,” Herren said. “I hated myself. I was full of shame and regret and guilt. I wanted nothing to do with this. I wanted to run away. I wanted it to end before it began.”

He would buy oxycontin before games and struggled all season, which ended with the Celtics releasing him.

He then played in Italy, getting paid twice his NBA salary, and the drug use continued. He returned to the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hitting rock bottom

Following a heroin overdose and arrest at age 24, Herren said after he reached out to his drug dealer after he got bailed out, not to his wife or mother.

"It was so good it almost killed me," he said. "That's how sad we are. We wake up every single morning to take chances at dying. Every single day, multiple times a day, we chase death for that feeling. Unfortunately for my family, they watched me take a chance at dying for seven more years."

By age 27, he was hustling for heroin and stealing from loved ones. By the time he was in his 30s, he couldn't afford heroin and switched to vodka.

On June 4, 2008, he suffered his fourth overdose in his hometown. The arresting officer told him, "When I was a boy, I looked up to you. I wanted to be just like you. It kills me as a police officer to see you in this condition. Go home and spend some time with your kids. They have no clue how close their dad was to dying today."

Former NBA star Chris Mullin reached out to Herren and got him into a 30-day treatment facility. On the 30th day, Herren's wife called to tell him she was in the hospital about to deliver their third child, all alone, because nobody wanted to be around them anymore.

Herren saw his son born, the first of his three children he was sober to witness. His oldest child, Christopher, 9 at the time, told him, "I love you. I miss you. Please don't let drugs kill you. I don't want you to die. I want you to be my dad."

That didn't stop him from leaving the hospital and going to a liquor store, then obtaining heroin. The next day his wife told him it was time for them to separate.

"You broke my heart a million times," she told him. "This will be the last time you break our kids' hearts. You're no longer welcome here. It's time for me to move on from you."

His counselor talked to his wife and then advised him to call her and promise to never contact her or his children again. Instead of taking that advice, Herren started 14 years of sobriety, on Aug. 1, 2008.

He and his wife are still married, and his children are 24, 21 and 14.

"For the last 14 years, I've been the same dad," he said. "It feels good to be the same dad. Not red-faced dad, angry dad, happy dad, drunk dad, sad dad. Same dad. Just steady. That's all they ever wanted. That's all they ever needed."

kmallett@newarkadvocate.com

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Twitter: @kmallett1958