Basketball 'Junkie' Tells Horrifying Tale of Fall From Glory

Good public speakers captivate their audiences by sharing their experiences.  But great speakers have the ability to transport their audiences into their experiences.  

And on Thursday night in the Ocean City High School gymnasium, a former Boston Celtics basketball player did just that. Chris Herren spends his days now traveling through the country and reaching into his soul, day after day, week after week, to share a story of addiction and heartbreak so painful that it brings audience members to tears.

Herren was a rising basketball star. A high school basketball Player of the Year out of Durfee High School in Fall River, MA; a Division 1 NCAA player at Boston College and Fresno State; and ultimately an NBA player for the Celtics and Denver Nuggets. Herren had it all. But he fell quickly and fell hard. His abuse of alcohol, cocaine, opiates and heroin changed him from an elite athlete to a common street junkie.

In Ocean City as in other towns, audience members listen to his heart-rending story and find themselves rooting for him, his wife and his babies. There is the hope that after each terrible story he tells there will be some kind of peace or redemption — but there is just pain. 

After every tale Chris tells of his drug abuse, after every humiliation he endures, there is another. And another. And just when the story seems to be reaching recovery, he relates another tragedy. Another desertion. Another degrading act, all for the sake of the “monster,” he calls it, of drug addiction.

For 14 years Chris chose drugs over money. Chris chose drugs over fame. Over friends, love and success. Over his wife and his chidren. He sacrificed fatherhood and pride, all for high and rush of powder, pills, needles and alcohol.  

Chris’ drug dealers became his whole world. He made no move, made no family or career decision without thinking of them first. Could they come with him?  Could they get him drugs if he left? How would he reach them? 

His dealers were his priority; they were what kept him whole, kept him alive, kept him from sinking further into the black hole that he had already carved out for himself. There was no thought of how his family would survive without him, how his children missed their father. His only thought was his next high. 

It is a story that is tough to listen to.  And on Thursday night, the high school gym was so quiet that the sound of fluttering paper was audible. The audience members were frozen in their seats, save for the occasional shaking of a head or the wiping away of a tear. 

The stories he shares (and the pain he still lives through) about abandoning his wife and his children are the most horrific. The horror shows on his face, distorting with pain when he talks about leaving them stranded at the airport, stranded at the hospital, stranded in life.

Chris Ford, another former Celtic (who played for Holy Spirit High School) introduced Chris Herren, remarking that Chris played against his son in high school. 

“Chris had everything, and the story he is going to tell is an interesting one, one that will touch lives. His goal is to just save one, and he is trying to make a difference in life.”

Demurring the compliment and applause, Herren said that he went on the road with his story to give back, but had no idea what he would receive in return.  And seeing all of the young kids in the audience is why he does it.

“I know what it’s like to sit in that seat. I was that kid that said, ‘My dad’s a politician, my mom works in corporate America, we have a summer house, and two other houses. This could never happen to me, so why do I need to sit here and listen to this guy tell his story?’ ”

Chris was once that innocent kid. He remembers his first sight of drugs. He was at Boston College, and two weeks had passed since his appearance in Sports Illustrated in an article entitled “The Big East is Back.”  Chris had just begrudgingly attended an assembly on the dangers of substance abuse at the urging of his coach Jim O’Brien. At the assembly, he mocked the speaker, and judged him on his foolishness for getting caught up in drugs.

After the presentation, he walked into his dorm room and saw his roommate and a young girl huddled over a desk. When he walked over, he saw a huge pile of cocaine. All Chris knew of cocaine was that it had killed Len Bias.

“To me, cocaine symbolized death. But as I walked out of the room, the girl told me not to be scared, that it wouldn’t kill me. And like a big tough guy, I turned around and told myself that I would do it once and I would never do it again. I did that line of cocaine and had no idea that it would take 14 years of my life.”

The next day, Chris failed his first drug test. He failed his second, and his third on the campus of Boston College. He was called into the coaches’ offices, and was told he was dangerous, and no longer wanted on campus. Please leave the campus by the end of the day, they said.

Thus began his longest journey. A journey of skirting coaches, drug tests, and the law.  A journey of lies, smuggling, fabrications and deceit. A journey of theft and felony.

His journey took him from Massachusetts, to California, back to Massachusetts, but never quite reaching the Dallas Mavericks. He refused the offer because he couldn’t leave his drug dealer. 

He was offered a spot in Bologna, Italy for $50,000 cash, a car, house and a school for his little boy.  It wasn’t enough.  

He hung out in the train station in Bologna Italy, looking for a way to get high. He saw a dealer, but didn’t know how to say Oxycotin in Italian, so he pointed to his veins. The drug dealer asked him if he was sure, and Chris said yes.  So the dealer grabbed a string out of his tooth, and little balloons of heroin came out. 

He cooked heroin on Chris’ front seat. At 24 years old, Chris had never seen heroin or seen a needle, but that day became an intravenous drug user. He walked away from that contract of $50,000 in cash because training camp was in the mountains, and he couldn’t leave his drug dealer.    

But providence often comes in strange ways, and there were signs. Signs that perhaps Chris was meant for more. That people looked out for him.

The ex-fan who intercepted his bag of smuggled pills en route to Turkey, saving him from life imprisonment in a Turkish prison. 

The car that swerved to miss him as he stepped in front of it, intending to take his own life. 

The kind homeless men, who urged him to call his family, telling him it might not be too late.

The friend, who paid for his stay in a rehabilitation program.

The night he refused to leave his family to party at a friend’s house, finding out later that night that his friend and a companion were butchered in that house, execution style, for a few hundred dollars.  

The nurse, a friend of Chris’ dead mother, who begged him to get help, because his mother spoke to her from heaven.  Help my baby, Chris’ mother said to her.

The man at the rehabilitation center, who told him the nicest thing he could do for his family would be to break all contact with them.  Tell your wife to tell your kids you got killed in a car accident.  Because you’re a no-good scumbag loser junkie who doesn’t deserve them.    

Most of all his wife, whose heart Chris broke time and time again, but who refused to believe that he was beyond hope. A woman who could forgive him for pawning her jewelry and the children’s toys. Who forgave him for unpaid heat and electric bills. Who forgave him for buying drugs with money meant for baby formula.

But Chris got clean. For his family, for himself, for kids all over the country.  And kids with all kinds of problems — like bullying, cutting, drugs and alcohol — call and email to thank Chris for having the courage to tell his story. 

Because at the end of the evening, the audience got the gratification they wanted. Chris started to smile. And they got to see the handsome young athlete, the proud father, the good husband that he is now.  And as Chris took questions from the audience, he addressed a young man who announced he is newly clean from heroin.

“It takes a lot of courage to sit out there and admit that,” said Chris.  “Thank you.” 

The City of Ocean City thanks you, Chris Herren.   

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The  and the Ocean City Education Foundation sponsored the event with additional support from Jay and Michele Gillian, the Ocean City PTA, The Ocean City Police Department and the Ocean City Fire Department.

A second presentation for students in grades 7 to 12 was held on Friday at Ocean City High School.