When most people think of an athlete, they think of strong, flexible, tough, hard worker, stable, someone to look up to — a hero. However, many don't consider the unique challenges athletes face on and off the field that can lead to addiction.

Pressure to perform well, trying to maintain and hold themselves to a higher standard, feeling not good enough, getting injured time and time again and adjusting to the fast lane life are just a few of the challenges the five athletes mentioned in this article faced. And each, in turn, succumbed to drugs or alcohol or both.

Thankfully, they got the help and support needed to get their lives back on track.

Alema Harrington

Harrington, former BYU running back and KSL-TV weekend sports anchor, led a double life. Born into a football-loving family, Harrington played football in high school and later at BYU. There, he sustained a back injury that required surgery. He began taking prescription painkillers, which quickly turned into recreational use and addiction. When it got to the point where he had to take "ridiculous amounts of pills" to even feel the effects, he turned to heroin.

It wasn't just the physical pain he was trying to repress but emotional as well.

“There was a lot of self-doubt and an identity crisis. Even in high school, I felt inferior," he explained in a Deseret News article. "The thing about pain meds is they numb emotional and physical pain.”

Two decades and eight rehab centers later, Harrington is now in recovery. It wasn't an easy road. He said he believes his religious convictions played a big role in his recovery.

“I am totally incapable of staying sober,” he said. “The fact that I am has nothing to do with me except my willingness to let God run the show. Addiction is a disease; I will always have it. So it needs to be treated on a daily basis just like any other diseases. My daily medication is a connection with my Heavenly Father … I spent 20 years trying to fix it so I could be presentable to God.”

Harrington also finds strength in helping others overcome their addictions and is a licensed counselor at Renaissance Ranch in Salt Lake City.

Max Hall

A news article quotes Max Hall as saying football became his first addiction: “I was in the film room all of the time. I was calling up guys to throw routes,” he recalled. “When I was at home I was watching film. I was obsessed with the game. It made me a great football player.”

And he was a great football player. From 2007-09, he became the winningest quarterback in BYU history. He was known for being ultracompetitive and tough on the field and played through multiple injuries. In 2010, he signed a contract with the Arizona Cardinals. However, that's where his second addiction — painkillers — started.

“That first year with the Cardinals, I suffered three really bad concussions,” Hall says. “Two of them knocked me out cold. I still played. I shouldn’t have. I was on the field and I’d get to the line of scrimmage to start my cadence and I’d forget the play. They finally yank me. I’m upset. They put me back in, I dislocate my shoulder. I’m depressed; I think my NFL career could be over. I’m hurt, and I’m in pain, and I’ve got a whole bottle of pain pills. It’s no excuse, but I think, ‘Hey, when I take that, I feel better.’ Next thing I know, three days later, it’s all gone. I’m calling people to find more. It got worse and worse.”

Hall's addiction came to a head when in 2014, he was arrested for shoplifting and drug possession. It devastated him. However, with help of friends and a lot of hard work, he got back on his feet. Now he coaches high school football.

However, he knows the fight isn't over and he has to take certain steps to ensure he remains sober.

“My No. 1 focus right now, and it has to be every day when I wake up, is to stay sober,” Hall said. “In order to do that, there are things that I have to do. I still have bad days. I’m not perfect. I still make mistakes. I’m still working to improve my relationship with my family and all that stuff. That doesn’t happen overnight.

"It starts with hitting my knees. If I can do that and keep myself right and continue to get more sobriety time, I can help a lot of people. It’s something that’s got to be on my mind every day. I have to wake up every day and make a decision that I’m going to be sober. I’ve got to call a sponsor. I’ve got to go to a meeting. I’ve got to read some material. I’ve got to talk to someone about it to keep myself in check. Every once in a while I take a drug test just to keep myself in line. Whatever I need to do to focus on it. It’s cliché, but it’s day-to-day. What matters is that today, I stay sober.”

Steve Sarkisian

Sarkisian, "Sark," has a long history with football: former BYU quarterback, player for the CFL, head coach for the University of Washington, and then head coach for the University of Southern California. Now he is the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons. Yet, along his football journey, he encountered some dark times.

In 2015, Sark's struggle with alcoholism became public when he was publicly fired as the head coach for USC. Although he was frustrated with the way things turned out, he feels that the only thing he can control is himself.

"I can't control what other people think, say, do," he said in an interview with Sports Illustrated. "I can control what I do, how I act, the attitude I have every day and how I want to attack and approach each day."

Sixteen months after his job ended at USC, he was hired on as the offensive coordinator with the Falcons. Although he is doing better, he expressed that his struggle with alcoholism is a disease he'll have to work on every day.

"It's not something that is necessarily in the past," he said. "It's something I have to work on every single day, and I do work on it every single day. It's important to me, and it's important to who I am as a person. It's a piece of me, this disease of alcoholism ... but it doesn't define me. I have a lot more to offer than that."

Matthew Kurtz

Kurtz, BYU soccer player who now represents Team USA, was addicted to drugs since he was 16 years old. He grew up in Las Vegas and played all four years on the high school varsity team. From there he went on to play for BYU. Though everything seemed to be going well for him — a tall, handsome, good boy soccer player — Kurtz struggled with wanting to be different and turned to opioids for relief.

“It wasn’t an injury,” Kurtz said in an article for the Las Vegas Reveiw Journal. “I almost wish I could say it was, but it was just curiosity. Trying to be different. Wanting to be different ... It was pain relief from life but not any physical pain."

The real downward spiral began in January 2015. On the last day of soccer tryouts, Kurtz tore his ACL.

“This is right when pretty much everything picked up,” Kurtz said. “All the drug use, everything. Just my depression, all the hate I could imagine. I didn’t communicate with anybody, and it’s just a really dark time. It’s hard for me to even think about.”

He stole from his parents, didn't tell anyone about his struggles and withdrew from his classes. One day he finally realized he had a drug addiction and sought help from his parents. After a few tries in a few outpatient facilities, he was admitted to the Renassaince Ranch where he finally got clean.

He went back to BYU to try his hand at soccer one more time, and in 2017, he became a starter for the first time.

“I’ve made a lot of different mistakes, but I’m thankful, grateful for the opportunities, the time I’ve put forth...” Kurtz said. “I’m not this perfect kid all of the sudden, but I’m trying. I keep working, I keep going, and I’ve had a lot of success, and I’m starting to turn that into more success.”

John Drew

In November 1982, John Drew, who played for the Utah Jazz, was called into his coach's hotel room. There he met with the team's trainer, Dan Sparks, and Frank Layden, the coach, where they told him they knew of his drug problem. At first he tried to deny it, but he finally admitted his addiction to cocaine.

''It was the biggest relief in the world,'' Drew said in an article for The New York Times. ''It took a lot of energy for me to hide what I was doing. But right then, I had a release. 'Thank God,' I thought to myself. 'Somebody knows.' ''

Averaging about 24 points per game, Drew was good at what he did: basketball. And for the first three seasons of the NBA, he remained drug-free. However, after coming from a poor childhood, everything — the money, the girls — started coming at him too fast and he quickly became bored and lost self-discipline. Once he experienced something in the fast lane, there was always something else to chase. And that something else became cocaine.

After a few months, Layden and Sparks noticed something was off and decided to confront him. After the confrontation, he was admitted to an eight-week detoxification facility.

''I never did drugs to kill any bad feeling, because I was hurt or because I had any problems,'' he says. ''I did drugs because I liked them, and they made me feel good.''

Once he became clean, Drew worked to spread the word by speaking at summer camps and to other NBA teams about what he experienced. He also worked to stay sober by attending Alcoholics Anonymous sessions daily and carrying around a large briefcase packed with lists of AA contacts and books on addiction.

Although addiction is very real, hard and devastating, healing and recovery are also real and possible. Renaissance Ranch offers an outpatient treatment program that allows clients to continue to work and maintain current social networks. For more information about treatment for substance abuse, contact Renaissance Ranch.

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