Former NBA player Willie Cauley-Stein recently opened up about his past struggles with drug addiction in an interview with the New York Times, revealing the harrowing journey that led him to take a break from basketball and eventually seek help. The former Sacramento Kings and Golden State Warriors center discussed how personal tragedies and mounting pressures pushed him into substance abuse, a path that nearly cost him his life.
“I could easily be dead. So that joy you saw from me in the TBT is different because I know the bullet I really dodged. I asked for help before it was too late, and I got better, but the basketball thing has been a lot harder to get back.”
“So when they asked me to do this, it was too perfect. It just replicated those old times, just exactly how it was. Boom, I got showered with all this love that I needed, absolutely needed and played the best basketball I’ve played in years. That s**t was dope.”
“I didn’t know until I turned myself in. I looked at my wife and said, ‘Oh, my God’ because I hear stories all the time about kids going to a party, never taking a drug before, deciding to pop a Percocet, and it ends up being fentanyl, and they die.”
“From one pill. Dude, I was taking hundreds of them, for months and years. It could’ve so easily been me.”
Cauley-Stein explained that his addiction began in the summer of 2019, shortly after three of his close friends were shot, one fatally, in his Sacramento home. This traumatic event, coupled with the disappointment of signing a near-minimum deal with the Warriors after expecting a significant contract extension from the Kings, led him to seek escape in what he believed were bootleg Percocet pills.
These pills, unbeknownst to him at the time, were laced with fentanyl—a substance 50 times more potent than heroin and a leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States.
The situation worsened when Cauley-Stein’s grandmother was diagnosed with bone cancer. Struggling to cope with her illness, the pressures of a new team, and the impending birth of his child, Cauley-Stein’s drug use spiraled out of control. He was taking pills during practice just to avoid withdrawal symptoms, all while his performance on the court declined sharply.
By December 2021, after his grandmother’s passing, Cauley-Stein checked himself into rehab, realizing that his addiction had reached a critical point. It was only then that he discovered the deadly nature of the pills he had been consuming.
Cauley-Stein’s journey through addiction and recovery has been a difficult one, but he is now focused on staying clean and returning to the sport he loves. After a brief stint in the G League and playing in Europe, he hopes to make a comeback to the NBA. More importantly, he is committed to being there for his wife and children, determined to rebuild his life and career after overcoming such a dangerous period.
Cauley-Stein’s story serves as a sobering reminder of the hidden struggles that many athletes face and the importance of seeking help before it’s too late.
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