Chris Herren threw away a promising career in professional basketball for a life of drug addiction. He came up from that downward spiral over the past four years after starting an alcohol and drug-free life on August 1, 2008.
The message was not lost on the full house within the Amato Center for the Performing Arts who had come to hear Herren’s personal struggles with substance abuse. Herren told the many young men and women in the audience that stories like his should be listened to.
He too had attended a similar speech from a former drug addict in 1994, before his life took a wrong turn, and wishes to this day that he would have actually paid attention.
“I truly believed that night at eighteen-years-old that I was above his story,” said Herren.
That night he tried cocaine for the first time, which turned into a fourteen year struggle of addiction with prescription painkillers, heroin, crystal meth and alcohol. These choices got him kicked out of college, numerous basketball teams and even his own family. His answers where whittled down to lies, homelessness and even suicide.
“What should have been a dream come true was actually a nightmare,” he said.
The former NBA player had been given many chances, but still ended up with felony arrests. A man who broke too many promises to himself and his family, and was even was declared dead after a drug overdose.
The turning point came when a counselor told him to call his wife and instruct her to convince his three kids that he had died. That is when Chris Herren decided to live once again.
And that former life is not one Herren wants to see lived again.
His story of pain and redemption struck a chord with the young audience, and even their parents. It could be felt in the gasps and the tear-filled eyes throughout the crowd.
Herren has traveled across America to teach others the dangers of even trying the smallest doses of drugs. Keeping our kids drug-free is a top priority for The Boys and Girls Club of Souhegan Valley with their Community Action for Safe Teens (CAST) committee, who co-hosted the event.
CAST works within the communities of Amherst, Brookline, Hollis, Lyndeborough, Milford, Mont Vernon and Wilton to support and strengthen families, reduce the use/abuse of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs and encourage healthy choices by teens through increasing community awareness and action.
The Milford Hospital Association, Bellavance Beverage Company, Inc. and the members of the Boys & Girls Club of Souhegan Valley sponsored the event alongside support from Community Action for Safe Teens and the Milford Police Department.
