In the 14 years he lived as a drug addict, former NBA player Chris Herren had no shortage of moments that could have been his “rock bottom.”  The earliest may have come when he was only 18, shortly after Sports Illustrated hyped the local star’s matriculation to Boston College. Herren — then one of the most highly anticipated freshmen basketball players in the country — left BC after only one game after a positive test for cocaine.  Quoted from CNN’s, Kevin Conlon. February 2012. 

Chris Herren knows the top and the bottom.  He writes about it in Basketball Junkie, a journal of his personal battle with addiction, published in 2011 by St. Martins Press.  Stories like this are what we live for;  tales of coming back from the brink of total self destruction to make an enormous difference in showing others how step out of the abyss of addiction,  give families hope for their own sons and daughters and stop some from ever going there.