Just stumbled across this article on the Players Tribune by Rich Clune. It is a couple years old, but I couldn't find links anywhere else. Clune talks about his battle with alcoholism and drug addiction.
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/ri...ne-hockey-nhl/
Quote:
I used to get home from hockey practice and start drinking at lunch. From the time I was playing Junior hockey for the Sarnia Sting to my first year in the NHL with the Los Angeles Kings, I would start drinking the second I woke up on my days off. I smoked marijuana every single day. By the time I was 19 years old, I was using cocaine weekly. If you saw me out at a bar in Ontario or New Hampshire or Los Angeles, laughing and cracking jokes, you probably would have thought, “Look at that kid. He’s living the dream.”
What you wouldn’t see is me waking up shaking in my bed at 5 a.m., my nose bleeding all over the pillow.
Then I would go to practice the next day with a smile on my face and compete at a high level. Why in the world would I do this? No, I am not your stereotypical neanderthal. I was the kid taking private art classes in high school and watching Tarantino movies. I was the kid who was supposed to play hockey at Harvard before begging his parents to let him play in the OHL instead. I was the kid who made a blood-pact promise to his mom that he would never fight in Juniors (which pissed off the coaches to no end). I won the Bobby Smith Award for the OHL’s scholastic player of the year, for Christ’s sake. And I did all of that while binge drinking every single day, often alone in my room.
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"The Battle" - Rich Clune (Players Tribune)
