Former NBA player Lamar Odom has penned a powerful essay for The Players’ Tribune about his lifelong struggle with addiction, and how he is attempting to overcome it.
It is a devastating read.
(Warning: It contains some profanity.)
Even if you’re not an NBA fan, you may remember when his name became somewhat of a tabloid fixture after marrying Khloe Kardashian and starring in the reality show Khloe & Lamar. In 2015, he nearly died from a drug overdose while visiting a brothel, and was in a coma and on life-support before eventually making a recovery.
In his essay, he writes about the incident but also the choices that led him to it. Not only did he lose his mother at the age of 12, but his 6-month-old son died unexpectedly 11 years ago, as a result of sudden infant death syndrome. He writes, “I used to think about what he would look like if he was still here. Actually, I still think about it almost every day.”
He also discusses his cocaine addiction and his constant battle to remain sober: “I’m sober now. But it’s an everyday struggle. I have an addiction. I’ll always have an addiction. It never goes away. I mean, I want to get high right now. But I know that I can’t if I want to be here for my children.” (He is the father to a teenage son and daughter.)
He recalls a particularly powerful moment from the night of his overdose:
[lborder]I kept thinking about something that my grandmother used to say to me when I was a kid.
I could see her face, like she was right there in the room.
“What’s done in the dark,” she would say, “will come out in the light.”
I think of all the sneaky s*** I tried to get away with. All the times I did wrong. All the stuff I tried to hide. If it’s not in the public light, it’s in God’s light.
I was laying there in that bed, hooked up to all these machines, people all around me crying, and there was no running from it anymore.
[/lborder]It is an inspiring look at addiction and redemption.
