"I've done a lot in my life, but what I remember most is sitting in a room like this listening to people like me," said Fall River native and former basketball star Chris Herren. Herren visited Cranston High School East last week for a presentation sponsored by the Cranston Substance Abuse Task Force.

At the age of 18, Herren was on the McDonald's All American Team and considered a top player in the country, featured in Sports Illustrated. His career was about to take off as a starter for Boston College. Two weeks into his college career, his coach brought in a former NFL star whose career had been ruined by drug abuse. Herren didn't want to go, but his coach said it was required for all players. He attended, but his attention was elsewhere.

"We talked, we laughed, we judged. We said to each other, 'This is a waste of time,' and I thought, 'that will never be me.’”That same day, Herren returned to his dorm room to find his roommate and a girl at the desk with a pile of cocaine.

"I looked at the cocaine and I said to myself that because of the circumstances, I was just going to do it this once, and never do it again," he said.

The auditorium at East remained silent during Herren's presentation, other than the gasps of disbelief, the head-shaking and jaw dropping throughout the hour-plus retelling of Herren's descent into drug abuse and addiction that plagued him for the next 14 years.

The day after his first use, Herren was asked to take a random drug test at BC. He failed, testing positive for both cocaine and marijuana. BC has a three-strikes policy. That first failed test got him a warning. Three months in, Herren failed again, and within the next two weeks, he had reached his third strike.

"As a Division I athlete, my scholarship was taken away. They told me, 'You're a danger to our school; we don't want you here.' I moved back to Fall River and waited for the phone to ring," he said.

Herren received that call from Jerry Tarkanian at Fresno State, and was soon on a plane to California. During his junior year, he received news that he might be a first-round pick in the NBA draft.

"All I had to do was finish out the season clean. Four more months and I was almost guaranteed $1.5 million a year for the next five years," Herren said.

But he couldn't do it. The night before a nationally broadcast game, he began drinking and doing cocaine at midnight and didn’t stop until 1:15 p.m. the next day. Tip-off was at 2 p.m. He did his last line of cocaine in the parking lot, watching fans file into the arena as he drank the last of his Budweiser beers.

"After that game the Athletic Director said, 'Chris I don't like how you looked during that game. Go take a drug test,' and I said to him, 'Sir, there is no reason to take the test, I'm going to fail it,'" Herren said.

A press conference followed. Herren spoke at the conference, admitting on national television that he had a cocaine addiction that had never been dealt with.

"I was 21 years old and I cried in front of the cameras and went from there to a 28-day treatment center in Salt Lake City Utah.”He called home every night, begging his mother to get him out of there. He didn’t relate to the people there, and when he heard their stories of addiction, he remembers thinking, “I'm never going to be like these people.”

At 22 years old, Herren became a father with his longtime girlfriend. He was a senior in college, married with a baby. The Denver Nuggets signed him and he moved his family to Colorado.

Again, he was pulled aside by players who had his best interest in mind. They told him he'd be watched constantly, surrounded by teammates and mentors to make sure he was making the best choices possible.

"It was the best season of my professional career," he said. "These were true leaders, true role models.”
But it wasn't enough. On his first visit home to Fall River, Herren fell right back into addiction, this time hooked on Oxycontin.

"Within four months I was a full-blown junkie. I was spending $25,000 a month on little yellow pills. I was such a junkie that I'd fly out to games 72 hours early, just to detox in the hotel room and I'd throw up for 72 hours," he said.

After one such self-imposed detox session, Herren received a phone call from Celtics coach Rick Pitino.

"He told me that if I joined the Celtics I'd be one of just six people in history to ever come from New England to join the Celtics. He wanted me at a press conference," Herren said. "I hung up and the first person I called was not my wife, it was not my parents, but my drug dealer. That press conference was the best day of my life, but all I could think about was getting out of there…starting that nightmare up all over again.”

Herren's life continued to spiral downward, out of control as he left the Celtics and lost his opportunity to be in the NBA Summer League.

"I went home to Fall River, and I popped a pill," he said.

Herren’s basketball career went downhill, too. He accepted an opportunity to play in Bologna, Italy for $50,000 a month in cash. It was there in Italy, at 24 years old, where he took his first intravenous drug.

He was now a heroin addict.

"At 24 years old, I let a man in a car tie my arm off with a belt and let him shoot me up with heroin, and yet at 18 years old I sat in an assembly like this, like you, and said that it was impossible," he said. Herren quit his job halfway through the season and spent the next four months without a job. He played briefly in Istanbul, where he tried to smuggle Ocycontin into the country and thought he was going to be shot by authorities there. The son of a fan recognized him, took the drugs out of the box and left a note in its place."I'm not doing this for you," the anonymous note said. "I'm doing this for your family. Go and get help."

Herren described for the students in detail his first heroin overdose back in Fall River, in a drive-thru at Dunkin Donuts. He hit a woman in the parking lot in the process.

"I went to jail. The first person I called to meet me when I got out of jail was my dealer," he said.

Herren continued on his timeline of destruction, sharing stories of failed suicide attempts, begging for drugs on street corners, of being homeless and sleeping in dumpsters. He talked about all-weekend drug benders filled with cocaine and heroin with a former NFL player who was later killed after an all-nighter that Herren was scheduled to be at. His family lived in poverty, sometimes without food, heat or lights, as he blew their money on drugs.

"For the next four years I was a street junkie. I took any of my wife's jewelry, any of my kids games. I was 30 years old and I was robbing grocery stores, getting arrested for stealing groceries," he said.

At 25, he overdosed on heroin again and was pronounced dead at the scene. One of the EMT's, recognizing Herren as the local sports legend, put him in the back of the ambulance anyway, sending him to Charleton Memorial Hospital. En route, he revived.

At the hospital, the doctor said he was ready to go home but a nurse there who knew Herren's mother stopped him, and for five hours tried to find him a bed in a treatment facility, stopping him from his next planned attempt at suicide later that day.

He was given an extra six months of treatment in New York from a friend who offered to pay, both for the treatment and the car service to drive him there. Herren took the car to the center but left after 35 days to be present for the birth of his third child.

"I was high for the first two births, I was going to be sober for the third one," Herren said.

After the birth of his baby, he handed the newborn to his oldest son and said, "I'll be right back," and went off to buy drugs. Thirty minutes later he was high.

When he went back to visit his wife at Women & Infants, she had him thrown out by the security guards.

Herren had hit rock bottom.He went back to the center and begged to be let back in.

On Aug. 1, 2008 Herren began his journey to sobriety. He thanks the people along the way who saved his life, like the nurse, but most of all, he credits his wife and three children, who continue to stand by him.

He spends his time now traveling to schools and centers, speaking to students about the dangers of drugs.

"Don't let it happen to you. Don't change who you are,” he said. “You're perfect the way you are and I tell you that from the bottom of my heart."