WHOOP Podcast - Former NBA player Chris Herren discusses overcoming drug abuse and using WHOOP to combat addiction.

Episode Date: October 14, 2020

Chris Herren was a high school and college basketball star who eventually made his way to the NBA, but also saw his career and life derailed by drug and alcohol abuse. Now 12 years sober, Chris is one of the leading addiction prevention and recovery advocates in the country and uses WHOOP at his treatment centers to help people find their path to recovery. He discusses his pathway to addiction (4:46), going from top recruit to getting kicked out of college (8:49), his addiction to painkillers (14:45), a downward spiral (16:50), buying drugs before games (19:16), getting addicted to heroin (24:34), letting his loved ones down (27:53), using his platform to help others (31:26), the role of WHOOP in addiction treatment (33:42), why self confidence and drug use often go hand-in-hand (42:50), the turning point in his life (44:00), and making a difference in the lives of others (46:29).Support the showFollow WHOOP: www.whoop.com Trial WHOOP for Free Instagram TikTok YouTube X Facebook LinkedIn Follow Will Ahmed: Instagram X LinkedIn Follow Kristen Holmes: Instagram LinkedIn Follow Emily Capodilupo: LinkedIn

Hello, folks. Welcome to the WOOP podcast. I'm your host, Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of WOOP, and we are on a mission to unlock human performance. That's right, we build wearable technology across hardware and software and analytics to help you better understand your body and improve your health. Woop is like a 24-7 life coach to help you be a better version of yourself, which is quite relevant for today's guest, which we'll get to in one second. But if you use the code Will Amid, W-I-L-L-A-H-M-E-D, you will get 15% off a Whoop membership. This week's guest is Chris Heron. And wow, does this guy have an inspiring story? It is remarkable and sad and beautiful and everything in between. Chris was a high school and college basketball star. He made

his way to the NBA. He was starting for the Boston Celtics. And his life just got completely derailed by addiction, drug and alcohol abuse. He was a heroin addict for about 10 years. And we go into great detail talking about his life from being an All-American on the cover of Sports Illustrated to really on the edge of losing his life. I mean, in fact, he was pronounced dead at one point. his life after overdosing on heroin. It's an amazing story. And it's an optimistic story because Chris today is leading a phenomenal substance abuse prevention and recovery program. He is founding nonprofits. He has a wonderful treatment center that we talk about that's dedicated to helping people find their path to recovery. And what was cool for me is learning that he uses

whoop, not just personally, but on all of the people that he works with to help them find recovery from addiction. And we talk about how whoop can be used for accountability in that regard. And Chris says a lot of encouraging things about how the product can be used to really help people improve their lives. So this is an amazing podcast. I think it's an inspiring one. And without further ado, here is Chris. Chris, welcome to the Whoop podcast. Great to be here. So you have an amazing, amazing life story. I've spent the past week reading about it

and listening to some of the speeches you've given. Let's start with, when did you know that you were capable of being a professional basketball player? You know, it's interesting. The self-reflection that takes place in recovery, oftentimes, you know, it's pretty deep. And over the last couple of years, I started doing some work and looking back

and reflecting on my child. childhood. And I never wanted to be a professional basketball player. I never said to myself, like, I can't wait to play in the NBA one day. You know, my goal was to play for my high school basketball team. And once I kind of conquered that goal, it was on to college. And even when I was at Fresno State, even when I was at Boston College, I never really thought of draft night and, you know, getting picked by the NBA. It just happens. and kind of looking back and reflecting on where my head and my emotional well-being was at that time, I think I was preparing myself not to fail in a sense,

knowing that if I ever did get there, I wasn't going to be well enough, healthy enough to sustain it and keep it. So there was always a part of me that never dreamt it because I was afraid to lose it. I wonder if it in some ways made you more susceptible to addiction, if it wasn't a dream of yours. You know, in some ways, having this thing in your mind that you're so focused on can really clean your act up too, you know? Sure.

No, I think, you know, it could have, you know, in hindsight, you can look at it from two different perspectives, right? I mean, there's some people, you know, they're so driven that it kind of, they struggle. Right, right. But I believe that I knew at a pretty young age, probably like 18, 17, that I had this curiosity to change myself, to not be myself. And the further I got in athletics, you know, I knew that it was going to at some point put a stop to it. You had this feeling like it was going to unravel. I did.

I always had that feeling. And it started to unravel pretty quickly, you know, like at BC when I was introduced to cocaine. You were 18 years old, right, when you first tried cocaine? I was 18, you know, I figured, you know, let's try this one time, you know, probably won't like it and I'll never do it again. And it gave me this, you know, I'd say this all the time, it gave me this ability to speak truth at an emotional level. As sick as it sounds, cocaine, it was almost a healing. thing for me because I would sit there at 3 o'clock in the morning and tell whoever I was sitting with all these deep dark secrets that I had in my life. You know, that was something that I was

attracted to. That's the road cocaine took me down at 18 years old and I quickly. And you were, you were in all, so you're an all American high school basketball player. Yeah. And at that point, you're pretty, you're pretty clean, right? Pretty clean as maybe a little drinking. You tell me. Yeah, I mean, I started drinking when I was probably like 13, 14, smoking 14, 15, a couple of painkillers here and there in high school. But most of my summers were pretty jam-packed with AAU basketball and, you know, playing for the Boston athletic basketball club for BABC. We won the national championship three years in a row. We were playing 80 games a summer. So I was pretty busy, you know, but, you know, they wrote a book about me when I was in high school and the book is called Four of a Dreams and, you know, we were just like a typical high school kid, you know, drinking in basements and and kedge parties in the woods and in sand dunes at the beaches.

In some ways, that can be fairly harmless, right? I mean. Fairly, yeah, absolutely. But that's the scariest thing about addiction. Nobody knows who has it. Right. It's a good point. You know, like, that's the scared, to me, that's the most frightening thing is, you know,

we can drink the same amount of beers, but someone's going to, someone's going to feel this later in life. If you look at my high school basketball team, my father was a politician. My mom was in corporate America. We had, you know, my high school friends, you know, lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, stay at home moms. And seven out of my 15 teammates that they wrote a book about became herring. heroin addicts. Wow.

That's a real. Yeah. And you've obviously done an enormous amount of work in and around this space. And we'll talk about some of that work that you've done. But that strikes me as kind of an outlier thing. Isn't that quite unlikely? Or how does that happen? Yeah, no, I think it's definitely an outlier.

But I do think the access we had around drugs and alcohol at that age, you know, early teenage years. You know, I think it raises the probability quite significantly. So, you know, we were 15, 16, 17 years old, drinking in bar rooms and hanging out, you know. So the access, I believe, increased the probability in the numbers that that many of us would struggle. Okay. So you go off to college. You're this top recruit. You turn down Duke and Kentucky. Why did you choose your school? so my dad um you know my father was going through my mom and dad were going through a divorce my father is is suffers from alcoholism and my mom had enough and i wanted to stay close so i chose boston college

you know i figured i could i could be far enough away from home uh but still be very uh close to my mom and and help her uh go through this divorce with my dad and and be supportive and and and still much of a very big part of my family. But, you know, Boston College lasted four months. You know, I was, I'll never forget it. I was down at Fanio Hall jumping on a trampoline for like six hours. And Sports Illustrated and I got hundreds and hundreds of people watching me. And I'm this 18-year-old kid doing a two-page spread for Sports Illustrated.

And I remember that night coming back and partying and doing Coke. And in the back of my head, I'm saying to myself, like, this is going to unravel. You know, this is not going to be good, you know, from Sports Illustrated to this. When this unravels, when, you know, when everybody kind of finds out what's really going on, it's going to be, it's going to be tragic. And it was. And at any point during that, did you say to yourself, like, maybe I should try to get help. Maybe I should try to dial this back.

I mean, it's a hard, I feel like it's such a hard thing for an 18-year-old to say to himself or herself. You know, I think the stigma back then, too. I mean, now it's a little different. Yeah. You know, I think, I think drug addiction has looked at a little, a lot differently than in 1994. I really didn't know where to go for help. Yeah. And, you know, and it's interesting because Boston College was like, they were the extreme of, of enabling.

You know, it was like three strikes you're out. Where at Fresno State, my next school, it was, let's throw as much therapy and opportunity to get better and heal at you. So two universities and two extreme ways of treating it. But at 18 years old, I didn't, I really didn't know how. I didn't know how to seek that. I didn't know, you know, like I had never heard of AA or 12-step meetings at that time. And did your parents play any role in talking to you about it? I mean, it sounds like your dad had challenges with alcoholism.

You know, it came quick. It really did. It came, you know, again, like Sports Illustrated, Big East is back. You know, the talk is me, Alan Iverson, Ray Allen. It's amazing, yeah. And, you know, within four months, it was gone. So I think it really hit my parents quickly. it was hard for them to kind of navigate through it and adjust because it was just one positive drug test after another.

And then, you know, it was the geographical cure, right? Like Jerry Tarkhanian steps into the picture and says, you know, I'm starting over at Fresno State. I'm no longer at UNLV. I want you to come with me. So it was like I'll travel 3,000 miles away to Fresno, California, and cocaine will never find me again. and no, well, I find it. And, you know, I had no idea that the problem travels with you, you know. Yeah.

So Fresno State, talk about that aspect of your career. Because let's not forget, you still ended up on the, you know, starting lineup for the Boston Celtics. So it wasn't like your athletic career was off the rails yet. No, it wasn't. Because while I was at Fresno, I had a coach who's now an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers. And he was like a workout guru. in basketball. And I was just fortunate enough that he was starting his career at Fresno State and sober. So he kind of took me under his wing, you know, talked to me about sobriety,

brought me to AA meetings, focused on my nutrition, my sleep. And I became a beast. I became a beast pretty quickly out there. I had a year to kind of sit out because I transferred and really focus on fitness and getting better. And my sophomore year, I just kind of launched into this. But, you know, it's funny, if you look at the progression of Fresno State, from my sophomore year to my senior year, my whole body type changed. You know, my sophomore year was my healthiest. I was in the best shape.

I put up my best numbers. And by my senior year, I was kind of, you know, I was on the decline. But you get drafted 33rd in NBA draft. Were you pleased with that or at that point where you kind of just like it was all a bit of a fog? I was pleased. I had an unbelievable workout with the Demin Nuggets. And a guy by the name of Dan Issel, who's an NBA legend, he was the coach and general manager. And I worked out for them and he drove me from the workout facility back to the arena.

And he spoke to me about his family and that, you know, alcoholism and addiction, you know, was in it. And he has great empathy for it. wants to see me do well. So I had a feeling I would get drafted by the Nuggets, but 33rd was not surprising. You know, that draft class with, you know, Steve Francis, Baron Davis, William Avery, Jason Terry. I think there was seven point guards drafted in the first round that year. Yeah. Wow. And where were you personally at that point? What, you know, what was going on outside of the court? You know, cocaine's a tricky drug, right? because, you know, I have empathy for people who struggle with cocaine because, you know, you go out pretty hard and it hits you pretty hard and, you know, you get a good night's sleep for a couple of days and you want nothing to do with it for three weeks, you know, and then, you know, three weeks later, you're in a bar room and it's one bud light to a shot and then you're in a bathroom stall again.

So it's very tricky. So I wasn't an everyday cocaine user, you know, it was periodically. And it just, but being in the position I was in, I knew that I was, I was risking a lot every time I did it. Describe getting introduced to prescription drugs. Oh, God. You know, a kid I grew up with, he said there's a new painkiller. And he said, Chris, it's unbelievable. You have to be careful with it.

It's super powerful. it's like taking five vikinans in one shot and he he pulled out this little baggy and inside of it were a bunch of little yellow pills and he said these are 40 milligram oxicon and in 1999 I had never heard of oxycontin and considering my history with cocaine and viking and percissettes I'm like ah you know like I'll you know I've done Molly I've done ecstasy I've done acid I've done mushroom I mean like yeah that little yellow pill is going to be you know it's it's no big deal. So I hand them a $20 bill. He hands me the 40 milligram. I take it. When was this? It was right after I got home from my rookie season. I started with 20 bucks and I started spending $25,000 a

month. Is that amazing? I mean, I was taking 40 milligrams to 1,600 milligrams a day. So to put that in perspective, 40 milligrams, if you've never taken it before, would have a meaningful effect on your body right you would be like feeling on a completely different planet 1600 could do damage to a horse right yeah oh no doubt i mean like put a horse out 40 40 milligrams would most likely the average person would make them vomit sweat yeah get dizzy and i was you know i was up to i was up to 6100 milligrams a day you know i was spending you know an enormous amount of money now the day you It's after your rookie season, you were probably at actually a pretty good place in life. You had just gotten a contract, right?

You were married right at that point. Yeah. Son. New house? Yeah. New house, new cars, new opportunity, phenomenal teammates. I'm on the Nuggets, and I go back to training camp with this unbelievable oxycontin addiction. and soon after I was traded.

And I'll never forget talking to Rick Petino and crying when I hung up. Not that I'm a Boston Celtic and happy. Like, I'm devastated. It was almost like it can't get any worse. Why? Because you were afraid of what Boston was going to have a surgery? Just because I was so sick. I was so sick.

And I was like, I'm going to. completely fall flat of my face in front of my home base. Oh. Yeah. So it's like my dream come true, but my nightmare beginning. From a purely physiological standpoint, I mean, obviously I think about this a lot through a lens of whoop. What did it feel like exercising when you're on that kind of, you're on that kind of stuff?

Like was your heart rate super elevated and hot, hot sweat, cold sweat? a machine. And that's what people don't understand. Like, if you gave me 1,600 milligrams of oxies, if I had the right amount in my system, I can go for days. I will compete. I will sweat. I will sprint. I will run for days. You know, I will stay after practice. I will work out. But once that was out of my system, it was over. You know, it was complete sickness and fatigue and lack of energy. Like all the symptoms of withdrawal. Yeah.

Oh, gosh. Immediately. Immediately. And so, okay, so you come to Boston and how has the first season with the Celtics? Terrible. Disaster. You know, I'm so dependent on OxyContin. You know, I'm waking up in the morning going to practice sick, you know, staring at the

clock at the scoreboard for the practice to end. So I can jump in my car and fly down 128. to go to Fall River to get some pills to feel better. I was shipping them all over the country. You know, I was, you know, every four seasons, every Ritz Carlton, we checked into, you know, I was praying that there was a package waiting for me there. It was a disaster. And, you know, the example that kind of hits people is I'm in the locker room and Rick Petino

says, Chris, you're my starting point card. And I'm like, shit. now I'm starting tonight and I don't feel good and I jump on the phone and I call my drug dealer and I'm like you got to get up here you know and I always had guys there I would always leave him tickets so I could meet him

after the game so he's like I'll be there I'll meet you after the game and I said no no no like you don't understand like I'm not feeling well and I'm going to play 35 minutes tonight so he so he jumps in his car and drives And I, the obsession that people really struggle with identifying, like every five minutes, I'm running into locker room to check my phone to see where he is. I'd run back through the tunnel, shoot some jump shots, leave the floor. And finally, he said, you know, I'm outside, but I can't come in.

I'm stuck right in traffic outside the arena. And it was that moment, like I'm sitting in my locker with, you know, head to toe Celtics warmups. And I'm like, I'm going to go. And, you know, I walked out of that locker room. I went down the back stairs and sat in the players' parking lot and waited for his car to come through. And as soon as I saw him, I ran out, grabbed them, and ran back to inside the arena. You know, the level of despair and desperation in that moment and panic is real as it gets. Yeah, it's so hard to imagine, but you describe it, you know, I can feel what that moment must have been.

I mean, it's, there's a pure insanity to what you describe. totally and it's I mean it's interesting like when you look back on it do you wonder like what were my teammates thinking or what was my coach thinking do you feel like you were just good at covering all your tracks or do you think that people are just you know they're turning a blind eye because it's not their business I don't know how do you think about that I was pretty irrelevant when it came to the Celtics you know like I can say that you know I mean I was probably like 12th on the depth chart so not much attention paid to me um at that time you know i was on injured reserve list at times so a guy like me in the bottom half of the of the roster i can kind of hide a little bit the Celtics roster paul pierce was young antoine walker was antoine walker it wasn't a very cohesive group it was more of a you know like we're young we need to kind of figure out our future let's get out let's get ours where when i played with Denver, I was with veterans like Chauncey Billups, Nick Van Exo, Antonio McDyce, Popeye Jones, Roy Rogers, all guys who are now NBA coaches or analysts.

Wow. And the Lockham was a lot different. It was much different playing for the Denver Nuggets than the Boston Celtics. As in they wanted to keep an eye on you. They wanted to say, hey, you're not drinking tonight or we're going to walk around with you a little bit more or whatever. They would never let me. They would keep an eye on me.

They'd knock on my door. They'd check in on me. They'd call me. Anytime we went out to restaurants, I couldn't order alcohol. They were as selfless as you can get as teammates, the guys I hung out with that were on the demo nuggets. You know, in Boston, it was kind of different. It was, you know, it was like we, you know, when we got to a hotel, 12, 15 of us went different ways. If you think about, okay, so that first season at the Celtics,

It's a struggle. When did you get injured? So after the Celtics, I was released. And, you know, I don't know all the hard data, like in the statistics, but I flew down to Dallas to play on their Summer League team. And the Summer League that year was happening at UMass, Boston. So it was a perfect thing for me. It was like a home game. And I'd come out the gate.

It's LeBron James' rookie season. and he's there, and I'm playing really well for the Dallas Mavericks. And looking like, talking with my agent and saying, listen, you're on the cusp of signing like a two, three-year contract. And my oxy cotton dealer runs out, and he's nowhere to be found. And I remember waking up that morning and saying, I'm done. Like, my knee is hurt. I can't play.

I'm walking away. you know, any basketball player has torn cottage in their knee, you know, like, and I had tall, Mike, I had some torn codilage. They, they looked at it and it was valid, right? It wasn't hurting. I could have played. But I, but the bigger picture is here I am and the level of insanity that I'm on the cusp of signing a three-year contract in the NBA. And what did your agent say? Like, if I were your agent, I'd be like, dude, come on, you got this. They tried, right? But, you know, it was, I walked away.

There was no getting me there. And that's the level of insanity and dependency that, that opiates, you know, the control it has over you. And it was a gateway to heroin for you. Is that correct? It was. I went to Italy shortly after, right? So I fly to Italy. I'm playing for the number one team in Italy.

I'm in Bologna. and, you know, I'm playing with international superstars. I'm the only American on the team. And I said to myself, I'm going to take 300 pills with me. And I will taper myself. And so I got 380 milligram oxies in my luggage, my wife, my son, which we are excited of this new experience. My wife has no idea what I'm struggling with at the time.

So your wife really didn't know that you were. a drug addict at that point? No, no. I mean, she knew, I've known my wife since we were in seventh grade. So my wife knows that, you know, I struggle, but not with opiates at the time. So the 300 pills run out. And I have a decision. I'm either going to continue making $700,000 a year in cash with a young family and play in Italy, or I'm going to walk away Because there was no way you could play without the drugs with the withdrawal and all that. At that point, I would have needed medical detox, a medical withdrawal.

So I run out of the pills in Italy and I'm in early withdrawal, right? It's vomiting, it's dry heaving, it's sweating, it's cold. And I find the guy on a corner who's selling heroin. and I let him, I let him shoot me up in an alley in Bologna, Italy. And I, after that moment, I never went back to pills. You know, I became an IV heroin addict pretty much immediately. Was it obvious to you that you had made that transition, or was it more just an addiction to that feeling and not falling into this mode of withdrawal?

Like, was it conscious? You tell yourself. Were you constantly saying, like, okay, I'm going to go with heroin now versus oxy, or is it just, it's just you're in this sort of downward spiral of chaos? Because the lies you tell yourself, right? It's like, you know, oxy cotton is no different. It's heroin in a pill. And the further, the deeper you go into it, the closer you get to it all, in a sense. And the peace you make with, internally you make with it with yourself, I was afraid.

needles. Like, I didn't, you know, like, if I went to the trainer or the doctor, like, I would look away. And, you know, here I am at 25, 26, 27 years old, you know, waking up every morning and shooting heroin. It was a tough transition, much different than chewing on oxy cotton. It was difficult. I mean, it was, it was really difficult to manage, you know, being a professional basketball player and shooting heroin. No doubt about it. I like how understated you put that. Yeah. That's amazing. It's amazing. And at some point, you have to come back to the U.S. because it doesn't work out in Italy, right? Yeah. It's hard. It's bad. I mean, I walked away from a huge contract. I have a, my wife's pregnant. You know, I have a two-year-old son. And unbeknownst to my

wife, we're running out of money. You know, I would, I woke up one morning and went to a Dunkin' Donuts. shot some heroin in the parking lot. You know, I started my car. I got in the drive-thru, and, you know, I'm going to order an ice coffee for me, tea for my wife, and get some munchkins for my kids. And, uh, and I overdosed. Um, crazy. The next thing I remember is the police pulling me out of the vehicle. There's heroin bags on the floor. There's needles. You know, and so in 2004, two weeks before Christmas, I'm, you know, ripped out of a vehicle and arrested and, and, and, and, and booked into jail. You know, I, I think, what people don't understand, you know, is that guys like me, you know, people who struggle

with opiates, we chase death for a feeling. Yeah. You know, we wake up every single day and it becomes the norm to take a chance of dying. I have to put it that way because sometimes I don't think people really wrap their head around that, you know, that there's people out there addicted to opiates that every day they wake up and they take a chance. And that's how sad we are, and that's how sick we get, that I can leave my two children watching blues clues on the couch and my wife. And, you know, there's a good chance I'm not going to come back that day. And that was one of those days. By the grace of God, I was in a parking lot.

And, you know, but that started it. You know, in 2004, now it's, now opiates are such, it's front page news, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. But in 2004, it wasn't. So in 2004, for this former Boston Celtic to be found overdosed in a parking lot of Dunkin' Donuts, people were like horrified. Where now it's, it's unfortunately pretty common. You know, it's in the news every day. Well, I mean, I think the whole Oxy thing in the U.S. is it hasn't been properly covered at all. I mean, these are incredibly powerful drugs that have. been over-prescribed and pushed in the market and they knew what was happening you know they knew how addictive this thing was and they pushed it they really pushed it and they knew that

there were you know all these drug rings popping up if you read about it i mean i know you've read about it but yeah for our audience like it is uh it is staggering the the level that this drug has been pushed on the market i mean this town's this Towns in Kentucky and Ohio of population 3,000 were in a five-year period, three million oxycontin were prescribed. You know, it was like a testing ground. Oh, my gosh. And I think that's why what we're seeing today is the effects of oxycontin and now

fentanyl and the heroin and all the overdose deaths. It's, you know, it all started for a lot of people with oxycontin. When you reflect on your life, do you look, back on in some ways being lucky and fortunate that you're where you are today and that you're alive and that you're sober, you've got this loving family? Or do you look back and you say, you know, if a few things didn't happen this way, you know, maybe I play a 10-year career in the NBA and maybe this and that? Like, how do you reflect on it? You know, I'm unbelievably fortunate that I had an opportunity to play in the NBA because what it's done is it's given me a

platform to discuss this right it's given me an opportunity to be a voice um i mean your credibility on this topic is a 15 out of 10 yeah totally and and you know i've worked really hard for that you know when i first started speaking and talking about this and writing a book it was my experience right it was all the experience i had in the street with heroin in in my addiction now i've worked really hard to kind of flip it and be, you know, somebody who's well read, educated and I'm now in the healing space of this and part of the recovery process. So when I reflect back, did I miss opportunities? Yes. I was a second round draft pick and you don't make a lot of money in the NBA. You know, it's not the contracts of today. I spent it as fast as I made it to be.

honest with you. I'm glad that I didn't make it too long because I probably wouldn't be here today. If I was making a million dollars a year playing basketball, I don't think I'd be alive. So the perspective today is, you know, I'm very, very grateful that I went through what I went through. And you're on whoop, which is incredibly cool. I see you got one on. And how long have you been wearing whoop? So I was introduced to whoop probably two and a half years ago. An employee of who happened to be

an Olympian, I believe, a swimmer. Yeah. Showed up at my wellness center and just kind of pitched it to me. And I was intrigued, right? Because I think the recovery community is very underserved.

I think when you look at treatment centers and what they do for people who are struggling with substance use disorder or alcoholism, there's not much effort put into it. And, you know, something that's, you know, an illness, people just throw a big book at you and say, get sober. So I wanted to be different. And when I opened up my wellness center, you know, we have hyperbaric chambers. We have acupuncturists, massage therapist, we have personal trainers, nutritionists. I wanted to do more. I wanted to offer more. And then WOOP walked in.

And I started thinking, like, a very underserved area of this is sleep. And anybody with alcoholism or addiction in early recovery are going to struggle with sleep. So if we can track their sleep, we can kind of focus on performance. And if we can look at the data throughout the week and how well they slept, how well they recovered, and then match it up with their therapy in their appointment, like maybe we're going to we're going to get more out of them at three o'clock in the afternoon rather than at nine o'clock in the morning. Love it.

So, yeah, so I just wanted to kind of see if I can make a connection, you know, with the data and performance in this space. And I think we've done a really good job with it. Do you think there's any element to being able to look at whoop data that keeps you accountable? Oh, 100%. Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

The team aspect of it, you know, like, first of all, your guy, the Olympian, he signs me up, right? So I take the whoop and we're together, we're paired. Yeah. And like, I'm like looking at his performance through the day and I'm like, no, this isn't, this isn't fair. You know, so because his strain was ridiculous. So, so. I do like the team aspect of it. I do like that there's a level of accountability.

But I also love that, you know, you get to evaluate yourself at the end of the day. Whoop in a lot of ways can be a mirror, right? And I think particularly in your industry where if someone gets sober and all of a sudden their habits are healthy. And actually, I know people who have come off drugs on whoop and their data. I mean, it's like, it's like looking at two different human beings. Totally. It's not like, oh, this person's getting healthier. It's like two different people, completely different people.

But the other side of that coin is if you go back on a destructive path, I mean, like that, it shows up in the data. It shows the data. Yeah. I mean, you know, our data scientists could probably tell when I have two glasses of wine. I mean, that's obvious alcohol shows up in my system, let alone, you know, you're finishing a bottle of vodka. cup or opiates or cocaine yeah yeah but but also you know where you can pair up and be teams and hold each other accountable and at the end of the day go through it see what you did how you doing and then all of a sudden it's like wait a second you haven't done anything for two weeks

so it's it's almost a red flag goes off let's call them and say hey what's going on with you you know why has why has your strain like why has your performance dropped so drastically The recovery community, like, could really, really benefit from it. There's so many different angles. It is a mirror, you know, there's no doubt about that. It's a gut check at the end of the day. And, but why shouldn't performance be analyzed in this space when you're fighting for your life? Like, that's, that should be, period.

Right. Like, it's like if, you know, Alabama football and all the major. you know, NBA and NFL teams, you know, they, they want to track that data to see if they can perform well on a football field or a basketball court. These people are fighting for their life. So why not? You know, why not pay attention to the data? Why not pay attention to the numbers? Why not identify, like, you know, to my therapist here, right? So we have 38 people that live on this property. We're on that right now. And if my therapist grabs, you know, one of the guests, cell phones and looks at their data

and says, listen, you slept horrible last night. You didn't do much yesterday. Why don't we put this appointment later in the day where I know you're going to be feeling better, you know? So if you have four appointments with your therapist a week and they're one on one and you're here a month, you're looking at 16 appointments. So why not be the best possible at the best possible. possible performance level as you can possibly be when you walk into me.

So I think that's what Wolf does for us. That's what it does for me. So every guest that come in here, I introduce them to it. You know, as I said to you prior to this, you know, it's not just sports. You know, it's life. Totally. Yeah. And it's, you know, a lot of times it's people, you know, see it and they identify, you know,

oh, activity, you know, and I see, I identify it as. accountability and life-changing for a lot of people. Well, I appreciate that, man. I mean, it's, look, it's so cool for us at Woop every day and building this technology to see the impact and to, and it is making a difference. And that's what makes the long days and the hard algorithms and the grind of building a business, frankly, all worth it is to get to meet you and get to hear how it's having an impact on your life and the people that you're having an impact on their life.

So look, it's amazing. I hope so. You know, and I hope there's other people in this space that listen to this podcast and, you know, they do the same that they introduce it to people who are struggling, you know, because everybody comes in, you know, malnourished to a certain extent. Their diet is off. Everybody's sleep is off. And if we can really focus on that and get them back on track to where they're recovering

and healing and their brain, they have a better chance at sustaining life. long-term recovery. I believe whoop has a big factor in that. And, you know, so that's why, you know, when you ask, reflect back, I am 12 years sober. Congratulations. Thank you. And I noticed like to be at my lowest and feel my lowest. And if I can't, whatever tool I can give people who walk into my center that can benefit them, I'm going to give it to them. And, and the who is a major, major part of it. What's your message for 13, 15, 18, 20 year olds today around drugs and alcohol? I feel like when I was that age and I heard a story, I don't know if I ever heard a story as powerful as yours, frankly, but, you know, you've heard versions of the story

about the dangers of it. It's still, and I'm young enough to still remember what the moment was like, it still felt abstract. It still felt like it couldn't be me. No doubt. And that's why I changed it. So for the first six years, public speaking, I would walk into high schools and I would tell my story. But then I learned really quickly that my story wasn't enough. And because, again, the data, the emails that I would receive would be from thousands of kids throughout the year saying, I hope you're doing well, Mr. Herron. I remember you come into my school. You had a really tough story. I never got their story. Right. So I switched it. And ESPN and I partnered and we did a documentary called The First Day. And because I believe when it comes to drugs with kids, we talk about the worst day and we forget the first day.

We tell our children how drugs are going to affect them and what it looks like in the end rather than asking them why it's beginning. I'd say 80% of the parents who have teenagers who were drinking and smoking currently when they first found out it was who were you with? Where did you go? How did you get it? What did you do? The parents never ask them why. The parent never sits down with the adolescent, the teenager, looks him in the eye and

said, you know, why did you have to do this to yourself tonight? What's a good answer or a bad answer to that question? I think the common answer is my self-esteem is not what you think it is. You know, I struggle with my confidence. I was in a crowd of people, so I wanted to kind of follow and feel part of it. You know, and that's kind of like the general. You know, obviously there's kids out there who, you know, are predisposed to this. I say this often.

I remember going out on Fridays. And I remember looking across the room and seeing friends in high school, college, and in my professional career. I'd look across the room and I would see the kids who never drank and they never smoked. They'd be there with soda water, bottled water. And I would always look at them and I would say, how come they don't have to do it? And I do.

yeah that's like what is yeah like why what's different about them that they're so content having fun at 15 16 in this basement without it and i have to and i have to um so i always kind of live with that and even in my professional career right i would we'd be out at night and i would see my teammates who you know were drinking water and not smoking in their hotel room and And I would just, I would always be like, it must be nice. You know, it must be nice to have that ability to not. And I finally found that ability at 32 years old. What was that moment at 32 that that got you on the right track?

Because there were a couple moments before that, that you could have, it felt like that could have been the moment too, right? There were a couple, like you were pronounced dead at one point. Totally. So I think the moment that spoke to me the most was when a counselor told me that I should play dead for my family. Wow. I had just relapsed and my wife was in the hospital with our son. She just gave birth.

My Christopher was nine, Samantha was seven and Drew was a newborn and I relapsed on alcohol and heroin. And when I went back to the center, he told me I should play dead. He said, you probably won't kill yourself. You possibly will overdose and die. But if you don't, give your wife some peace and tell her to tell your children that their daddy died in a car accident today. And I want you to get in a vehicle when you leave here and drive as far away from Massachusetts as you possibly can. He looked me in the eye and he said, play dead and let them live. Wow.

And I contemplated that for a lot of. long time internally. You know, like, I'm going to, I've thought of suicide multiple times. But there was, I had many nights where I wanted to disappear. And, you know, my wife is this beautiful woman who went to Providence College and has her masters and has a great family. And I have these beautiful children. And I'm saying to myself, like, this poor, poor woman, you know, she chose me.

well you picked an amazing wife by the way totally it's the seventh grade that's a great romance story the fact that you guys are still together through all this so so play dead it was the pivotal moment and it was like now it's dig in or die and i dug in you know i dug in and i've been dug in ever since and i'm still digging so well congratulations man i mean i think i think you know there's a lot of darkness to your story, but I think it gives you such an enormous credibility. And, you know, I can tell in the way that you speak about it and your public speaking. And it's definitely making an impact. You know, I don't feel that.

I hope you feel that. I do. I do. And I love it. You know, 12 years ago, my wife was on food stamps. And, you know, we were on food stamps as a family. You know, and 12 years later, my foundation has given over $4 million. in treatment.

It's amazing. You know, we've sent over 4,800 people away to get free care. Amazing. Yeah. So, you know, and it was all because of someone extended their hand to me, you know, and help me. And, you know, now sitting here, I'm looking out of my office and I see, you know, 40 people walking around this property who are all becoming a better version,

you know, a better version of themselves. a better mom, a better dad, and it's, it's pretty remarkable to be part of it. Not many, you know, not many, uh, not many, uh, not many jobs you get to witness miracles on a daily basis. And, and I'm fortunate to be part of it. Well, you're helping create those miracles, man. It's, uh, it's amazing the work that you do and your team does. You should be incredibly proud of what you're doing. Now, if someone's listening to this and they want to learn more about your wellness center, where can they, uh, where can they do that? Heron Wellness.com, you know, we have two locations. We have two properties in Massachusetts

and one in Warrington, Virginia. The one in Warrantin, Virginia opens November 1st. But Heronwellness.com will give you access to all of what we do here and, you know, the holistic approach to recovery supported by, you know, the clinical side. I know you have big time people on this podcast and I don't consider myself one of them. I am, unbelievably grateful that you created this technology. Oh, thank you, man. That means the world. No, for real.

I'm just, I'm happy that I had an opportunity to look you in the eye and thank you. And I look forward to the day that I can high five and hug you, you know, because it's pretty amazing. Oh, thank you so much. Look, I've got it a, I've got an amazing team and, you know, this is what keeps us driving when, you know, the times are tough or decisions are tough. knowing that we're creating technology that's improving lives.

Big time, saving lives. Oh, thank you, man. True. Thank you. Now, if someone's listening to this and they're also wondering where they can learn more information about addiction or help or where would you recommend they look. So I would recommend going to my foundation to the Heron Project, Heronproject.org. You know, it's funny, we're zooming and doing this today.

and my foundation, you know, we do 17 meetings a week just for families who are suffering with loved ones from alcoholism or addiction, 17 meetings a week that are all virtual and supported with the clinical staff. So, you know, we've had to kind of pivot in this COVID space and most of our support is done virtually. But heronproject.org would definitely be a resource for your listeners to kind of get some information. Well, perfect. We're going to put that in the show notes. Chris, look, thank you again for spending an hour with me and with our audience.

And again, I think the work that you're doing is truly inspiring. Man, I appreciate it, brother. Thank you. Thank you to Chris for coming on the podcast. You can check out some of the resources he mentioned in our show notes at the locker. You can use the code Will Amid, W-I-L-L-A-H-E-H-E. M-E-D to get 15% off a WOOP membership. Don't forget, you can follow us at WOOP, at Will Ahmed.

And folks, we want you to stay healthy and stay in the green.