New York Giants tight end Darren Waller recounted on Tuesday his past struggles with drug addiction and the time he overdosed in 2017.
Appearing on the 2nd Wind Podcast (beginning at the 17:40 mark of the video), Waller talked about overdosing on snorted pills in 2017 while serving a one-year suspension for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy:
"I went to get out of the car and I felt like I was just gonna hit the ground, and I'm just like, 'That's gonna cause a scene.' This is right around the corner from the Ravens' facility. ... I get back in the car and I'm just thinking, 'All right, I'm just gonna come down from this and I'm gonna be straight.' But then it's just like somebody pulled the plug from behind the TV ... I just laid my head back and then woke up and it was night time because I passed out in the day time.
"I woke up night time, and it's like I just sweated my whole body out and I was just cold and felt crazy. I don't know what happened, but then you look back and process it through therapy and stuff, and it's like, you OD'ed, you didn't voluntarily take a nap there for like six hours."
Waller, who was a sixth-round draft pick by the Ravens in 2015, had already been suspended twice for violating the NFL's substance abuse policy before making it to his third season, and he noted that overdosing was the wakeup call he needed in order to get help:
"I woke up from that and I feel like in that moment God had done enough to [make me say], 'All right, I don't really have control of this, I'll at least go to rehab and see what this is like.'
"Before that, I always felt like I had control of everything, like the joke's on you, I'm in the facility doing everything high and you don't know I'm high, but in reality it's controlling me, and that moment was the reality of that."
Waller was reinstated by the NFL shortly before the 2018 season, signed to the Ravens' practice squad and was later signed off the practice squad by the Raiders with whom he spent five seasons before getting traded to the Giants this past offseason.
After spending his first several NFL seasons as a wide receiver, including his first year with the Raiders, he transitioned to tight end and it changed his career.
Waller had just 18 receptions for 178 yards and two touchdowns in his first three seasons combined before exploding for 90 catches for 1,145 yards and three touchdowns in 2019.
He followed that up with a career-high 107 grabs for 1,196 yards and nine touchdowns en route to his first Pro Bowl in 2020.
Waller was plagued by injuries the next two seasons, leading the Raiders to trade him to the Giants with whom he has nine receptions for 112 yards through two games.
In a short amount of time, Waller went from nearly out of the league to one of the elite tight ends in the game, and his willingness to seek treatment following his overdose was the first major step toward getting on the right path.
