Fall River, Massachussets. A small town where basketball players are treated like royalty. Chris Herren, the King of Fall River, was inducted into The New England Hall of Fame and featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. The Durfee High School basketball team was the Dillon Panthers of Friday Night Lights yet seven out of the fifteen players became heroin addicts. One of these is Chris Herren, but last night he shared his remarkable recovery with the entire community at Riverside High School.   

I expected to hear a story about the four times he had overdosed, or maybe the part about him spending $25,000 a month on Oxycontin. But instead Herren explained that his rock bottom was stealing his dad’s Miller Lites at the age of 14. Choking up, Herren explained that he drank the same beer that tore his family apart.

“The kids who can go to Friday night games without alcohol, without planning their whole prom around getting drunk, those kids are my heroes”

After seeing all the young kids in the packed auditorium, Herren explained that he was not going to tell his horrific nightmare of a story, but rather speak in a way that could give kids courage to stand up for those who suffer with addiction and ways to not fall into peer pressure.

“I wish someone would have told me: Why can’t you just be you? I wish on Friday’s and Saturday nights I didn’t have to drink booze with my friends to feel normal,” Herren said. After all the addictions and turmoil he has faced for over 25 years, Herren said all of his problems started in the basements of his friends’ houses.

He simply stated that the peer pressure he faced in high school carried with him his entire life until he was faced with the pressure of doing cocaine with his college roommate. The one line of cocaine that he intended to do ultimately led to four heroin overdoses.

“The kids who can go to Friday night games without alcohol, without planning their whole prom around getting drunk, those kids are my heroes,” Herren said.

Herren also spoke to the parents, about ways to prevent their kids from falling into drugs and alcohol. “We need to challenge our kids to be better socially, and stronger emotionally. We push them athletically and academically, but fail them socially and emotionally.”

Herren is partnered with Project Purple, an organization that helps individuals overcome substance abuse. Project Purple has just been recently introduced to Loudoun County. In the past two years, there has been 21 deaths due to heroin overdose in Loudoun County.

Herren’s last piece of advice to the audience was: “If you have a friend in high school who struggles, you have to help them. You can’t look away.”