Transcript of South Beach Sessions - Darren Waller

You're listening to DraftKings Network. Welcome again to South Beach Sessions. I'm genuinely enthusiastic about this one. I do not say that just the way everyone says, Hey, I'm excited about this guest. Darren Waller, I've admired, obviously, his physical skills for a while, but what I've admired the most is that he is unusually comfortable being vulnerable in public because of whatever it is he's learned through what seems like from over here, a fascinating journey. So he's a pro-bowler. He was obviously great with the Raiders, went to the Giants, and I thought he was going to be great there, too. And it seemed like a thousand things happened that that very hard, comes to Miami after a year off and reinvents himself here. It was a pleasure to watch you work with the dolphins. But like I said, the most interesting part of you to me is like, Man, this guy's really comfortable talking about tender things, about growth, about being lonely in a way that I'm simply not used to hearing come out of the huddle. And so I'm like, no wonder that guy feels alone. My guess is he's walking in a locker room with a whole bunch of people who are looking at him and being like, What's he up in What's he feelings about?

We're here to play football. Why does he care so much about getting his feelings heard about things? So anyways, I admire the way that you are and the parts of your story you've shared. And so thank you for being on with us.

Yeah, no, it's an honor to be here.

So Take me through just chronologically what you would describe as the landmark posts in your upbringing, where if you were explaining to a stranger that you wanted to know you a little bit what your upbringing was like and how you were beginning to be formed, what were your first 14, 15 years of life like?

First 14, 15 years, I grew up 30 minutes north of Atlanta, Georgia. My parents, my dad's from Queens, New York. My mom is from Maryland area, and I was born in DC. We moved to Colorado when I was young, and we moved to Georgia right before I turned five, so that's pretty much all I remember. I had both parents in the home, parents still together, I had an older sister. On paper, it's great Great childhood, great area we grew up in, great schools. But learning more and looking back on my life as I've gone forward, both my parents came from addictive households. For them, I think they did a tremendous job with my sister and I. I think they had experiences where they grew up where it was like, We want to give our kids the opposite of what we may have had to experience. And in doing that, I think they did a great job of teaching us how to communicate and be good in school and present well and have manners and be respectful to other people. But in some ways, I don't think they anticipated because I don't think they would have known either that it turned us into performers.

It paid off for my football career and things like that. But in a lot of ways, it just made me, I don't know, very hyper vigilant of wanting to please people and not wanting to feel like, rejection and things like that. I had some, rejection things going on early on. I remember being in social environments around school, people my age, very early on, and it was always like I was a little bit more sensitive and a little... I was Black, but I didn't act Black. I was, I guess, advanced as far as school comes, gifted or whatever. I was often one of the only Black kids in my classes and things like that. So everywhere I went, I felt like I didn't necessarily fit in.

It's everywhere? So you like music, you're a little bit of a nerd, but you're a great athlete, and you can hide in the confidence of everyone thinks the great athlete is popular. But is this really who I am? Aren't I more than this?

Yeah, realizing I was very good at sports growing up, and that It gave me some inclusion into spaces. But a lot of times it was like, Yeah, why do you listen to music like that? Why do you dress like that?

But it's not the real you that's getting the inclusion, right? It's just the football player. It's just the performer. It's not the things about you that you actually want seen. It's the things that people think you are, which is there's the football player guy and you want to be seen as something you want the rest of you seen.

Yeah. It's like the representative of me that I want these people to see. And that's as early as elementary school, middle school, and on into high school. And so I feel like in middle school, it was really rough for me because that's where I started to act out and like, Oh, I want to act out to gain attention. But also it's like the dudes that get all the girls are acting bad in that and doing a bunch of stuff. And so I want to be like them because I don't really get much attention from girls. I want to be cool. And it's like that brought me out of really trying to figure out who I am authentically as a kid. There's so much pressure in those times on kids to be socially accepted, which I think is a basic human need. But at the same time, I felt like I went above and beyond, trying to be accepted to the point where it was just like, I don't really know what I want to pursue because I want to pursue the things that get me validation in the eyes of other people.

Instead of yourself, right? So explain to me this. You're covering a lot of ground here. So when you say that's a big umbrella, my parents both came from an addictive background, what does that mean?

So it means for them, they They themselves didn't take on those addictive qualities, but there's almost like a level of codependence because it's like in those households, you got to find ways to survive, to cope, and to almost disassociate in ways from that.

Does this mean that your grandparents have some addiction issues? Yes. On both sides?

Both my dad's parents and my mom's dad, so my maternal grandfather.

And whatever it is they've learned in the patterns of their upbringing on how they keep it together and stay away from the addictive stuff, it's all part of their learning process. That's the environment you're growing up in.

Yeah. The main thing is, like I said, there's so many positive qualities that came from it. But one of the things I think lacked was a place for emotional understanding and acceptance because I never really felt like there was a... In my home, it was my emotions where I could be able to I don't think they were ever... There were times where it was like... My dad one time was like, Why you cry so much? One experience like that, and that made me be like, All right, I'm not going to cry. Hold things in and just carry them to myself. Because the households they grew up in, there probably wasn't space for them to necessarily-In this case, this doesn't have very much to do with addiction stuff, but your dad is just saying, be more masculine than that.

Whatever whatever it is, what are you doing? Why are you crying? But push it down. Don't.

Yeah. I feel like it was an experience where I'm sure my dad had a bunch on his late at the time, and it was probably a time where I was crying a lot and just very sensitive. And just in one moment, you can be like, All right, what is this? Why are you doing this so much? But for me, that was like, Oh, I shouldn't be like this. And so from there, it turned into a lot of just stuffing things down. And by 14, 15 was when I got into drugs and stuff like that.

So how does this happen? Because I've talked before on our show about, I I don't understand how, for example, Drew Barrymore, what would have to be happening in her life for her to have a cocaine dependency at 12 years old. Especially if you're coming from a household that otherwise has plenty of disciplines in it. How How does that happen? It's not an absence of supervision. It's just it happens. How does it happen that you get to drug dependency by 15 when you've got caring parents who are trying to give a good environment for you and you feel like you're doing all the other things correctly, but there's a part of you that doesn't know at 15 that you're actually hiding and some of this feels inauthentic because you're not grown enough to understand what the hell is going on with all your feelings.

Right. Yeah. Just around that time, just highly anxious from just trying to be so hyper vigilant, like I was talking about and just depressed, not really feeling like a lot of things that I wanted to see go my way were going my way. I feel like football was one of the things that I leaned on as like, Okay, I'm good at this. But And then freshman, sophomore year of high school, everybody got bigger than me, and I was really small and hadn't really hit the weight room or anything yet. And so I was fragile. And my freshman year, I rolled the bench. In my sophomore year of high school, I was hurt. Most of the years, I had this elbow surgery. And so I was like, dang, football is not working out either. And just in a low point of, I don't really enjoy life, per se. And I never really was somebody that was like, I wanted to get into drugs. I knew, okay, these aren't necessarily good from what my parents had told me. But it was presented to me in a way like my friends had gone in their parents' medicine cabinets and found hydrocodon pills and painkillers.

And for me, it was like, I don't feel good. They present it to me in a way that it would make me feel good. I was like, I'm going to try it. And it was instantly like, yes, this is how I want to feel. It wasn't really doing anything crazy. It was just popping a couple pills and watching a movie in the basement.

I mean, all You're describing... Wait a minute. At 15 years old, I can take a pill that will make me go from feeling sad and lonely to feeling good? Okay. There's not a lot more thought than that, right?

I'm in. Yeah. And then you started to get more frequent. It went from every now and then to, all right, every weekend. And then it was like, all right, a few days during the week. And then a year after that, there was a kid that was on my football team who was like... He saw weed, and he was like, he sold weed. And he was like, if you pick me up and take me to school every day, we can smoke a blunt before we go to school. And I was like, sign me up. And then from there, started drinking. Got interest in bud lights and sky vodkas in high school and spring break and stuff like that.

And it's fun, and it helps lets you interact with others and you feel less lonely, and it acts as a bandaid for you not understanding that you've got something screaming inside you that it needs addressing. But at this point, you're not even thinking that you can be introspective, right?

No, not at all, because I didn't have any awareness at the time of, Okay, in order to heal this and effectively put this behind me or grow from this, I have to sit with that discomfort and face it. I had no awareness at the time. It was just like, Oh, if I just move it out the way and stuff it away and do this and feel good, this works. This is the formula. At that same time, going into my junior year, senior year in high school, it's like when I started to grow, then the athletic opportunities started to present themselves. Then it's like, girls start to come into the picture. You're more popular. It's like, okay, this is just my formula. This works for me. My grades are still good in school, and I'm still Yes, ma'am. No, sir. Looking people in the eye and everybody thinks highly of me. And so this is just part of who I am. And so I'm just going to keep doing this.

You were presenting perfectly, right? You had gotten very good at the performance of showing others what an amazing thing you were to stand in front of people and be perfectly dishonest.

Mastered it very early on.

And got applauded at every turn for an inauthentic version of yourself. Yes. Yes. How did you get good at the performance? Where did you realize... You could trick your parents as well, correct? Yeah. At this point, you're an accomplished liar as a teenager because you've got to learn to be, right? Yeah.

To understand the lying and Almost like moving in the shadows. There's a couple of stories I have to share. When I was younger, I want to say both of these experiences, I was around like 8, 9 years old. The first one was my parents would tell us, Okay, you guys can We drink one soda a day. Other than that, we're drinking water. So I was like, Okay. Then my parents, one day, I guess they went into my room for something. And I think it was my dad, he looked under the bed and there was 50 soda cans under my bed. So I'm drinking more than the one soda can a day, and I'm hiding under my bed like, Oh, I'm getting away with this. And then another one was, I was a huge wrestling fan, like WWF fan when I was a kid, diehard. And I saw they sold action figures and stuff like that. And so One day I was like, Oh, if I can memorize my parents' credit card information when the credit card is out, I can go online, order these action figures. And if I get home from the bus, I can beat the mailman home and get the wrestling action figures before my parents see them.

And I got home, and when they're in the rest of the wrestling action figures were stacked up in the house, my parents were like, What the fuck is this? So it's like that performing, stuff like that in public was what I did to gain validation and stuff like that. But it was also a shadow side to that, to where it was very early on, I was already trying to be sneaky and move like that. And once I started doing drugs and stuff, it was like, creeping in, taking money out my mom's purse and just doing things like that. So there was a darker side to that behavior, too.

Was there shame about it? Were you paying attention? Did you think you had a problem or did you think you had it under control?

I thought I had it. I was convinced that I had it under control and was under that illusion all the way up until I started seeing the consequences in the NFL for my behavior. I started hitting the news really big. You're talking most of my life. I was under the illusion of I'm in control. I got good grades. I'm going places athletically. I treat people well. I've checked all the boxes that everybody told me that I should check as a growing young person. So what is wrong? There's nothing wrong with them.

It's just crazy that you were fooling everybody, though, right? That it's not until the NFL starts snooping around. It's not like you're a six-round pick, right? So they have to background and take a look at everything you're doing. But it's not like you're one of the giant investments, but you could have fooled just about anyone until they come around with their detective work and it's like, Wait a minute, you might have a problem.

Right. And then there was also times in college, too, because I was suspended from my college team twice. I failed two of the three drug tests, three strikes, year-out drug test from the NCAA.

Pretty sure I failed my third one But- That's the only reason you were a six-round pick, right?

I think it's a combination of that. And then also we ran the triple option offense when I was in college. So you know football stats. 1,000 yards is a good receiving year. I didn't have a thousand yards my four years combined. But it's the plays where they did throw me the ball were big plays. And most of the plays that I made were against NFL-level competition. When we played, the Florida State was really good when I was in college, and Georgia, and Clemsons and games like that was where most of my production came. Scouts probably watched other people and being like, Oh, wait, who is this guy over here making plays against these first-round type of talents? I think it was the not really much production and with the red flags as they label it, was probably the reason why I was sixth-round. I think I probably would have went undrafted, but I ran a fast 40.

But anybody can watch you. Anybody who watched you with the Raiders running through a secondary would say, That is a majestically, athletically gifted human being who can't be covered by other great athletes. I would have assumed that you coming out of college were some version of what I saw with the Raiders.

Yeah. It blew me away because the Ravens dragged me in six rounds, and they did an interview with John Harbaugh after my career started to take off, and he was like, We had him first-round grade, and I was like, What? I never even It never even crossed my mind that people had me rated that high or saw that much in me at the time because I just didn't really have that level of confidence. Because you mentioned the shame. A lot of that stuff followed me around, so it was tough to build a level of confidence in yourself when that shame is always there and you're always trying to... You're either feeling the shame or trying to push the shame away by putting something in your body.

Well, it sounds to me like you're wandering around the Earth as a gentle, tender human being who doesn't quite know himself yet, and you're medicating the fact that you know deep down without having the ability to put a name on it, Oh, I'm a fraud. I'm lying to everybody all the time about everything. Yeah, correct. It's hard to live with yourself inside. It's certainly hard to love yourself. The things that I've been impressed about hearing you talk about since then is on the other side of that pain, you have grown to the place where you realized that you had to go through that pain so that you can be gentle with the human being that you like more now than you did then. And so where did you learn some of that stuff? But I also want to go back to, so you're in college and you fool people until when? When are you fool? Because you're failing drug tests. If you're failing drug tests, now people are going to say, even if you're functional and disciplined in other ways, Oh, this person, while they might not have a problem, they're not telling the truth all the time either.

They're not quite as impeccable as he looks as he presents. Right.

Yeah. Double life was a lot of the terms that were used throughout my college career and the first part of my NFL career. But yeah, in college, there's a program to when you start to fail drug tests. So They put me with a sports psychologist, and they had me talking to the sports psychologist, and it's like, you can keep those people at arm's length. That's just what I got good at doing.

Oh, you can perform for them, too. You entertain yourself in therapy if you're as smart as you are.

Yeah. Then after the second test, they started sending me to these outpatient rehab programs to where three nights a week, I would go to basically a rehab place, and they would teach you about addiction, all that stuff. And there's these sharing groups and therapies and all that. And it's like, I can get those people to run around of like, Okay, yeah. You sign this contract of you're going to be sober for the six-week program or whatever it was. And it's like, I'll sign the contract, and it's like, I'm going high as soon as I leave. And that continued on throughout college. And it's just like, yeah, all these people were trying to help me and trying to figure out, okay, what is going on here and zeroing in their focus on me. But I'm just like dodging and trying to find any way possible to allow myself to keep doing what I've been doing.

But also great at that, right? Not that you think you're great at it and are lying to yourself. You're consistently fooling everybody, correct? Parents, everyone who cares about you, stealing from purses, all of it has an explanation, and all of it at the end of it, you're charming you, the inauthentic you. And you look back at that person and are kind and gentle to that person with forgiveness through the clarity of retrospect?

Much more so now. I was in San Diego. I think it was right before or right after my divorce, and I was doing a sound bath. A really good friend of mine, Donnie, we went and did this sound bath in San Diego. When I was in the sound I thought for some reason it brought up the earlier experiences in my life. I always look back on myself and I would be like, I was just this fucked up kid. I was just always getting in trouble and always doing these things, always. But I was never able to look at that part of myself as like you were just describing this gentle human being, trying to figure out how to navigate the world and find authenticity in myself. It was just a lot of pain and a lot of shame present that was keeping me from doing that. I wasn't this I wasn't this fucked up kid. In that sound bath, I was able to connect to that. I started crying. After the sound bath was over, people started like, they had food there, and people were just talking about how much of a great experience it was.

I was crying for the first time since that experience I told you about where it was like, Oh, I shouldn't be crying when I was a kid.

Oh, you got the release from a sound bath that you had pushed down since your dad made you feel like not enough of a man for crying the first time.

Yeah, and I had to leave. I just walked around like in Sanitas. I just walked around the city, in It was just to myself and being like, wow, I never once looked at that version of myself with any type of kindness or curiosity or love. It was just always shaming that kid because I grew up with my mom It was the firm one, so she was always like, No, we're not doing that. We're doing this to try to get us to be the best versions of ourselves. So I adopted that to myself. And that translated into the relationship I had with God. I've seen God was just like, You keep doing this shit. You're going to hell type of... And so it was always like, I adopted that shame into the inner parts of myself as opposed to... But that experience was the beginning of like, not like I wasn't trying to do harm. I was really trying to do good, but I was just coping with the difficulties I was facing in the best way that I could.

I don't know how many alternative forms of healing you get into or how much of the unknown you partake in. But when you say the sound bath, are you articulating for us the idea that something about the sound and the vibration And then I had something from inside you that you would have had no access to and lubricated you with the release of the repressions of, No, I'm allowed to cry. I need to. This has not been healthy the way that I've been doing this.

Yeah, because the way the sound baths work, I don't know the science behind it. Somebody can probably explain it better than me, but it's like those sounds, they can start to penetrate your body in these areas, almost like you hear people talk about chakras, these blockages that you have energetically in your body. You can feel them ringing in your body and feeling uncomfortable Oh, my gosh, what is that? And then it naturally, my spirit, my mind went to that place. I wasn't sitting down like, I'm going. My objective for this is going to that place mentally. I was not. I was trying to have a good present experience with that. But it's just like that's where my inner world took me.

I don't mean to stereotype about football players in general, because I know there are many of them who feel many different things, and you would know far better than I. But if you were to go around your huddle and tell all of your teammates this story, you would get understanding or would they think you're a weirdo?

I think it's probably more accepting now. But I mean, for the large part of me, I've been in the lead for over a decade now. It's Most would be like... Their first reaction would definitely be like, huh? In their brain, it's just like it wouldn't connect because it's like, here we are in this sport, in this industry, where it thrives on imposing your will on other people and showing no weakness in being strong and being tough and just violent and all these things. It's like there's not really space for that in that career path. Most would at least be like, What? No, probably not being able to connect to that in that way.

Oh, but you know now, though, that this thing that is viewed as something as a weakness, you know it's a strength. You know that to be open-minded about these things and to take care of yourself and to recognize that you're a vulnerable, tender person with feelings who can speak them aloud, that doesn't make you weak. That makes you strong. Right.

On a general level, it's like you... It seems obvious, but it's also not because we're these football players, but there's a human in the pads. And that human goes onto the field, the same human with the same way you think, the same way whatever you're feeling or dodging. You bring those things onto the field, which is what I started to realize when I went to rehab. But it's like, yeah, if the human being Being mentally, emotionally, spiritually, isn't right. You can't expect to go out on the field and expect your product or how you play to just completely flip a switch and be something different. That's just not the case.

It's a bit of, I don't know if I'd say mind fuck, but be in tune physically, but not spiritually and emotionally, as if those are three different things.

Right. But it's like we're not necessarily taught in a deep and elaborate way that all those three make up the football player, maybe even more so mentally and spiritually, have even more of an impact because it's like the physical gifts with me were always there. But once I was able to step away for the first time and go to rehab and those things and come back, the physical skills weren't different. It was the inside that was different that allowed a whole different career or what people expected of me to be like it was night and day.

But you thought you were happy and having fun during the Okay, now the women are paying attention to me. I'm having football success. I'm getting high. This is the big life. For a while there, you're living the dream, correct? Or there's not happiness in there. It's just empty, superficial, young guy stuff.

All the moments of joy and excitement that I thought were real joy and real... It was all in the highs. It was all in the highs of getting drunk, getting high, the highs of the validation from women, the sexual experiences, and things like that. It was just all the highs. I look back now, it wasn't really lasting joy. That was a constant throughout my life. It was just whenever I could have those highs, so it's like you're just chasing them.

And it It's empty ultimately, right? Because you get to them and then you realize, well, wait a minute, this doesn't fill the hole.

Yeah, you go up, you go high, but then it's like you got to come back down. And in the coming back down is where you're withdrawing from that experience. And when do I get the next one?

Where would you point to now in retrospect and say, well, this is where the details of the usage were too problematic, where it was out of my control, where it is others identified more accurately what was happening with me that I did have a problem, a problem I wasn't even acknowledging?

I would say leading up to my... So I suspended once. My first suspension in the league was before my second year, was for four games. But after that season, It would have been before my third season was when I got banned for a year from the NFL. That was June 2017. And leading up into that time, it was me and a teammate that I had on the Ravens who was one of the only guys I would hang out with because we would do the same things. And We would talk about, Okay, we got to stop. There's a lot of good that can come before this because it was looking like that was going to be my first year as a starter or at least a major contributor on the offense. But it would be like, All right, we're going to I'm going to stop. I'm going to stop Wednesday. Then Wednesday, I'm going to come and be like, I'm going to go Friday. Then Friday, I'm going to come and be like, Through the week. Once the weekend's over, I'll- You both were doing this?

You felt like a couple of junkies who were just living the same life without realizing you were junkies. You were just football players, and this This is what we're doing. We're the two guys who connect here because we like doing this.

Right. And then so over that, it was like, Dang, I'm telling myself I want to stop, but I'm not able to. But it still wasn't that moment where I was able to be like, I'm not in control. It It was two months after that suspension was given to me in June of 2017, it was August 11th, I went and got some pills from the people that we usually picked up from, and they were fentanyl. They weren't really what I went and picked up. It was a lesser than what I had usually got before, but I had an overdose. Coming out of that experience was that shook me enough to my core to be like, Oh, fuck. I'm playing with death here. So that was enough for me to be open to suggestions. And then it was a couple of days after that, the Ravens team doctor called me, and they still get my toxicology results from the I'm taking a drug test I'm taking, and I'm just piss and dirty, willingly. And they were like, We're scared for your life with these results. And they set up a meeting for me to meet with this addiction specialist in Atlanta, and then met with the addiction specialist And then they were like, You need to go to treatment immediately for substances, and a dual diagnosis for mental health as well.

I was open to going to that because of what that experience, how much fear it put in me.

Were you at all introspective before that, or are you having the introspection now forced on you? Have you just been medicating with bandages what is a mental issue, anxiety issue, by just, I'm going to get rid of the physical pain that I feel from football and the mental pain by just using more and more of this without examining any of it? You're just straight through. This is great. Rater is fun. How much fun am I having with women? It's a big party. I don't know. I have a problem. You're using how much at this point, would you say? When you say fentanyl, obviously that's serious. Overdose, obviously serious. How are you getting into fentanyl by accident?

As you go along, you... That's why people say weed is a gateway drug. It's completely true. Because you start smoking, you smoke a half a gram blunt. That's getting you high in the beginning. But then after a while, it's like, Shit, I need to put a gram in there. And then it's like, No, I need to smoke an eighth now. It increases. So with the pills, it's the same way. It was like those first Hydrocodon, Oxycodon pills from high school, it was like the five milligram ones. A couple of those will get you right.

But that's still... Oxycodon is... To be a 15 using that, that's a strong starting point. Your tolerance levels by 20, if you're doing that every day, it's going to reach fentanyl. It's going to get to dilatin eventually. You're going to keep going up, right?

Right. And then so by that time, it was... I escalated to... We're using 30 milligram ones. Then it's like, if you take it orally, it probably takes 20-ish minutes for it to kick in. But if you snort it, in three minutes, you're buzzing strong. And so it was probably like 30 milligram pills, regularly, and smoking every now and then, drinking probably at that time in the league, probably at least two, three, four times a week. So just that was the rotation.

It's the lifestyle, right? Mm-hmm. And so how does it become fentanyl by accident, though?

So people that we had been going to pick up from, they were like, All right, you all got to be careful out here. Because Baltimore is crazy. They're pressing pills. They'll put a logo on a pill, but it's not what you're expecting. So you got to be careful of who you're getting this stuff from. And it's just like, Yeah, all right, whatever. It's not going to happen to me type of thing. And it did happen to me.

What do you remember about the overdose, being scared straight? What are the details that you remember about? Because I imagine at this point, you also feel a little bit bulletproof, right? You're so young that life and death, mortality is not a consideration. Right.

Yeah. So just that day, I was going to be moving out of my apartment the next day because I just got my suspension. I was going to go home and live with my parents in Georgia. And so my dad was going to land later that night, and we were going to move out the next day. And so I was like, I'm just going to go get some pills, go to the There was a giant grocery store, which is in Maryland. It's right around the corner from the practice facility. So I was like, I'm going to go get these pills. I'm going to go to the giant, get some food. There's a liquor store right next door. I got some Red Stripes, whatever the fuck I was drinking at the time. I was just going to go chill in my apartment, probably play some video games, and just continue to pack up in my house. But when I got the pills, it was more like downtown Baltimore, and snored them on the way, got to the parking lot at the giant, and I put the car in park, and I was like, All right, I'm going to go in and get out.

But I opened the door and I was like, I felt like I was just going to fall on my face on the ground. I was like, This is going to cause a scene. This is like middle of the afternoon in a grocery store parking lot. I was like, I'm just going to cut the car off, sit here for a bit until I calm down or whatever, and then I'm going to go in. Then it felt like somebody just pulled the plug from behind the TV. Then I come back to, and it's nighttime, and I feel like I I lost like, hell of weight. I was like a shell of myself, and there was like the biggest beads of sweat I've ever seen in my life. I woke up just like...

You're still in the car at this point? You've just been in the parking lot. You OD in the parking lot and were there for how many hours until that time. And no one even came and got you. You were just sleeping in the car. And then you got up and drove home or after an overdose?

Drove home, just went to sleep. My dad got in. We woke up and moved the next day. It was nothing and went home.

At this point, you were thinking about quitting football. Did it have to do with any of this? Because the first time, I didn't know what your relationship was with football at the time because you've had two times you've left football, and I don't know if that's you running away from yourself or running away from football. This time when you were considering quitting football, what was happening? Was it around the drug use?

I think it definitely contributed to it. So that was my second season playing, and I was just going through it on a life level, and I was starting to have these thoughts of, I don't know if football is really helping me at all. I feel like it's intensifying everything that I'm feeling to a degree. I started to share that with people that are on staff, like team, psychologists or whatever, and just trying to open up to them a little bit. Then I tore my labor on my shoulder with a month to go in the I played the last month and had surgery after the season, but I was just almost like definitely an act of self-sabotage. I was like, I'm just going to take these pills. I'm just going to fail all the drug tests until they force me out, which they did after the mini camp and OTAs in that June suspension. It was just like, up until that point, I was just purposely failing drug tests so they could put me out of the league, as opposed to me having to say, Oh, I don't want to play football or be vulnerable in a moment.

You being strong enough, it's just such a fascinating prison that you're describing. I'm sorry that I'm smiling because it sounds like a real misery, but I felt some of this with Ricky Williams when he was in the league as a personality who didn't quite fit in the league. You're sitting here and your dreams, according to just about anybody else in the world, are all coming true. You're saying, No, this is a unique prison. It's increasing my anxieties. This is making everything that plagues me much worse. Also, as an added bonus, my body really hurts every week because the violence I'm doing is inhumane.

Precisely.

So you're trapped. Yeah. Everyone else is telling you, You need to be, you should be happy. Look, this is the life. And you're sinking deeper and deeper into, No, this is a prison, and I can only medicate it enough to fall asleep in a parking lot because I'm doing too much drugs, because I'm not actually examining why I'm not happy. I'm not loving myself correctly.

Right. Yeah. And there's a second, like you said, the leaving football. That one was like, I forced my way out. And then the league was like, Yeah, you're out of here, buddy. We don't want you here.

But doing you a solid by doing so because you don't feel strong enough. You feel like the coward who isn't strong enough to say, I don't need football. I can't. I don't want football. I'm not going to tell everybody, Please kick me out. It's easier. Right.

And then it's like that same trapped iteration was what I was feeling When I was with the Giants and left there, it was the same thing, but just drugs weren't present. It was still on that emotional, mental level, that same feeling of feeling trapped, just less drug-induced.

Oh, but even worse, though, because at least with the Raiders, you were running through secondary free. With the Giants, you're just sitting there taking a pounding and a professional failure, even though you're the same player, but there are a million different reasons that you're not allowed to be the same player. So now the football is also it hurts physically and is deeply unhappy because it's nothing but failure. You're losing. And so where is the unhappiest that you were along any of that path? And I promise you we're going to get to the parts where you break through to the other side of wherever it is the growth is. But when you look back at the entire journey, the unhappiest part is where?

I would say it went with the Giants because it's like I thought through my recovery and reinventing my life and career, a lot of things just going super well. It's like those things still didn't fix anything. It's like being trapped in football, trapped in very fast relationship, marriage, all those things are just being like, wow, I've learned so much, grown so much, experienced so much, but here I am still experiencing the same feelings I was feeling then. It just looks a lot different So that just hit deeper, even more so. And that's when it was like, I guess I had even more courage then to be like, I'm stepping away from football because it's just like, I don't know what this is doing for me. I could actually step out and say that that time, but it was definitely needed.

Oh, but you're more of an adult then, too, right? At that point, you've loved, you've lost, you've been in public, you've been shamed, you've shamed yourself. You're probably harder on yourself than anyone else is being. Where does therapy come in here? Where do you start getting some breakthroughs where it's okay to talk about your feelings and there's no absence of masculinity in being able to tell people that you hurt? When do you start getting some of the bomb that's in there?

I mean, that started in rehab for me. So that was 2017. Those foundations started to be laid there. Just seeing being vulnerable is absolutely terrifying. But then it's like the gratification after having done that feels like what I wanted to feel when I was getting high, I guess.

It's like-How great is that? So the nourishment, you're validating yourself instead of being addicted to validation.

Right. Yeah. And then so it's just like that's how it's like when you say it's easier for you to just speak vulnerably about the tender parts of your life. It was just like going to We have started to lay the foundation of like, Oh, this feels right. I can feel it in my body, this feels right. There's a lot of times where I felt like things don't feel right, but this feels like the direction I should be going in, being in these vulnerable environments I'm just letting myself be seen and not continuing to live in my own prison. And those things started to just building blocks that built over the years. You get to 2023, I was over six years sober during all that stuff that was happening within me when I was in New York. But it's just being hard on myself and thinking like, Why haven't I had it figured out yet? But it's like, No, this is just part of the journey. I've reached new depths of, Okay, getting sober definitely helped. And the work we've been doing in therapy and going to meetings and stuff like that and helping other people.

This is good, but there's still more. That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's still more stuff because after retiring in 2023, that's when that sound bath happened and then going back to the earlier parts of my life and the inner child work and looking at how I approach validation and relationships and things like that. All of those things started to be brought into the mix as well. It was like, There's so much more that needs to be explored here still.

I cannot think, even in the hypothetical, of a worse prison for someone like you, particularly outside of maybe the military, than to have With these particular set of things to be in play while you're surrounded by a whole lot of, We are going to push all that down and be tougher than everybody else. Also, you need to be happy. You're living every kid's childhood dream. You're a star athlete in New York.

Star athlete in New York, married to a high-profile person. Yeah, all these things. I got everything that I could possibly want in life, and it's still not getting the job.

Well, it would seem to be really hard to have a relationship with Kelsey Plum if you don't know yourself and you don't understand that a woman doesn't exist simply to serve you, the person who has always been served by everyone because you're the great athlete. No, she's your equal, and you need to take care of her the same way. That's hard to learn before you're an adult.

Yeah. Because in times, I see when it was opportunities to step up in be there for her. It's like all it's ever been is me being centered around my fears and my pains and my difficulties to where it's like, yeah, you can't. I have no bandwidth of no ability-For anybody else. No muscle memory to show up for her in that way.

Also, the job requires so much from you that basically you have to put everything you are into just being able to stay on top of that job. There's no room for much of anything else except you. I know. It just creates a wildly selfish human being. That person, without introspection, is not equipped to take care of someone else in a loving relationship if he's not loving himself, and he doesn't know who he is either.

It's just like, look at the paradox that's been created of all... Since a young kid, it's been pleasing people, looking to show up externally and all these things. The intention was to, if I take take care of them or impress them or do good by them, then I will get something in return. But all that had ever done is create a self-centeredness when the intentions were never really always... If I look back on my intentions, it was never to be like, I'm just going to be worried about me and fuck everybody else. But that's what the actions became, essentially.

Did you identify as selfish or you must have been entitled, right? If all of your life you're getting rewards for everything that you are, would you have described your... The way this person looks back at that person, you say what of him, even in the most forgiving of circumstances, being gentle with that person, he was what?

Through the disease of addiction, deceived himself into not being able to see that he was self-centered.

Everything about your life would reward self-centeredness, correct? Because when you take care of yourself, everybody around you is giving you validation because you're the great athlete. And your life in New York. I would imagine New York seems to me to be a very lonely, lonely place if you do not know yourself.

Yeah.

And so your loneliness stretches back. You've always felt like an outsider, correct? A whole lot. And so where have you come more to grips with? No, not quite. I have always gravitated in sports to the people that I call the weirdos because I find them most interesting, and they are often loners, and they often don't find other people who are like them. But when they do find those people, they find community. You are less lonely now than you have been?

Yeah. I still experience loneliness. Just coming out here to Miami, it's like in those almost two years of being out of the game. My relationships have grown a lot richer with friends and community, even with women, just friendships with women. All of that changed and just investing in relationships and just seeing the impact that it had on me. Being connected to other people is such an antidote to a lot of what I'm feeling. But then coming out here to Miami, it's like, damn, I'm away from those people. It's like some of the old patterns come up when I'm away. It's like, I'm not communicating. I'm just like the prison bar, they just close back up. That's just naturally what happens in me because that's all I've ever done.

This area can be a really bad area for an addict if an addict doesn't have control of where he where she is in life. There's temptation everywhere and really easy to get away from the loneliness by just finding temporary friends. Right.

So staying connected to those people, it may not have been at times as much as I would have liked to to the depth that I would have liked to, but even staying, giving myself the grace to know that I'm trying to change these patterns and staying connected has helped me tremendously during this season because just like any other season, any other life has been big highs and difficult lows. But staying connected to people has always reminded me that, man, this world is so much bigger and richer, and my life is so much richer than that cold, isolated place in my apartment I can find myself in just wallowing sometimes.

Well, what were you expecting from the Miami football experience? How did it meet or not meet your expectations? These are a lot of questions. Where it is that you measure success in there? What was going to be a success in this Dolphins season for you after a year off?

I didn't know. I didn't really have high expectations coming in. I was just more so thinking of the fact like, Okay, this opportunity has been organically presented to me to step back in to football and restore a sense of balance in the love I have for football. But also there's the shadow part of me that hated football because it was what I used to gain validation, and it wasn't like, Outside of the authentic me. So in a way, I resented the success in the career because it was like, this is part of the mask, almost. This is part of the image and the charade, almost. So it was like stepping back in, I felt like was an opportunity from my higher power to restore or balance to that and realize, okay, there are some things about football that are difficult and then I'm just like, okay, that you got to grind through and experience. But there are also still parts that I love and that I get excited about and get energized by. Just trying to hold to that perspective, I think, is what this season provided me, getting in and showing up to training camp.

I was not preparing myself in any way physically to come back to this. This was a couple of weeks before training Training camp where it was like, I think I'm going to do this. Frank Smith is like... He was my tight-end coach, like the best years of my career. And he just invited me out to one of the OTA practices, which is like, Come visit, come hang out. I want you to see. You haven't been here since I've been here, so come check it out. And I went to the practice and then left from there. And I was just like, Why do I feel like I'm being pushed back in this direction now? And so trusting that and thinking like, I get to the team and I showed up right after July fourth to try to get my body back into it.

So the smile on your face indicates to me that while you probably weren't a fat slob, you weren't doing next to anything that you needed to be doing to be in football shape. So they picked you up off of the scrap heat because they know you were good a few years ago, and they're like, We can refurbish this quote, unquote head case. And you're like, I'm going to get off the couch and do this? I guess I am. And now you're going to send your body through Navy SEAL military training to punish yourself. You're not in any way ready to do what a football schedule demands.

No. At the end of the second week of being with the team and training, doing a speed workout, I damn near blow my hip off of my... Almost tear my hip flexor from my quad or from my femur.

Yeah, you immediately got hurt and weren't available when I was telling everybody down here, Wait till you see Waller, wait till you see him walk through your secondary. I didn't know that you weren't training, though. I figured that... I thought you were coming back in the right mind frame to dominate a season, but you basically are just, Let's see if I can polish up the remainder of my adult life as an actual grown up now. I'm going to see if I can go get a job. And idiotically, you try to start a football season in no way physically prepared for it.

Right. Yeah.

So it's like- Amazing arrogance from you, really. Honestly, to think that you could do physically NFL football training. You know what it's like. It's not like you didn't know what it takes for the body. To think you could just pick that up again 33 or 32, right?

Yeah. So it's missing the entirety of training camp. And then I think it was the first three games. And then coming up to the Jets game, I think I had three practices. And so I'm going into the game like, I have no idea how this is going to go. We're just going to see. In those practices, I was effective and it was like, okay, this is like riding a bike in a way now that my body is- You're going to be effective when you're 60.

You're a really good, physically talented tight-end. It's impossible to cover you.

Right. And so I go out into the... Even the pre-game warm-ups of the Jets games, I'm like, yeah, I have no idea how this is going to go. I'm really about to get... I was laying in my bed in the gap between the morning meetings and going to the stadium. I'm like, This is really happening today. This is really about to go down. And then going into the game and having the game go the way that it went was just completely surreal.

Two touch downs, and you don't really feel still like you're in shape necessarily, right? You're basically playing NFL football games not far removed from whatever video games on the couch were with your body and depressed and divorced and going through all of that. You were basically languishing in whatever it was, was some real darkness for a year and a half of not taking care of yourself.

Well, I would say there was darkness early on, right my retirement and the divorce and everything. But things really started to change me. I was really enjoying my life and the growth that I was seeing just in how I relate to myself and other people. I was seeing a lot of growth in that to the point where it was like, yeah. I was like, Oh, man, this is something that I feel like I need to do to heal that relationship to football. But I was on the verge of thriving in my life before that. It's just like, yeah, it was a shock throwing myself back into the game.

Oh, I see what you're hearing. You had gotten to the other side of the prison of growth, and now we're developing meaningful relationships with others while also taking care of yourself.

Yeah. I guess in a way, it's like trying to this inner guide in me, starting to trust that more and more. And it's like, okay, I don't necessarily know how I feel that it's pushing me in direction, but it is, and I'm just going to follow it and see what happens. And yeah, it's been met with difficulties, but it's like that game and multiple spots throughout the season, it felt like this is the This is the joy of football that I remember in being connected to teammates and coaches and everything. And it's like, yeah, of course, not doing the training and stuff was what brought about the difficulties that I faced in the season 100 %. But it's like to go out there and feel like what I went into this season for to restore that, I felt like there were big steps taken in that direction. And also, like you said, measuring success and seeing my value, a lot of that came from prior years of statistics and metrics and fantasy points and shit like that. But this year, it's like the stats and the numbers and the targets and a lot of stuff wasn't what it used to be, but it's seeing like, Okay, I'm where my value is just the presence that I bring in each and every day and being around people and having an impact on younger guys on the team and just through the ways that I work, through the ways that I relate to my teammates, and the efficiency with which I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way.

That's all I ever did before. It was just a higher quantity, higher frequency of opportunities. This year wasn't the same, but it's like I've always prided myself on the efficiency. That's like Georgia Tech triple option football. I'm not getting 10 targets a game, bro. If I get three, it feels like I'm hitting the lottery. So it's like, bring that mindset of efficiency to that and presence to that and not being so caught up in when my opportunities are coming. But it's just like, I'm part of a team and part of a group. How am I elevating the environment that I'm in is how I try to measure my value now. And I feel like I've been able to connect to that. Whereas before, I never even... It just sounded so fucking cheesy to me before. It's like, No, I need these yards in these numbers, or I fucking suck. And now, I sit here with whatever my statistical output was from the season. I have no idea what it was, but I feel proud of that, from what my circumstances were coming back into the game and what I was able to do.

Oh, but it's so freeing, though. Never mind whether it's six touch downs or not. It's so freeing. What you're describing sounds like the area that you felt like you were thriving was just because for the first time in your life, you'd found your actual identity, and it felt really comfortable to care about that person, like that person and have the time to share yourself with the people who would then experience and enjoy the vulnerability. So you come back to football as somebody who is more stable, more himself, and can measure success with not numbers, but like, did I enjoy it? Did I push myself? Did I try my best? And now the measurements are all your own, right? And so by that extent, there's no way to describe this season as a lack of success if that's how you're doing the measurement. It's right. But the season was a bit of a disaster, not for you, but for the team. Everybody gets fired. I don't even know what your relationship right now is with football. If you want to play again, if you want to play for the Dolphins, if you've gotten to the place No, that was...

Imagine how many touchstones I could have if I wasn't just coming off the couch because I didn't know that I needed to do this a little better.

Yeah, that's definitely a lot of what I've been thinking. Throughout the season, there was like, I could feel myself drifting back and forth between I feel like I could do this for however long. And then it's like the injuries and the frustrations are like, I can't keep doing this to myself and floating back and forth. So now is the time that I have to sit with both parts, have a board of directors meeting with both parts of me and be like, Okay, what are we doing here? Let's look at the pros and cons of each of these directions We can make a decision from there. Playing football again and starting to lay the foundation, going somewhere, investing in my training with professionals that can direct my performance and have me be able to take on that load is something that I'm considering. But yeah, this is a time for me to reflect on that.

Well, this is the time, though, that all football players are always closest to quitting because the 17 weeks is terrible. You never ask a guy immediately after the season, whether he's thinking of playing again next season, because none of them want to play next season when they think of everything it's going to take to how physically you hurt now, which all of you are some level of broken after 17 weeks. This is the worst possible time to ask you that question and get a hopeful response for next season, anybody who's just finished a losing season, correct?

Yeah.

But you sound hopeful. You sound like somebody who knows what he wants better than ever has.

Yeah, much better than I ever have.

And so what is that right now? When you think of what the next few years look like independent of football, the areas of growth that you're insisting on are where so that you can nourish yourself best?

For me, it's like the curiosity and the kindness towards myself and the difficulties that I still experience in any pain points, discomforts that come up or any behaviors that I feel like I could be doing better in. It's just having that lens toward myself and staying in communication with people at all times that I love and that I care about and people that hold me accountable and that push me to be better. It's like that always has to be a constant for me to thrive in any realm. It's like that's what's going to prepare me to whenever one day the opportunity presents itself to be able to care for other people or care for a family, care for my seed at some point. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, these are the opportunities that are training for me to have a fulfilled life, because there is no fulfilled life without being able to relate lovingly, vulnerably, openly with other people, and that first has to start with me. So it's continuing to build on that foundation of that loving, kind nature toward myself. Everything benefits from that.

You're more ready now to love give someone correctly in a relationship that builds a life than you've ever been because of everything that you've gone through the last 18 years. The first 15 years before that, less so, but the last 18 years of your life have all been a journey. This is the most evolved, prepared version of Darren Waller to actually share himself in a real and meaningful relationship.

Without doubt.

You said that in 2017, going into therapy and applying your willfulness toward the taking care of yourself. It felt like getting high. You're loving yourself is basically what it is you're doing. In all of the years of therapy that you have done since, and it's a broad question, what would you say is some of the greatest wisdom that you have accrued over a decade of examining yourself and learning some of the things that you need and don't need from your life?

I would say a lot of my early approaches to therapy and doing the work that has changed my life, it's like there's a lot of fixing that I need to do. I need to fix myself, which has an undertone of there's pieces of me that are broken. And in some ways, you look at it and say that's the truth, but it's like we all have a shadow. I don't know if you've ever heard that concept before, but there's this psychologist, his name is Carl Young, and he has this quote that always sticks with me. It says, Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate. And so there's all these parts of me that I was I'm never conscious of, those shadow parts, the version of me when I was a kid, when I was hiding all the Coke cans and taking money off the purse and doing all these things. There's always this shadow part of me that I always had a resentment towards, a hatred towards, of like, That needs to go away. I got to get that out of there. But in therapy, I feel like I've realized that there has to be an element of befriending that shadow and looking at those parts as like, This shadow is really just showing me areas areas in which I could be freer, areas in which I could have a much more whole part to myself because it's basically learning to love, not only this healthier, more put together version of myself, but also those broken versions, those hurting versions, those lost versions of myself, and finding a congruence there, a love for those things.

And shifting away from, I need to fix things by myself, but it's more so like, I'm just becoming more whole with all of me and all that I've ever been. There's all types of tactics to help you get there, but just through a lot of writing, a lot of questions, a lot of silent reflection, a lot of putting my phone down, a lot of walking in nature, a lot of things that just slow me down from, Where's the next high? Where's the next high? The instant gratification. Just like, Let me slow down so I can feel what's coming from my body and reflect on these things and get to know those parts of myself. It's just like bringing those things to the surface. If I never went back and did the work to bring my real, authentic childhood experience to the surface, those unconscious parts would have continued to direct my relationships, my relationship with football, and that continued to constitute that feeling of being trapped. Whereas bring those things to the surface, forming a relationship with those parts, it's like now I can... It's not an enemy, it's more so an ally, something that's on my side and that I've learned to love.

So now it's like when I feel triggered or experiences that may want to push me to act in those ways, I can have more compassion for myself and less shame for myself. Because that shame, we've been talking about shame the whole time. That shame has been on me my whole life. It's never shame Aming myself to do better has never turned into me doing better or living better. It's finding ways to eliminate that shame. Like I said, I love those versions of myself. But yeah, the most important thing for me is bringing those things to the surface as opposed to trying to avoid them or just feel like it's something that you need to fix.

What a treasure, man. When you're talking about conscious that way, you're basically just saying that the gift is that I've gotten to know myself and I like him. And all of it. Not the part, not the shadow part, too, because I'm going to be forgiving and gentle with myself. I'm going to be kind to myself. In terms of the happiness pie chart, what you're talking about there and being present and conscious, not that we all have it solved every day, But obviously, that feels to you less lost than the previous incarnation of yourself. Do you need any daily practices that you have to put in place to help you, to remind you of how it is to stay within a gentle place to yourself, where you're not going to relapse or you're going to have not just the accountability of friendships and others who care about you, but things that you have to do to make sure that you don't fall?

Absolutely. Sometimes it can be exhausting of thinking all the things I need to do to approach the day from a healthy baseline. But it's definitely prayer, meditation in the morning. I need to walk outside at some point during the day. It does numbers for me. There's a lot of journaling. I saw somebody on TikTok, they put in the term, I guess the term is called raw dogging now. I guess it used to always just mean sex with no condom, but now it's like they-No internet. Now it's like having time in your day where you're... They call it raw dogging life. It's like time where it's like I set a 30-minute Timer and put my phone down, I just sit there. Because a lot of what my makeup is, it's just the next high, the next thing, something to get me out of sitting with things. It's like that 30-minute window of just absolutely nothing.

Not even meditation. It's just still with yourself and be comfortable with yourself, even if it's uncomfortable. Do not get distracted.

Right. Meditation is outside of that. It's all those things. Regular meeting attendance. It's in-person meetings. There's young kids out here that are even A guy that's older than me that I've been sponsoring throughout the season. And so taking them through bookwork and helping them with their recovery journey, being of service helps me out-Rewarding. Tremendously. And then going to meetings, staying in touch, and doing the work that My sponsor is giving me still being a student and trying to keep some creative rhythm, creative flow. That's where the music comes up for me. I'm sure a lot of people see the athlete doing music. It's like, Man, this is just trying to be cool and rap. But it's like, nah, that level of expression for me is healing on so many ways because I think a lot of people know the song they have called Top Play, and it's like, okay, cool. But if you look at the rest of my discography, it's I'm pouring shit out on them songs.

How do you feel? So what happens? So you decide after you get divorced, there's whatever the public embarrassment is of all of that, but you put your feelings into song. You made a video. And then, of course, what ends up happening is the internet drags you for, Look at this guy. He's going to show everybody his heartbreak through song, and he's going to try and make his pain creative. How did you experience, or did you even care about what the reaction was to any of that?

That was a powerful experience for me in just the growth with always needing the validation of people. I look back on that experience. I don't regret sharing the music in any way. If there was one thing I would have changed, I would have put forth extra context because in the context of the video, because the song was called Who Knew Her Perspective. So the basis of the song is I'm writing... The idea was writing if the... Because a lot of similar patterns and relationships my life. So if the woman had the pen and was writing a song to me, what would that song be? And so by the perspective being, I'm singing from the woman's perspective in the video, I'm the woman that's experiencing the pain, whereas people clipped it and put it out and it was like, Oh, I got stabbed in the back. But it's like, I was trying to be more artistic.

Even more artistic than you thought he was trying to be. But it's not quite as heavy-handed as just, There's a backstabbing, and this is it. You wanted it to have nuance. You wanted it to have layers. You wanted it to... You were not an innocent in what happened in that relationship. No. You made the piece of art and then just dealt with... You didn't even pay much attention to what it is the reaction was because it was about expressing yourself, and it's about self-validation.

Yeah. At the time, I had a phone that was called a light phone I had got probably a couple of months before my divorce. I wasn't even on the internet. I had friends be like, Yo, even A Smith I was talking about this and I was like, Oh, fuck, I was not anticipating this because I put music out and people that are fans of me or follow me like my music, but it was never a big thing. So that was an interesting experience. But yeah, it was just for me, I was like, I'm on to the next thing I'm making. Okay, if this caused a stir, great. I'm not going to be continuing to make this particular type of song going forward. I'm going to make the hard-hitting songs, but I'm also going to continue to, I guess, put who I am on these songs. That's the only way I really know how to create is channeling what I'm experiencing and the ideas I feel like I'm getting from the universe and putting them out and trying to be real people the same way I'm trying to be real on this microphone here.

You mentioned anxiety, and I don't know what your relationship with it is now or what it was, but it's something that has gripped you since you were young, without being able to identify what it So what is your relationship now with anxiety?

I see anxiety now more of a second-hand emotion. A lot of times when I'm feeling anxiety, there's something in me that hasn't been expressed or needs to be explored more. And I'm anxious because I'm maybe back in that mode a little bit of not sitting with what I'm feeling or something that needs attention. I'm deceiving myself in some way from thinking that something Oh, so it's just a symptom.

You recognize it now as a feeling that's just a symptom as opposed to something that needs to be medicated. Wait a minute. What do I need to address? Anxiety is just showing me there's something here that needs to be addressed.

It's more of a guide for me now. It's not just like when I'm sitting and I'm There are things that I'm sitting with and addressing them, facing them head-on, talking to people about them. When I'm sitting in my apartment or when I'm sitting in the car on a ride here, I'm cooling. I'm chilling. This is great. The anxiety for me is definitely just a guide to be like, Hey, something here that we need to communicate on, set a boundary on, write more about. It's just pointing me to something now.

Where do you think the next couple of years are going to take you and where do you want them to take you?

I definitely want them to take me deeper into- It's a daunting question for anybody, by the way.

I know I'm putting something on your lap here. It's just because you've arrived at such a place of adult growth and you've learned so many big things through emotional, physical, and public pain that I would assume that there's some enthusiasm about whatever the discovery is that's up ahead, especially if you've gotten to a place where you found your identity and you could be like, Well, I'm not just a football player. I can come back and conquer football. But is it really what I want to do? Or do I want to go connect with other human beings? Because football does make that harder. You have to pay attention. It's obsessive compulsive in a way that will take you away from all of your relationships.

Yeah. I think whichever way I decide to go on that decision, it's keeping relationships at the forefront, allowing myself to find a way to date in a healthy way that's slow and respectful of not only how I'm trying to live in my boundaries, but other people's as well. Definitely trying to continue to explore my creative side, my musical side. I've been making music for 10 years, but at the same time, I still feel like I'm just at the very beginning of what my creative journey is like. Continuing to explore that. Definitely traveling, seeing more of the world. When I was retired, I went to Japan for my birthday. I just went out there and was out there for two weeks. That was amazing for me, just being out more, seeing more national parks and just being outside, more things like that.

Did you go to Japan on your own, by the way? Because did you go with others or did you go by yourself?

This videographer that I work with, he has a part-time job with American Airlines, so he was able to get a $43 flight from New York to Tokyo. So he came for four days, five days.

The reason I bring it up is just, he came to film or he came to just be with you?

A little bit of both.

Okay, because traveling alone, there's a certain bravery in that.

Yeah, but the last 9, 10 days of my trip, I was there by myself.

But you were there to do it as an adventure and an exploration of, Let me see if I can be with myself for 10 days in a foreign land. Yeah. And what did you learn?

It was amazing. It was amazing. I had some guides set up to where they could take me on some tours and stuff like that. But it was incredible to go out there and do something that I wanted to do and experience that just as me, not worry about When I'm going to get back and get to the next thing, but just be present to this experience.

Well, the present thing is a funny one because you mentioned that the last time you were on with us, and I could talk to you for a long time, but I'm going to let you go here in a moment. I appreciate both the honesty and the amount of time. But you really seem to have learned that in the distraction of always getting off until the next thing, there's only joy in the present if you're grateful about the moment that you have, even if it's just walking around your neighborhood in stillness, because that's the moment that you have. Not off to the next conquering, the next hole that can't be filled, the next accomplishing, letting life come to you.

Yeah, you said it. I don't know how often we think about this in general as a society, but we think about the life we want to live, getting there, wherever there is. But any of those moments that you want to experience or that you've seen somebody else experience, all those experiences were had in the present moment. And so if you don't build the muscles to be and train yourself being present in the moment, then you're not going to allow yourself to be grateful for when those moments come. If I don't learn how to appreciate my football, For me, an example was I started to fall in love with the training and just the small things like when I was getting reinstated into the league. It's just the actual training, the being out on the field, the routes, seeing myself improve. I was grateful to just be having that experience. If I wasn't present to that and just thinking like, Man, I'm just ready for my shot to come whenever I need my opportunity to come. If I wasn't working, being present there and appreciating that experience, when I get to 100 catches in a season or whatever the output is, it's like I won't necessarily be grateful for that.

I'll be thinking like, Oh, man, fucking Justin Jefferson had 120 catches because I always think it's got to be the next experience. I got to be better. I got to be onto the next one, really. It's like the beauty of everything that's happening is when I'm here, I'm being where my feet are. And that's when life is at its easiest. I want to start a T-shirt company with you, a spiritual T-shirt company, where it's a T-shirt that just reads, There is here.

There is here. Whatever it is you're looking for, it's here right now. I feel like you have this wisdom that you're carrying around with you, where there is great wisdom and understanding that right now is the moment, and you get in your own way when you're always looking off into the distance because you think there's something better over there. There is here. There's something musical in that. I think you can do that. Well, it's here for you, right? There is here for you right now. Whatever midlife crisis is, whatever is the growth that people feel in their 40s and 50s because they haven't examined their worth, you did it a little earlier than most.

Yeah, let that be the catalyst that it's supposed to be.

Congratulations on the success, the return to football, and locating your identity and being gentle with it. Really I enjoyed this, as I knew I would, because you are uncommon among your peers. Most of the people in modern day sports are not willing to open themselves up to the public this way. So thank you for doing that. Sir, appreciate you having me.

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