During his playing days Lawrence Taylor was as fearsome a linebacker that roamed the fields of the national Football League. Of the field, his life was a mess of alcohol and drug abuse. When asked what he could do that no other linebacker could his response was “drink.”
Taylor drank himself into an early retirement. Alcohol was not Taylor’s only addiction. He also had a serious addiction to cocaine. He first tested positive for the drug in 1987 and then again a year later. He forced himself to stay clean because a third failed drug test and his career would have been over.
As he approached retirement however, he looked forward to picking up the habit again. How sad is it that he admitted in his autobiography that abusing cocaine was the only bright spot left in his future?
He went through drug rehab twice in 1995, only to later be arrested twice over a three-year span for attempting to buy cocaine from undercover police officers.
It is a truly sad story because during this time he isolated himself completely. Staying holed up in his home with white sheets covering his windows and only associated with other drug users. He admitted his home had become a virtual crack house.
His life of alcohol and drug abuse hit one low after another. One time the mother of his three children had to come and pick him up from a crack house. At his peak of drug use he claims to have spent thousands of dollars a day on narcotics.
Taylor’s abuse problems seem to persist despite many efforts to quit. I pray that LT finds the right combination of alcohol and drug classes, counseling and religion to get himself clean and stay sober.