By Dakota Gunnare, Editor in Chief
Once known for his basketball prowess, Chris Herren now visits schools around the country, urging students to question how substance abuse affects those around them.
Herren is a former NBA player who is now a substance abuse recovery keynote speaker. He came to West Bend High Schools Nov. 16 to share his story. WBHS juniors and seniors that opted in to listen to the presentation saw a video of Herren’s recovery story and then got the chance to hear the story from Herren and ask him questions. Students were inspired by the honest look into how substance abuse can affect one’s life.
“One of the most impactful parts of the speech in my opinion was that he focused on the fact that there are a lot of people around us who struggle with family members going through addiction,” West junior Natalia Averill said.
Students heard Herren describe his addiction story from the beginning. He told the audience he began drinking and abusing substances during high school. He then went on to play college basketball at Boston College and Fresno State. At both colleges he failed drug tests and was suspended from the team.
He then went on to play professional basketball for the Denver Nuggets in 1999 where his teammates helped him stay clean. After one year with the Nuggets, he got transferred to the Boston Celtics and began his painkiller and heroin addictions. He then played on a variety of worldwide teams while maintaining his substance abuse addictions.
In 2008, two years after his basketball career was over, Herren overdosed and crashed into a utility pole. From there he began his recovery and has been clean since August 2008.
Averill thinks that the presentation helped create more empathetic students and opened the eyes of students to the struggles of those around them. For this reason, Averill thinks that it would have been a good idea to get the presentation to more students by opening it to underclassmen as well as using an opt-out system rather than an opt-in-system for parent permission.
“I don’t think that it should’ve been required,” West junior Hayden Schellinger said. “I think it’s better to let people go of their own free will but I think all grade levels should have had the option to go.”
Schellinger also says that more students should have chosen to go to the presentation because it was very impactful.
(Top image: Chris Herren answers questions from WBHS students at his Nov. 16 presentation in the Silver Lining Arts Center. Photo by Dakota Gunnare, Editor in Chief.)
The West Bend Current 