“I Had To Pass Out Every Night”– Greg Oden Details Prior Substance Abuse In Candid Conversation With Johnny Manziel

Greg Oden was a college basketball superstar at Ohio State who teamed with Mike Conley Jr. to lead the Buckeyes to the NCAA Tournament final. That one-and-done season in Columbus to back up a highly touted prep career were enough to compel the Portland Trail Blazers to select Oden first in the 2007 NBA Draft. Many believed Oden would become his generation's next dominant big man. Unfortunately, he's more remembered nowadays as the man drafted before Kevin Durant. Even Oden's ex-Ohio State running mate Conley (2007's No. 4 overall pick) is still in the NBA to this day. As is the third pick from that draft, Al Hoford. Some all-time bad luck for the Blazers, but the narrative about Oden has always revolved around the frequent injuries he picked up during his too-brief playing career. In the seven seasons Oden was technically active in the NBA, he missed four full seasons and appeared in only 105 games out of a possible 246 regular-season in the other three if my calculations are correct. It never became public at the time, but while Oden was battling through injury-related adversity and trying to live up to impossible expectations, he was waging a war on himself with copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. Johnny Manziel's newly launched Glory Daze Podcast from Almost Friday Media provided the space for Oden to dive in deep on his off-court struggles. Those mainly entailed self-medicating and using substances as a crutch just so that he could sleep at night. "There were times where I didn't want to see anybody. I lived in the house with two of my friends and I don't think I saw 'em for seven days just because I was just so embarrassed about stuff that I did. There were times that I had to drink so much and take so many sleeping pills just because I couldn't go to sleep. Technically, I had to pass out every night because of my ups and downs when I was young and not happy with myself and my decisions or everything that's going on. But the older I got, the more I realized this is your life. You can't blame anybody else. All you can do is be the best for you. Right now I have a picture of my phone that I keep and I look at night. It was like Budweiser, Bud Light, a bottle of wine, Benadryl, Advil PMs, Tylenol PMs, my Vicodin, my Percocet. And the reason why I keep it is because I remember there was a time in Portland where I literally had to take every last one of those every night just to sleep three hours and I had to be at practice and this was my every day a spot that I hate that I was in, but it's the spot that I've learned so much from." https://twitter.com/glorydazepod/status/1852003688669118626 The former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback from Texas A&M appears to be building his podcast brand around athletes who deserve more love for their legendary college careers, even if things didn't work out super well at the pro level. That's probably a crude simplification, but anyway, Manziel is not shying away from any of his mistakes, nor downplaying how mental health was tough for him when he skyrocketed to fame. That all culminates in a pretty fascinating dialogue with Oden. It's clear that Manziel and Oden level with each other. Johnny Football got drafted in the first round by the Cleveland Browns and famously flamed out of the NFL. He obviously wasn't making football his top priority and continued his partying ways from college. I always wonder what would've happened if JFF really locked in when he hit the pros. I believe to this day he'd have been legit good, because he could somewhat function on a poor Browns team despite putting in "zero" film study away from the facility. I'm sure as the injuries piled up, it only made Oden retreat into himself more. Kind of wild to hear about athletes like Oden and Manziel get an adrenaline needle to the heart in terms of public exposure at such an impressionable age, and everyone seems to love them. Then you hear about how they weren't really equipped to deal with it in a healthy way, and then they hit these low points of wanting to isolate from everyone. All that praise and adoration from so many people, only to have them turn on you and poke fun when you're feeling down and out. Can't be easy, particularly when you consider how much Oden and Manziel could cash in on NIL money. They would've made a killing, to where Johnny might've stayed at A&M and gotten paid more than an NFL rookie contract. Those are his words by the way, not mine! And I think he's right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boejae67fwY "Yeah, I think for me, obviously being able to make an amount of money like that, I would've made more money staying in college than I probably would've on a rookie contract. So I felt pressure to go to the NFL to try and make a dollar amount that nobody in my family had really... It was a huge financial incentive to be able to do it. If I could have stayed in college and stayed in school and continued to live the life that I was living while making money, I think for me it would've been an absolute game changer." Oden responded by saying he was "pissed" about missing out on lucrative NIL deals. Furthermore, he was pissed at the NBA's new TV deal and how so much money has gone into the league since he stopped playing. That's a double whammy to go on top of all the harm Oden did to himself behind closed doors. Good news is, Oden has fought back through some seriously dark times to get sober and looks to be in a good headspace. Check out the full episode below for more where this came from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9aJ6IPn_Oc