Josh Gordon recently completed a 90-day stint in a rehabilitation center, and the star wide receiver has decided to come clean about all the mistakes he has made to derail his football career.
Gordon was featured in a short documentary for UNINTERRUPTED, during which he revealed that he has been to rehab several times. He also detailed the various substances he has abused over the years.
“I’ve used alcohol on many, many occasions, Xanax on many occasions, cocaine several occasions, marijuana most of my life, codeine, cough syrup, methazine is very prevalent where I’m from,” Gordon said, as transcribed by Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. “It’s what I grew up using.”
Gordon said his most recent trip to rehab came after he was going down a dark path again. When he found himself wandering the streets of Gainesville at 11:30 p.m. trying to find drugs any way he could, he knew something had to be done. He also spent two weeks in rehab after being arrested for DUI in 2014, and he admitted it was nothing more than a “publicity stunt.”
“My first thought was, ‘This is a publicity stunt. This is just going to help the media deal with me. It’s going to help the fans be able to deal with it. I don’t know what they’re so worked up for anyway,'” Gordon said. “I definitely wasn’t listening. I definitely wasn’t paying attention. ‘Okay, it’s a business move. Alright, cool let’s do it.’ I was there for like 14-15 days, it was a joke. It was pretty much a vacation. I had a bunch of good gourmet meals and took a little break and then got right back to work. And then led the league in receiving yards.”
Not surprisingly, Gordon did some partying with Johnny Manziel during their time together in Cleveland. He played just five games in 2014 after serving a 10-game suspension, and it would have been six if he didn’t miss the season finale. He missed a team meeting and walkthrough after partying the night before.
“I didn’t wake up until 10 o’clock, 10:15, coming out of a blackout, I’m getting a bunch of texts and calls, from coaches like, ‘Where are you at, we’re headed to the tarmac already,'” Gordon recalled. “I’m like, ‘Aw s–,’ so I drove up to the tarmac, and our general manager at the time, he kind of pulls me to the side and talks to me, he’s like, ‘I’m sorry Josh, but you’re not going on this plane.’ I was watching the plane go off and it was like well, ‘F— it, let’s go home, let’s party.'”
The entire documentary is worth a watch. Gordon is now eligible to apply for reinstatement, though he says he had violated the NFL’s substance abuse policy again this past summer before he decided to check into rehab. Because of that, he would likely have to serve another suspension if his reinstatement is granted.
Gordon has been training with Olympic gold medalist Tim Montgomery, who recently had some powerful things to say about the 26-year-old. While it’s admirable of Gordon to take responsibility for his actions, he is likely down to his final strike with the NFL. If he can return and find a way to remain on the straight and narrow, it would be a great redemption story.
