Pregame ritual was drugs, alcohol
Browns’ Gordon says he used substances before every game.
Receiver Josh Gordon, BEREA — who reported to the Browns facility Tuesday, admitted he was on drugs or alcohol “probably every game of my career” in a recent interview with GQ magazine.
“I used to make a ritual of it before every game,” Gordon told GQ, just hours before he met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and was condi- tionally reinstated by him after his latest drug suspension. “If I had already been drug tested that week, or the day before the game, I knew I had a couple days to buy to clean my system. Even before I was getting tested for alcohol, prior to my DWI in 2014, I would take the biggest bong rip I could. And try to conceal all the smell off all my clothes. I’d be dressed up to go to the game. A bunch of guys smoke weed before the game. But we’re not talking about them.
“I would have these little premade shots. I used to love Grand Marnier. I could drink it down smooth. I could usually drink a lot of it. But if it wasn’t that, it might be a whiskey or something. And I would drink probably like half a glass, or a couple shots to try and warm my system up, basically. To get the motor running. That’s what I would do for games.”
Gordon explained that he found a way to beat the system and use before games.
“We would stay at the team
continued from C1 hotel and then players are allowed to go back home, get what they need, and then go to the game. So I’d leave the hotel early morning, go home, eat breakfast, do my little ritual, whatever it may be, some weed, some alcohol, and then go to the game. And then, I’d definitely be partying after every game, win or lose. Every game.”
Even for his record-setting back-to-back 200-yard games in 2013? “Yeah,” he said. How many games was he on something?
“Every game. Probably every game of my career,” he said, including at Baylor.
Gordon, who can play beginning Dec. 3 in Los Angeles against the Chargers, described himself as a “highly functioning” substance abuser.
“For sure. [I] definitely pushed the limit,” he said. “I don’t know how I did it. It could be before games, it could be before practice, after practice. You see other guys kinda doing it, but I would take it to another level a lot of times. Feeling as though I was being enabled, I thought it was an OK thing to do: Well, this is the norm. And it wasn’t. It definitely wasn’t.”
Gordon, who can begin practicing with the team Nov. 20, admitted he’s been using since middle school.
“Initially it started for me, [because of ] a lot of childhood and adolescent trauma-based fear,” he said. “I was using in my childhood. That environment brought me into that a lot sooner than a normal — whatever normal is — kid should be brought into that, to be able to make a decision on their own of what to do. I didn’t want to feel anxiety, I didn’t want to feel fear.
“I didn’t plan on living to 18. Day-to-day life, what’s gonna happen next? So you self-medicate with Xanax, with marijuana, codeine — to help numb those nerves so you can just function every day. That became the norm from middle school to high school. So by the time I got into my 20s, I was on an accelerated pace.”
Gordon said the abuse he took from fans in Cleveland, even when he returned to the team last summer after being reinstated conditionally, got to him.
“A lot. Every day. That’s why I had to move out of Cleveland,” he said. “I went to Gainesville (Forida) specifically because I thought there’d be nobody there that would know who I was. Living in Cleveland, sometimes it could be a nightmare. I’ve been harassed, had drinks thrown at me. I’ve been [followed] in the grocery store, heckled everywhere.
“At the games, people harassed and heckled my brothers and my mom. [My] brothers got into fights in the stands. Cars [have] been jumped on. Somebody dented the hood of the car. Had to sue a guy and get the money back cause he damaged the car. People are throwing money, pennies, to break the windows. So Cleveland was rough, man.
“Give guys a chance. Be patient. Allow him to see it through. If he lets you down, he lets you down. But know that’s a human being there. He’s dealing with something.”