Jimmy Johnson’s son
lost everything because of alcohol; now he’s committed to helping others cope with the same issue.
FORT LAUDERDALE — He had nowhere else to go.
No money. No options. He drank his way through his job as a stockbroker, his upscale house and cars and most of his friends. Chad Johnson was 42 and sleeping with all his possessions in an old Suburban.
Family? Even his famous father, Jimmy Johnson, had cried such tears of pain over his son that he hit his own bottom. He warned Chad that if he didn’t get help, they were done.
“Not only will you be out of the family,” the former Dolphins and University of Miami football coach told him, “there’s going to be no communication. Because I’m not going to stand by and watch this happen.”
So with nowhere else to go Chad drove to a halfway house in Tampa where one final humbling awaited: They refused to
admit him. He didn’t meet their one rule: Sobriety. He slept in the car another night, returned the next day and only then was admitted.
“That was my first sober day,” Chad says now, six years later.
This is a story of a man who lost everything that was important to him because of alcohol, only to find none of those things was important anymore. It’s a story of the joy he found in helping others by starting a treatment center, Tranquil Shores, in St. Petersburg later in 2009.
It’s also is the story of another man who conquered everything a football coach can -– national championships, Super Bowls, even television. But in this story the great coach is only a man, and the man is only a father, and the father worried in the darkest times that he’d lost his son and wondered what part he played in it.
They’ve talked about alcohol and relationships and also football’s role in their lives in more recent years, the father and son, now that they’re not just father and son again but best of friends.
‘Not being home didn’t help’
Heartbreak is a recurring theme of football-focused fathers and troubled sons, it seems. Former coach Tony Dungy’s son committed suicide in college. Andy Reid’s son died of a drug overdose while working on his Eagles staff.
Such tragedies happen to fathers in all walks of life, not just football, as Chad points out. He downplays the role of his father’s job. He led an advantaged life, he feels. He also felt the pull that alcohol had on him as far back as high school.
“My father being a football coach didn’t have anything to do with this,” he says.
But being a parent can be a lifetime of second-guesses, and Jimmy wonders about his own football addiction. He wasn’t just any coach, after all. He was different, just as his success was.
Jimmy built a college dynasty at Miami and an NFL one with the Dallas Cowboys. That paid rich dividends. It also came with a price. Even when with his family, he wasn’t always with it. Third-and-four always occupied his mind.
“A lot of coaches could ration out their time,” Jimmy says. “They could delegate. They would make time for their family. But when I was coaching I would almost laugh at those guys. I knew we were working the extra hours to get an edge on them.
“I look back, and maybe if I’d been at home rather than trying to win a football game, maybe he wouldn’t have had those problems. I don’t know. But I do know me not being home didn’t help.”
When Jimmy quit the Dolphins after the 1999 season, he told how his mother’s death that season pushed him to spend less time watching game film and more time with loved ones. “QTL,” former Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga called it. Quality Time Left.
Jimmy didn’t speak of Chad at that time.
He didn’t speak of how, besides wanting more time with his wife Rhonda, he also wanted to help his son, if possible.
‘My only sense of relief was alcohol’
They were so different, Jimmy’s two sons. Brent, the older, was an academic and athletic star but more awkward socially. Chad wasn’t book-smart or a great athlete, but he was a social star who could converse with everyone.
“Did you see the movie ‘Twins?’” Chad says, referencing the movie where Arnold Schwarzenegger was the perfect brother and Danny DeVito the lesser one. “I always kid my brother he got the good genes.”
Alcoholism was one of the lesser ones. Even as his father quit football and tried to help, Chad was his own man, living his own life. His boss at their stock brokerage detected trouble in his star employee and offered two choices in: Resign or treatment.
Chad opted for treatment. Sort of.
“I went in with no intention of getting sober,” he says. “It was a half-hearted approach to appease, to get out of the situation. I was still trying to paint a picture of success even as I was going through treatment. I truly, deep down, wasn’t ready to quit.”
It was a common spiral from there. The nice job he had for 13 years was lost in 2001. The money and surface signs of success were soon gone. Chad never married, so there was no wife or children to lose. But for five years he had no money — even his dad cut him off financially — and only a desire to drink.
“I figured, what’s the use of getting a job, because I’m never going to reach the position I had or make what I was making,” he said. “My only sense of relief was alcohol.”
He was hospitalized at one point, his immune system so battered that doctors feared leukemia. The disease was beer and tequila. He tried various treatment centers. Shortterm. Long-term. Alternative therapy. None of them worked. Nor did the pleas of family and friends.
Jimmy once called a Dallas bar where Chad frequented and asked if they’d quit serving his son. The bartender said Chad was right in front of him, drinking.
“I spent so many nights crying, wondering what to do,” Jimmy says. “I’d have paid anyone $1 million if they could solve this. But, really, it was up to Chad to do it.”
‘Something that’s really rewarding’
Chad’s entry into that Tampa halfway house became a start. He began following short-term goals. Not just one day at a time. Ten minutes at a time. Thirty minutes. A morning.
Sobriety wasn’t just a goal. It became a healthier way of life. He surrounded himself with sober friends, made better decisions and, over time, decided to make helping others a profession.
One of his last remaining friends, Scott Roix, lent him use of a property he owned to start Tranquil Shores. He opened it with three employees. Today it has 33 employees. It works with between 20 and 30 people at a time. All those treatment centers Chad visited in his drinking days helped him create a better place.
Thirty-day stays weren’t long enough, for example, so his clients must stay 90 days. Staffs could be too diluted, so his center has a low ratio of one counselor to every four clients. And one-on-one sessions were important, so his center schedules more than most.
Each year, Tranquil Shores holds an alumni reunion on the anniversary of its founding. And each year the group of returning clients who sign a poster that goes up on the wall grows bigger.
“Thank you, Chad, for saving my life.”
“Thanks, Chad, I’m alive again.”
“I can’t thank you enough, I’m part of society again.”
The father read those messages on a visit and did something he once did so much over his son: He began crying again. Tears of joy, this time. And love. And relief that the son who once lost everything had found so much more.
“I get choked up just thinking of those messages,” Jimmy says, emotion in his voice. “You read those and you realize he’s doing something that’s really rewarding.”
His words drop to a whisper. “It’s a helluva lot more important than winning a football game.”
dhyde@tribpub.com