Ryan Leaf: 'I didn't know how to deal with failure' - boltsfan92's Blog

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Ryan Leaf: 'I didn't know how to deal with failure'

Posted on May 14, 2010 at 09:55 PM.

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For former San Diego Chargers colossal quarterback bust Ryan Leaf, pain killers, for a while, helped ease the pain of his failure on the football field.
"I was completely in denial that I had a problem," Leaf told the Seattle Times.
And Leaf, who recently avoided jail time in a Texas drug and burglary case through a plea bargain, thinks this was a sobering wakeup call.
"When it happens to you it's a shock to your system," Leaf said. "You know, 'No way. How did this happen?' That's how an addict's mind thinks. I was shocked and completely embarrassed.
"When you're in your addiction, you're constantly lying and constantly dishonest. It was a small enough town that there were people there who knew I had a problem with painkillers, but I was in such denial, I thought that no one else knew. The day after the news of my arrest broke, I remember telling my athletic director, 'No, no, I don't have a prescription drug problem.' Oh yeah, that's how completely deep in denial I was."
Leaf acknowledges he was out of control.
"Yes, I was insane," Leaf said. "How was I insane? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over, expecting a different result. The only drug I've ever taken in my life is pain medication after surgeries.
"But I had this 10-year shield, this ability to push all the pain down. So when the pain in my wrist left, all this emotional pain started coming out of me. And the only avenue I'd ever taken to deal with any kind of pain in my life had been medication."
Leaf said his struggles on the field were something he just couldn't handle.
"I never got over it," Leaf said. "I tried to make people think it didn't matter, but I think all that did was make people think I didn't care. To not make it in a sport I'd loved since I was 4 years old, it was very hard, very disappointing. I was 21, 22 years old, but emotionally, I was probably like 16. The way I look at it now, I was always so intense and competitive that people would always say that I would get mine some day.
"That I will come up against somebody who is bigger, badder, better. But from 6 years old until 21, I never did. I'd always succeeded and I didn't know how to deal with that (failure) at all," he said. "I didn't know how to deal with failure at that level, in front of everybody and to be criticized like I was. My answer to everything had always been to throw a football and make everybody ooh and aah. And now I wasn't doing that."

Link:

http://bleacherreport.com/tb/b47YV