Alcohol got its hooks into Darren McFadden early.
“I would say it probably started out for me in high school,” said McFadden, who took the stage at Little Rock’s Mosaic Templars Cultural Center Monday as part of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ “Barbershop Talk” series. The program is an initiative by UAMS to create dialogue about mental and physical well-being for men.
“I started drinking as a 15-year-old,” McFadden said during a Q&A session with UAMS Associate Professor Dr. Tiffany Haynes. The former Arkansas Razorbacks and NFL running back said he began using alcohol as a means to celebrate on Friday nights following football games at Oak Grove High School.
It was a habit that stuck with McFadden through three years at Arkansas, where he would be a two-time Heisman Trophy finalist, and later during his NFL career with the Oakland Raiders and Dallas Cowboys.
“I really discovered that I had a problem after I retired,” said McFadden, who retired from pro football in 2017 after 10 years. “There was a lot of free time on my hands. I didn’t know what to do. I ended up with a DUI in 2019. I didn’t take it as an eye-opener at the time. I didn’t take it seriously.”
McFadden, who said he has been sober for two-and-a-half years, said he spent years in denial before another DUI in 2020 prompted him to rethink his mental well-being and, eventually, subject himself to detox.
“I’m pretty much programmed to be, like, we don’t want to talk about our problems,” McFadden said. “We can handle our problems.”
McFadden said his drinking problem, which started as a means of having a good time, morphed into a means of managing stress and a downward spiral of self-justification.
“I didn’t feel like I was an alcoholic because I felt like I was still functioning and doing what I needed to do,” McFadden said. “I didn’t think I had any drinking problem or anything like that, but in reality I did, because everything I was doing revolved around alcohol.”
Now that he’s sober, McFadden is relishing a simple life, spending time with his wife and children and sharing his journey to sobriety. He drew laughs from the audience Monday, saying he is presently not considering going into coaching because he enjoys people having positive opinions about him.
“Quitting alcohol is something I’m more proud of than anything I accomplished playing football,” McFadden said. “At the end of the day, I was going to end up hurting somebody [by] drinking and driving or end up in jail or killing myself. So just to be able to shake that and get that monkey off my back, it was one of the best decisions of my life.”
Photo Credit: Arkansas Razorbacks
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