Wendell Bryant was a star defensive lineman for the Wisconsin Badgers, selected 12th overall in the 2002 NFL draft by the Arizona Cardinals. He received a $5.5 million signing bonus. In 2005 Bryant was banned of the NFL after breaking the league’s substance-abuse policy for the third time.

Bryant has faced sobering journey since leaving UW

Getting booted from the NFL served as a wake-up call, but not a big enough one to stop Bryant from using. By that point, Ecstasy had joined beer and marijuana on the list of Bryant’s vices. A typical day for Bryant was getting stoned during the day and drinking heavily at night. He was a fixture on his couch at home in Phoenix, much to the chagrin of the woman who is now his fiancée and the mother of his child.
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“The one thing I always wanted was that cohesive family unit: mother, father, kid, and the house and the car and the dog and all of that,” he said. “I looked and I realized that I still had a chance at that. With everything else that I had screwed up — my career and blowing so much money — I realized that I still have a chance for this.” It took about four more months, but Bryant finally checked himself into Chandler Valley Hope, a treatment center in the Phoenix area.
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Bryant realizes the temptation to return to his vices may never go away. So far, he’s resisted those urges. His mother is confident Bryant will continue to do so.

“He’s my hero,” Wells said. “For him to go through the deepest, darkest tunnel — and it’s ugly down there — and to come out of it and be the person that he is now, I’m so proud of him.”

Related: Brett Favre Overcomes Painkiller Addiction – Maradona Drug Rehab – Cindy McCain’s Drug Rehabilitation for Prescription Painkillers

Brett Favre’s addiction to painkillers (1996)

After the seizure had ended and he had come to his senses, Favre looked into a sea of concerned medical faces and saw Packers associate team physician John Gray. “You’ve just suffered a seizure, Brett,” Gray told him. “People can die from those.” Favre’s heart sank. Upon hearing from doctors in the room that his dependence on painkillers might have contributed to the seizure, he thought, I’ve got to stop the pills, I’ve just got to.

Last season Favre went on such a wild ride with the prescription drug Vicodin, a narcotic-analgesic painkiller, that Tynes feared for his life. He scavenged pills from teammates. At least once he took 13 tablets in a night. But on Tuesday of last week, during his final telephone call before entering the Menninger Clinic, a rehabilitation center in Topeka, Kansas [which moved to Florida in 2003], to treat his dependency (and also to evaluate his occasional heavy drinking), Favre told SI that he hadn’t taken Vicodin since the seizure. “I quit cold turkey,” he said, “and I entered the NFL substance-abuse program voluntarily. I don’t want a pill now, but I want to go into a rehab center because I want to make sure I’m totally clean.
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Tynes wiped her eyes. She took a deep breath. She sniffled a few times. “You know,” she said, “he’s changed already. He talks to me again. He takes Brittany and me out. He pays attention to us. A few days ago he hugged me and he thanked me for everything I’ve done, and he said some really nice things to me.”

She wiped her eyes again. “I said, ‘I can’t believe it. The old Brett’s back!’” Time will tell. The true test will start in September.

Time has shown the answer, after struggles for several years, as Brett Favre has continued his amazing NFL career with great success.

Through triumph & tragedy, Deanna and Brett Favre remain a constant

After doctors found severe liver damage in 1996, Brett agreed to enter rehab, and was able to kick his addiction. He and Deanna were married several months later and welcomed daughter Breleigh in 1999, but his problems with substance abuse had not ended. By 1999, Brett had returned to heavy partying, and was abusing alcohol. Deanna contacted a divorce attorney, which helped scare her husband into quitting drinking entirely, according to Deanna.

The 1990s tested their relationship, but Deanna ultimately appreciated that Brett chose to seek help. “He was battling a disease,” she says. “I was trying to support him, and when he started making the right choices by getting the help he needed, that made a difference.”

Life had stabilized for the Favres by 2003: Brett was sober and a Super Bowl-winning icon in Green Bay, and Brittany and Breleigh were healthy and happy. “We were at a good spot in our lives,” Deanna says.

Then, in December 2003, Brett’s father died in a car accident. The following October, Deanna’s 24-year-old brother Casey was killed when his all-terrain vehicle hit a patch of gravel and flipped. Casey had recently overcome his own drug problems, and his girlfriend was eight months pregnant when he died.

In her memoir, Deanna described the loss of her brother as the darkest time in her life, but the darkness would not pass quickly – just days after Casey’s funeral, Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer at 35.

Related: The Family of Favre Blog (family photo) – Deanna Favre Hope Foundation – Green Bay Press Gazette Favre Tribute (action photo) – Maradona Drug Rehab – Los Angels Drug Rehab Centers

Drug rehab ’saved Maradona’

His former wife Claudia Villafane said: “The decision to commit him was taken jointly by the family and we certainly don’t regret it. “If we didn’t, Diego would have died as we had been alerted by the doctors.”

Maradona’s family had him admitted to the Del Parque Clinic in the Buenos Aires suburb of Ituzaingo to try and cure him from his drug addiction and alleviate the heart and lung problems that at one point had put his life in danger.

The World Cup winner had been undergoing drug rehabilitation in Cuba for the last four years before he was hospitalized twice after returning to Argentina in April.

Maradona Movie

Whatever you might think of this muckraking, Maradona’s life and antics certainly provide enough fodder for a movie, maybe several movies. Maradona has had so many falls from grace and comebacks that he seems to be living in an extended VH1 special. An admitted cocaine addict, he’s been to rehab and spent time in a psychiatric hospital (“They were all crazy in there!” Maradona said, “One said he was Napoleon, and they didn’t believe him. I said I was Maradona and they didn’t believe me either

Creative commons photo details, June 2006.