It’s not a secret that Ryan Leaf was, at one point in his life, dangerously addicted to drugs. According to a report that came out back in 2012, Leaf was routinely having large amounts of prescription pills mailed to his home, and when he ran out of them and got really desperate, he reportedly used to walk into peoples’ houses, go through their medicine cabinets, and steal whatever he could find.
Leaf eventually hit rock bottom in 2013 when he was sentenced to serve seven years in Montana State Prison, but according to him, it was incredibly hard to overcome his addiction while in prison. But not necessarily for the reasons you might think. During an interview on The Dan Patrick Show today, he revealed that it was actually easier for him to find drugs while he was locked up than it was for him to find them when he was out on the streets.
“It was pretty rampant in there,” he said. “Pills, which was my thing, too, those were really prevalent. The guards would bring them in. I was always worried. That was my biggest worry—that they would toss them in my cell one day and plant stuff on me and I’d get stuck [in jail] for longer and longer. You always had to toe the line with them. One of my friends told me, you know, if you ever want to see the worst people in the world, go to a prison at a shift change. That was the running joke there.”
Leaf said that, despite the prevalence of drugs, he was ultimately able to stay away from them and get his life back together.
“I was in a place where I said, ‘I’m done,’” he said. “When somebody gets to that point, they get to that point. It’s usually a huge transformation, for sure.”
It’s kind of amazing to see and hear how well Leaf appears to be doing. During his phone interview with Patrick, he was down in Augusta, Ga. for the Masters, which is an event that he says he watched on a small TV when he was in jail. Check out the clip above to hear him talk more about his transformation and what he thinks he can do to help Johnny Manziel.
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[via The Dan Patrick Show]
