The Score: When it comes to NFL, Lucas boils

Gary Rothstein for New York Daily News

Former NY Jets quarterback Ray Lucas is working on getting his life back together after battling addiction to pain killers.

Want to see steam shoot out of Ray Lucas's ears? Want to make the former Jets quarterback boil over with anger? Here's one sure-fire method: Bring up the May 12 post about him on NFL.com, the one with the headline that says "Ex-NFL player Lucas takes responsibility for painkiller addiction."

"Where was the NFL when I said I would kill myself?" a furious Lucas says. "Where is the story on everything that has happened to my wife and family? Where was the story on that?"

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It was a small item on NFL.com, posted more likely to provide offseason content for the website than absolve the league of its legal or moral responsibilities. But it - and the anger it fired up in Lucas - raise a good question. Do traditional recovery models work for athletes who become addicted to painkillers during the course of their careers?

"With the significant injuries these players sustain while they are playing and the way they are medicated with painkillers during their careers, serious addiction and tolerance issues are born," says William Focazio, the physician who founded Pain Alternatives, Solutions and Treatments, a New Jersey medical group that provides health care to down-and-out NFL retirees.

Lucas, now an analyst with SNY, struggled with depression and painkiller addiction for many years after he retired from the league in 2003, souvenirs of the injuries he suffered during the eight seasons he played in the NFL. He couldn't get out of bed for days at a time, straining his relationship with his wife, Cecy, and their three daughters. When he sought assistance from the NFL and the Players Association, he says they told him they couldn't help him. His life seemed so bleak that he seriously considered suicide.

Fortunately, PAST treated Lucas for his addiction and injuries before he drove his truck off the George Washington Bridge. He's taken steps to restoring his health and repairing his relationships. Life for Ray Lucas isn't perfect, but it's good, especially compared to where he was two years ago.

Lucas, like a lot of NFL retirees, says he has no regrets playing the game he loves, but he blames the league for getting him hooked on pills. Painkillers were passed around NFL locker rooms as freely as Skittles, he says. Nobody told him about the long-term consequences for his health, or the possibility that he would become addicted. Nobody told him that he'd build such a high tolerance for pain meds that he'd have to take 10 times as many pills as an average person to get the same effect. And when he did get hooked on pain medication, nobody from the league or the union lifted a finger to help.

But in treatment, Lucas was taught that he needed to take responsibility for his addiction. He was told that he was responsible for the rest of his life.

"You have to move forward," explains Manuel Guantez, the chief executive officer of Turning Point, a New Jersey alcohol and drug treatment center. "You can stay angry all of your life. But that can hurt the recovery process."

So when Lucas was asked during an interview for The New York Times' football blog last month what the NFL should do to help prevent players from getting hooked on pain meds, he told reporter Toni Monkovic he didn't think of his addiction as an NFL player.

"It's my problem," he said. "It's true that my tolerance grew because I took painkillers when I was hurt, but the fact is that I chose to take those pills. I want other people to know that if they see their tolerance growing, rather than just upping the number of pills, talk to a doctor and figure out what's really going on."

Lucas says he wasn't trying to absolve the NFL of its role in his problems; he was trying to urge people to get help before they fall as far as he did. He doesn't seem angry at the Times, or even with Pro Football Talk, the NBC Sports NFL blog that applauded Lucas for "tackling his problem himself, rather than looking for someone to blame."

But when the interview got picked up by the league's website, all hell broke loose.

"I'm more than a little angry about it," Lucas says. "In the recovery world, I have to take responsibility, but in the real world, the NFL had a responsibility and they didn't help me when I needed it."

If Lucas chooses to join the thousands of other ex-NFL players who have sued the league for concussions and other health problems incurred during their careers, that interview will undoubtedly be used against him. But in the meantime, maybe this situation is just another lesson that Lucas needed to learn.

"You have to take responsibility for your recovery," says Joseph Battaglia, PAST's director of psychiatry, "but how you got there is another story."

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