Former two-time NBA Champion and Los Angeles Lakers great Lamar Odom suffered a near-death experience in October 2015, as he was hospitalized and put in a coma after being found unconscious at a Nevada brothel. He was placed on life support after suffering kidney failure, several strokes and other drug-related injuries that almost cost him his life.
While he was able to survive and made a full recovery, his drug problem was something that he wanted to address so he went to rehab, and his since gotten his life back on track in a sober fashion.
Odom recently wrote an article for The Players’ Tribune, opening up about his drug addiction and near-death experience.
One thing that he touched on was he did not believe he was an addict and he didn’t believe that something like that could happen to him, until he woke up in the hospital bed:
When you’re an addict, nothing can get through to you. I never thought I was going to die. I never thought I’d be in a coma. I didn’t think I had a problem. But then I woke up in a bed with tubes coming out of my mouth — and it was real.
Odom also added that he is now sober, although it is a struggle that he goes through on a daily basis:
I’m sober now. But it’s an everyday struggle. I have an addiction. I’ll always have an addiction. It never goes away. I mean, I want to get high right now. But I know that I can’t if I want to be here for my children.
In recent months Odom has been present at the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo and at a few games at Staples Center with the hopes of joining Luke Walton’s coaching staff in the future.
Whether or not he joins the Lakers, or anyone’s coaching staff is unknown, but the fact that he has turned his life around is an inspiring story for everyone.
