by Jason Peter
First published 2009
Jason Peter had everything an athlete could want. He captained the National Champion Nebraska Cornhuskers and got drafted in the first round of the NFL. But behind the perfect facade, Peter battled a devastating heroin addiction that nearly destroyed him. He swallowed sixty Vicodin at once, mixed twenty sleeping pills with vodka, and somehow survived. Death became his constant companion as he pushed his body to its absolute limits with crack and heroin. The amounts he consumed were restricted only by what his system could handle before seizure or respiratory failure set in. Eventually, Peter reached his breaking point. He contemplated buying a gun, loading it, and ending his life. This raw account strips away the glamour of professional sports to reveal the dark reality of addiction.
Genres: addiction, autobiography, sports, biography-memoir
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: addiction, memoir, sports
Setting: Nebraska
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
304 pages · Paperback · St. Martin's Griffin
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use, substance-abuse