From Pro Hockey to Rock Bottom: An Athlete's Recovery Story
- Jun 17
- 8 min read
He called his dad from a gas station parking lot, broke down, and said the words he had spent years avoiding: "I can't stop. I can't stop using." Gio was a straight-A student, a hockey star, and a professional athlete who played nine seasons in the minor leagues. None of it protected him. Athlete addiction recovery is the long, non-linear process of getting sober when your entire identity, your income, and your sense of worth were built around a sport, and addiction doesn't care how talented you are. This is Gio's story from the Sober Motivation Podcast, and it explains why high performers are often the last people to ask for help, and exactly what it took for one of them to finally turn it around.
When Drinking Starts Out as Fun, Not a Problem
For most people who end up in recovery, the early years don't look like a warning sign. They look like a good time.
Gio grew up in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, with two loving parents and a backyard rink. Hockey was his life from the moment he could walk. He started drinking and smoking weed around 14 or 15, the standard stuff inside a hockey culture that treated it as normal.
"It was just fun, man. It was fun in those days, and part of that hockey culture as well."
The first time he got drunk at 15, he blacked out and got sick. For a lot of people that would be a red flag. For Gio, it wasn't even a speed bump. He was back at it the next weekend.
What was driving it underneath? He points to two things he could only name in hindsight: a need for acceptance and a quiet sense of never feeling good enough. The drinking quieted that voice. That is the part that matters here, because the people drinking next to him mostly walked away from it. He couldn't. If five people are in a room, one of them is going to struggle with this, and the difference often comes down to what the substance is secretly doing for you. For Gio, it was turning down the inner critic.
The takeaway: If alcohol "works" for you in a way it doesn't seem to for others, pay attention to what it's actually solving. That's the thread to pull on long before the consequences show up.
How Addiction Hides Behind High Performance
Here is the trap that keeps successful people sick longer: they keep succeeding.
Gio earned a full-ride Division I scholarship to Ferris State in Michigan. He went on to play nine professional seasons, including two electric years in Oklahoma City where crowds hit 8,000 to 10,000 a night, and a championship run in Rapid City, South Dakota in 2010. For years, he was partying hard and still performing on the ice. Sometimes, he says, he played better.
That created a dangerous belief. If he could excel in school, in sports, and socially while using, then surely he had it under control.
"I cannot drink successfully. I cannot use successfully."
This is what people in recovery sometimes call the high-functioning trap. You point to every area of life you've managed well as proof you can manage this too. As Gio learned, that logic delays the willingness to get help for years. The wins on the scoreboard hid the losses everywhere else. If you recognize yourself here, it's worth reading Who Am I Without Alcohol? Finding Yourself in Sobriety, because the identity that protects you is often the same one keeping you stuck.
The takeaway: Functioning is not the same as being okay. Being able to hold a job, a relationship, or a performance together while using is not evidence you're fine. It's often the very thing that keeps you from quitting.
"Wherever I Go, There I Am": Why Moving Didn't Fix It
At 17, Gio moved three and a half hours from home for junior hockey. New town, new billet family, more freedom. Within days, the partying picked right back up.
"Wherever I go, there I am."
That old recovery phrase explains a pattern a lot of people know well. New city, new job, new relationship, fresh start, and the same problem follows you because you brought it with you. Geography never treated the real issue.
The progression was slow but steady. Drinking and weed in the teens. Harder substances in his early twenties after a rough stint at Ferris State that ended with him walking away from the program. Then a shoulder surgery in his pro years introduced him to prescription pain medication, and everything changed.
That first dose didn't just kill the physical pain. It made him feel, in his words, incredible. He chased that feeling for the better part of a decade. The tolerance climbed, the withdrawals arrived, and he started working multiple doctors and eventually going to the street to keep up. As he put it, it was pharmaceutical-grade heroin, and that is what he wanted.
The takeaway: A change of scenery, or even a legitimate prescription, won't outrun addiction. The work is internal, not geographic.
The Identity Crisis Nobody Warns Athletes About
For the first 30 years of Gio's life, hockey was the purpose. Then, right after his 30th birthday, he felt himself lose a step on the ice, made a rash mid-season decision, and hung up his skates within days.
He didn't grasp the size of that loss at the time. The thing his whole identity was built on was simply gone. Two months later, his wife left and took their daughter. His family was back in Canada. He had no teammates to lean on. He was barely holding a job, mostly to fund the habit, and the drugs were starting to stop working.
"I genuinely thought I was a hopeless variety alcoholic addict with, like, no chance of return."
That is one of the darkest places a person can sit, and Gio was honest that suicidal thoughts crept in. He wondered whether the people he loved would be better off without him. This is the quiet emergency underneath a lot of addiction stories, and the same kind of pain shows up in Drinking to Cope With Trauma: Johnny's Story of Why Alcohol Worked Until It Didn't.
The takeaway: When a core identity ends, whether it's a sport, a career, or a role, the void it leaves is real. Naming it and finding a new source of purpose is part of the recovery work, not separate from it.
If you're struggling with thoughts of self-harm, please reach out to someone you trust or a crisis line in your area. You don't have to carry it alone.
Why High Achievers Wait So Long to Ask for Help
Gio used for years before he ever told anyone the truth. Two forces kept him silent.
The first was the hockey culture and the ego that came with it. Asking for help felt like admitting weakness in a world that didn't make room for it. His mother once slipped addiction information sheets under his bedroom door. He didn't even read them.
The second was shame. Shame that he had let it get this bad. Shame that the kid who excelled at everything couldn't control this one thing.
"I don't necessarily know how to help you, Gio, but your mom and I are going to."
That was his father's response when Gio finally called from that parking lot. His parents didn't have the answers, but they started calling treatment centers across North America. And for the first time, Gio felt relief, because he had finally made the admission out loud: I am done. I cannot continue this way.
The takeaway: You do not need a perfectly informed support person. You need one honest conversation. The people who love you don't have to know how to fix it. They just have to know.
What Actually Made This Athlete's Addiction Recovery Stick
Gio went to treatment three times and detoxed several more. He is, in his own words, a repeat offender, and he refuses to dress that up. He has been sober roughly eight of the last 10 years, with a handful of significant relapses in between. He is about two years into this current stretch.
The real turning point was his second treatment stay, a 90-day, 12-step program in British Columbia. That's where the seeds were planted. People in recovery would come into the facility and talk about getting back everything Gio had lost: their kids, their livelihood, their purpose. The light was literally back in their eyes.
"As long as you're still breathing, there's hope."
That hope is what he had been missing. Seeing other people recover from situations as bad or worse than his own is what made it believable.
But hope alone didn't keep him sober. Every relapse, he says, came down to the same thing. He stopped doing the work. He would rebuild a good life, feel solid, let his guard down, and the addictive thinking would creep back in. Brad put it perfectly on the podcast: you wouldn't quit the gym and expect to keep the results, yet in sobriety people pull back on the very things that got them well.
"I quit doing the work."
If you've stacked up more attempts than you can count, you are not uniquely broken. Read She Had More Day Ones Than She Could Count: What Finally Made Sobriety Stick, because the pattern Gio describes is common, and so is the way out of it.
The takeaway: Recovery is not a finish line you cross once. It's maintenance. The work that gets you sober is the same work that keeps you sober, and stopping it is the most common path back out.
Finding Purpose Through Helping Others
It took Gio half a decade after hockey to find purpose again. He found it in service.
Today that looks like co-hosting the Away From the Ring podcast with his close friend DJ, giving other people a place to share their stories, and showing up for the people in his life. Notably, Gio and DJ recover differently. Gio is a 12-step and meetings guy. DJ leans on routine, journaling, and vulnerability. Both work.
"Take the things that work and leave the rest."
That is some of the best advice Gio ever got, and it's a reminder that there is no single correct way to get sober. The common thread in his recovery isn't a specific method. It's staying engaged and helping the next person.
There's a quiet full-circle moment in all of this. The kid who chased acceptance and never felt good enough now gets those needs met in a far healthier way: by being useful to someone else.
The takeaway: Service is not a nice extra in recovery. For many people, including Gio, it's the engine. Helping someone else stay sober is one of the most reliable ways to stay sober yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do so many athletes struggle with addiction?
Athletes often face a mix of physical injury, easy access to prescription pain medication, a culture that rewards toughness over vulnerability, and an identity built almost entirely around their sport. As Gio shared, that combination makes it hard to ask for help and easy to hide a growing problem behind on-field success.
Can you be a high-functioning addict and still need help?
Yes. Functioning well at work, in school, or in sports does not mean you have your substance use under control. Gio described using this exact logic to delay getting help for years. The ability to perform while using often masks the problem rather than disproving it.
Is relapse a normal part of recovery?
Relapse is common, though not required. Gio has been sober about eight of the last 10 years with several relapses in between, and he attributes each one to stopping the daily work of recovery. Many people experience setbacks, and as he says, "as long as you're still breathing, there's hope."
What helps an athlete rebuild identity after their career ends?
Losing a sport can leave a major void. Gio found that naming that loss and building a new source of purpose, for him through 12-step work and helping others, was essential. Recovery and rebuilding identity are not separate tasks. They happen together.
How do you stay sober long-term after multiple relapses?
Gio's answer is consistency. The work that gets you sober is the same work that keeps you sober: meetings or therapy, community, and service to others. He compares it to the gym, where stopping the routine eventually erases the results. Staying engaged is the difference.
Keep Going
Gio thought he was beyond saving. He wasn't. If his story sounds like yours, or like someone you love, the most important move is the one he avoided the longest: telling one honest person the truth. Listen to Gio's full episode on the Sober Motivation Podcast, share it with someone who needs it, and if you want daily support in your corner, download the Sober Motivation app and take your next day one with people who get it.
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