Jeff Allison, a class A pitcher and Florida State League All-Star, is working on a comeback from OxyContin addiction and heroin addiction. His story starts back in 2003 when he was considered the best high school player and the Marlins’ first-round pick. He blew off the Majors twice thanks to his addiction and now, at the age of 23, he has 19 months clean and sober and his focus isn’t on baseball stats anymore.

Allison says, “Being mediocre is a million times better than my best high. I love what I do. I love waking up every day, going out to the field, knowing that I’m doing the thing I love to do and getting paid for it. That’s something I’ve never felt before. When I was 18 and I signed that contract, I had too big of a head, and I didn’t understand anything. I didn’t understand life and what it was made of — what it was going to bring to the table for me.”

Allison’s Drug Addiction History

We all have a drug-a-logue, as they say, a history of how we started using, how it progressed, when we knew it was out of control, when we first tried to quit, et cetera. Allison is no different. His first inpatient drug rehab stint came just a few months after he graduated from high school. Apparently, it wasn’t as successful as he hoped for since July of 2004 found him trying heroin for the first time… and overdosing. He got a few months clean in 2005 and pitched Class A Greensboro with a decent record but nothing like before, but in August, 2006, he overdosed again. In 2007, he got jail time and probation for heroin possession, among other things.

Kicking Heroin Again

There was no hitting bottom for Allison, no epiphany. He says, “Forget about wakeup calls, because you can overdose, you can [have seizures], you can do all these things physically that can bring you down. But until you figure it out for your own and reach out to the people that tried to reach out to you in the beginning, that’s when you’re really going to figure it out. That’s when you’re really going to choose life over death, and that’s what I did.”

So how does he do it? He says he watches movies in his room rather than hitting the town, he has a sober companion with him when he does have to go out and he tries to have someone he can call in case of an emergency. He says he hasn’t been tempted… so far.

Words of Advice

Anybody have any words of wisdom for the 23-year-old Allison? It can’t be easy to stay clean when you’re so young and temptation is all around you. And traveling is a big part of baseball and that can’t make it any easier. How do you handle the pressures of work and travel and stay clean at the same time?

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"Jeff Allison Gets OxyContin Addiction Treatment in Drug Rehab" posted in Oxycodone, Oxycontin.
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