DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF News) – Former Texas A & M football star and NFL quarterback Johnny Manziel is hoping for a second chance.
The Heisman Trophy winner told ABC News that he suffers from bipolar disorder and despite all of his accomplishments struggled to be happy.
“I had a sense of entitlement about what I had accomplished at the age I had accomplished it. I got so ingrained in only carrying about what Johnny wanted. Even when I thought I was doing what I wanted I was miserable,” he said.
Manziel said his misery led him to drink heavily.
“Going back throughout the last couple years of my life, I was self-medicating with alcohol. I thought that’s was making me happy and helped me get out of that depression to a point where I thought I had some sense of happiness,” he said.
The situation took an even darker turn for the former Cleveland Browns’ star, when he was charged in a domestic violence case stemming from a January 2016 incident where his former girlfriend accused him of assault at a Dallas hotel.
The Browns cut Manziel from the team and the district attorney dropped the charges later that year.
It took his mother’s powerful words during a heated conversation to make him realize the effect his decisions had on those around him.
“She said ‘You don’t understand when people come up to us and say… What the hell is your son doing?’ I didn’t really feel until my mom said that and she just broke down and was crying and I saw the trickle-down effects of what I was doing in my daily life,” said Manziel.
Manziel said he is sober now and that he’s confident he has what it takes to one day to return to the football field if given another chance in the NFL.
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