NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal is opening up about his past experience with painkillers. In a conversation with Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast, the former Lakers star revealed why he had been using painkillers in the first place.
"You had to be on pain pills to play. You had to," Shepard said.
Shaq confirmed Shephard's comment: "You were playing through so many injuries. Again, back to this thing where I'm suspicious that for you to admit you have any weakness would be too painful."
"You're just keeping it all in, right?" Shepard asked. "You're just playing through everything."
"You have stuff that's going on and yeah, you had to be on pain pills," Shaq said.
Shepard inquired how or if taking the painkillers resulted in a dependency on the drugs.
"How did that not grab you? Or did it grab you a little bit? Have you ever been scared about any of that addiction-wise?" he questioned.
Shaq shared that he had a disagreement with doctors on whether he was addicted to the painkillers.
"Because I was having a heated discussion with my doctors like, 'You were addicted,'" he said.
"But I didn't feel high," he continued. "So I didn't know that was addiction. I don't think I was suffering mentally."
Shaq revealed in a 2022 interview with GQ that this was something that he only kept to himself.
"The trainers knew," he said, adding that he didn't share the issue with anyone close to him. "I mean, I'm not telling my wife or my kids or my boys."
Shaq was previously married to Shaunie Henderson and got divorced in 2011. He has six children, four with Shaunie, who remarried in 2022. The couple also shares a stepson, Myles, from Shaunie's previous relationship, and a daughter, Taahirah, with his former girlfriend, Arnetta Yardbourgh.
In the 2022 interview, Shaq stated that, " I was dependent upon painkillers — not addicted."
While he was previously on the painkillers, he ensured that the habit has subsided,
"Certain days when I couldn't move, I just popped one or two, just to get me going. But I'm off that now."
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