Former St. Louis Rams and Dallas Cowboys defensive end Michael Sam reflected on the aftermath of his football career in a recent interview with Flinder Boyd of Yahoo Sports.
Sam, who became the first openly gay player in the NFL when the Rams took him in the 2014 , said "no one would give me a job" after his brief NFL career ended. He added, "Where was the support that I got for coming out? I felt like I was used by everyone."
The Rams released Sam prior to the start of the 2014 regular season, and while he caught on with the Cowboys as a member of their practice squad, he never played in a regular-season NFL game. In the fall of 2016, back in Dallas, he was a broken man. He became increasingly depressed and drank more. He stayed with Cammisano for a while but by then he had given up any hope of rekindling the relationship. He moved into a one-bedroom apartment and “brought the L.A. lifestyle” with him.
He reached out to organizations and companies in sports and the LGBT community but “no one would give me a job,” he says. “Where was the support that I got for coming out? I felt like I was used by everyone.”
He’d party at night, wake up and go to the gym, then sit alone in his apartment, doing lines of cocaine.
“I felt lost and worthless,” he says.
This went on for months.
In February of last year, at a Mardi Gras festival in St. Louis, some friends noticed he was struggling. One friend mentioned that he’d heard an ayahuasca retreat to the Peruvian Amazon could be life changing.
Sam knew almost nothing about ayahuasca but found online it was an extract with hallucinogenic properties mixed into tea used by ancient Amazonian tribes. Although in the western world it’s sometimes characterized as a fringe drug favored by hippies and new-age herbalists, it has recently become more popular with some mainstream neuroscientists as a way to break down emotional barriers and treat PTSD.
During these retreats strangers come together seeking some authentic truth about themselves that might be revealed while in their hallucinogenic states. The tea is administered under the direction of a shaman, and reactions are varied. Some report violent physical and emotional pain — nausea, vomiting and diarrhea — and mind-altering states. One man wrote he descended into a place where he was “watching a movie of every mistake I’d ever made.”
During the second evening, Sam sipped the tea and went into a trance. He was told to let go and be vulnerable. “It was as if my soul left my body,” he says. He won’t talk much more about his experience other than he found himself in the fetal position crying uncontrollably.
A few weeks later, in the summer of 2018, he backpacked alone through Europe and had a realization: “I can’t do this alone.” On his return to Dallas, he stopped hard drugs, joined workout groups and learned to meditate. He moved into a new apartment and began the long, arduous process of forgiveness.
