Youngstown native Luke Wollet had it all.
He was a standout football player at Poland Seminary High School, then a star safety at Kent State University.
“Football was my first love,” he said. “A lot of people could say it was my first drug. It was everything to me.”
The NFL was in reach for Wollet until he was sidelined with a knee injury during his senior season at Kent State.
“Anytime there was a problem, I just ran to football. Now that football, in a sense, was taken away, I no longer had an answer to my problems.”
To numb his pain, he turned to pills, but quickly those pills turned to heroin.
“This stuff doesn't discriminate against anybody,” Wollet said.
Wollet’s body of work in college was good enough to earn him a tryout with the New Orleans Saints. But by then, his addiction was too strong to overcome.
“By the time I was in New Orleans I was a full-blown heroin addict. For 16 years my dream was to play in the NFL, and just like that it switched to a desire to seek drugs.”
A star in America’s most beloved game quickly became part of America’s biggest problem.
“I didn’t want to live anymore," Wollet said. "I still had too big of an ego to ask for help. I had the mentality I got myself into this problem I need to get myself out. But for me, my only way out was to kill myself.”
His story doesn’t end with heroin. In his lowest moments he was living in Cincinnati. It’s there that Wollet's father insisted on visiting him.
“He wanted to come down, see me and offer me help. He didn’t even know what was going on in my life at that time. As soon as he offered it I took it. I ran with it. That’s where everything changed. I finally surrendered my life.”
Wollet's life didn’t turn around instantly. He went to treatment for drugs and alcohol.
Today, Wollet is two years sober. He has now dedicated his life to helping and sharing his story with those who are battling the same addiction.
“I want people to carry a little less pain and a little less guilt. If you need help, seek it. That’s what I do now, connect those dots for people and for people to get a new chance at life.”
Growing up, Wollet's addiction was football, then heroin. Now he’s addicted to sharing his story to breed hope for the hopeless.
“My drug is Jesus really. He saved my life.”
Wollet now works for Banyan Treatment Center. He travels the country sharing his story in hopes of helping anyone dealing with addiction. He encourages anyone struggling with drugs and alcohol to reach out to him at 330-882-8192.