Former Vikings running back celebrates six years of sobriety
By Adam Patrick
Former Minnesota Vikings running back Robert Smith recently posted on social media about his achievement of being sober for the last six years.
Before players began to retire early for CTE-related reasons, Robert Smith walking away from the Minnesota Vikings in the prime of his career was a rarity in the NFL.
After four-straight years of rushing for at least 1,000 yards (including a career-best 1,521 yards in 2000), Smith decided to retire after the 2000 season. Despite not even being 30-years-old at the time of his decision, the former Vikings running back later explained his decision to hang it up was to preserve his health.
Since his retirement from the NFL, Smith has worked as a college football analyst for ESPN and currently he talks college football for Fox Sports and The Big Ten Network.
Despite his success as an analyst after his professional football career, the former Minnesota running back has certainly had some difficult times since his retirement. One of those being his fight with alcoholism.
It’s something Smith says he has dealt with since he attended Ohio State. The running back has said that he drank while with the Vikings, but he kept it pretty under control that it never became a problem for him or the team.
After his NFL career though is when his drinking started to get real bad. Luckily, Smith received support from his wife and other friends and was able to remain clean and sober from 2007 to 2011.
Unfortunately, old habits came back in 2012 and the former Minnesota running back relapsed. But the birth of his son gave Smith more than enough reason to quit drinking once again and he has not consumed any alcohol since May 21, 2012.
On Tuesday, he took to Twitter to post about being six years sober.
6 years sober today. It's said that grateful alcoholics appreciate life so much because they have been saved from a living death. Couldn't agree more. One day at a time...
— robert smith (@Robert26Smith) May 23, 2018
As one can see from his tweet, Smith takes his battle with alcoholism day by day. And for the last six years, this strategy has certainly worked for him.
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The running back excelled for the Vikings when he was faced with obstacles on the field. Now off the field, Smith is conquering a disease that once made his everyday life more difficult than anything he ever experienced in his NFL career.