Ex-Buc Grimes' pain hits a lethal level

Like every player in the National Football League, Randy Grimes had learned to cope with pain.

During his 10 seasons as a center with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he kept going through injury after injury. When it got to be too much, there was always an injection to take or a handful of pills to swallow to mask the injuries and aches.

"You did what you had to do to stay on the field," he said. "Nobody ever told me I had to do those things. It was just understood that it's what you did."

But the hurt remained long after the cheering on Sunday afternoons stopped, and it never crossed his mind that the medicine he was taking to kill the pain could have killed him instead.

Grimes, 49 and 17 years removed from his playing days, spoke to the Tribune at Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches, a treatment center where he was sent by Pain Alternatives, Solutions and Treatments, known as PAST, to cleanse himself from the effects of medication abuse.

He fought the persistent pain the only way he knew how, swallowing prescription pain medication in levels that were well past dangerous.

He said he obtained the drugs by doctor-shopping in his hometown of Houston, receiving up to six prescriptions at a time.

"He never took them to get high, and I truly believe that," said Gloria Duncan, a rehab doctor who managed Grimes' detox when he showed up at the center. "It was strictly for pain control."

Controlling the pain carried a fearsome price, affecting Grimes' body and his home life. His neck ached from fending off opposing linebackers and nose guards. His shoulder ached, the effect of a torn triceps muscle. But his right knee was the worst of all.

"There is nothing left - just two bones. Put two dog bones together and then crook 'em a little bit, ... that's what it looks like," Grimes said.

As his tolerance to the drugs increased, so did his need for more. He said he was taking up to 15 pills at a time just to get out of bed, and then eight tabs totaling 16 milligrams of Xanax - a drug used to treat anxiety disorders - so he could sleep. That was at least four times the recommended maximum dosage.

Duncan recalled first examining Grimes.

"I thought, 'Oh, he's in trouble,'" she said.

A preliminary drug screening showed levels of toxicity in his body that were "off the charts," Duncan said.

She minced no words with the former athlete. One more pill, one more slip, and he could die.

"He was very close" to dying, she said. "It could have come at any time, I mean that night if he kept on what he was doing. ... It could have been just going to take a nap, and he could pass out. He was playing with his life at that point."

Grimes' problem is common among retired NFL players. Many of them have complained that the league they helped build abandoned them when their playing days were over.

"When you are retired, it's like you are wiped off the face of the Earth," said former Bucs linebacker Scot Brantley, one of Grimes' teammates. "There is a lot of need out there. I'd say 80 percent of the guys who played need some kind of help, but it's hard to get. There's something wrong with the system."

The NFL has programs to help retired players with such things as joint replacements, but critics say it doesn't begin to address the range of the problems. The effects of playing injuries sometimes don't fully manifest until 10 years after retirement, which players say makes it difficult to receive benefits.

Private organizations have tried to help. Gridiron Greats, an organization of retired players, has drawn attention to the problem in recent years. And Grimes found help from PAST, which provides comprehensive pro bono care for players in need. PAST specialists treat both the addiction and the underlying cause - the pain in Grimes' case.

"What happens when they leave?" said Jack Coscia, CEO of the treatment facility where Grimes is. "What happens when they clean out their locker and become just Joe Average person? How do they cope with that? Where does the adrenaline go?

"And if the adrenaline is your pain medication and it's no longer there, there has to be a big letdown, a big depression that comes. There is a redefining of self at the same time you are trying to treat injuries that are egregious, lifelong and devastating."

Grimes was lucky because it wasn't too late when he found help.

But it was close.

'How about a handshake?'

People just naturally like Randy Grimes.

"He was great," former Bucs teammate Dave Reavis said. "He was just a good ol' Texas boy and he fit in like a glove. You could tell he was going to be a good player."

The Bucs took Grimes in the second round of the 1983 draft. He had played at Baylor University, and his arrival in Tampa coincided with one of the darker periods in Bucs history. He played for five head coaches in 10 seasons and never won more than six games in a season. The Bucs were 40-119 overall while he was there.

"We were the wildebeest of the NFL," he said. "We were just food. We were game."

The weekly beatings were hard on the psyche but even harder on his body. Grimes said it was easy to get medication through the team.

"Usually all you had to do was ask," he said. "It wasn't like you had to go skirting around an empty building at night. It was available at any time and all you had to do was have a need for it. And everybody had a need for it when you're competing at that level.

"They'd give you a week's supply in an envelope or a three-day supply in an envelope. You'd always say, hey, I need a little more and they'd pour a few more in there. You did whatever you could do to play."

Grimes said he guessed about half the team was on some pain-killing medication

The NFL says teams are authorized to issue painkillers to players, but strict controls are in place to protect against abuse, including federal audits. Former teammates Reavis and Brantley said they did not use pills and never saw other players using them, but Reavis added, "I've never known Randy to stretch the truth in my life."

"When I played in Pittsburgh, there'd be a line out of the doctor's office on Saturday before the game to get some kind of shot so they could ease the pain and play on Sunday," Reavis said. "But I didn't see that in Tampa."

After the 1992 season, Grimes was told his contract wouldn't be renewed. He recalled going into an empty locker room and stuffing his belongings into a black trash bag, then heading to the parking lot for the drive to Texas.

No one even said goodbye.

"It's not like I wanted a parade or a street named after me, but how about a handshake?" he said.

Grimes moved back to Houston and began his post-football life, working in roofing sales. He was functioning - well, he thought - but his wife, Lydia, and their two children had increasing concerns about the number of pills he was using. He was combining the pain reliever Lorcet with benzocaine during the day, then taking more drugs to get to sleep.

"He was struggling very much to manage everything in his life - not only his pain, but his emotional well-being and his family. Everything just kind of fell by the wayside," said Frank Mattiace, who played in the NFL and USFL and now works as an addiction specialist at PAST.

The strain was showing at home, and the family is working to repair those relationships.

"We are encouraged by the progress he has made. We are looking forward to a healthy Randy physically and spiritually," Lydia Grimes said in an e-mail. "We are very thankful to PAST for their help. It is truly a miracle. ... We have such wonderful memories of Tampa and the many friends we made there."

Sharing his story

Going public hasn't been easy for Grimes, but he is committed to sharing his experiences. In addition to interviews with the Tribune and the New York Daily News, Grimes has regular posts of his progress on Facebook.

Medical experts say addiction to pain medication is widespread in all walks of life.

"I knew I had a problem years ago," Grimes said. "I didn't know how to stop it. I tried to quit myself several times and had several seizures because of it."

He contacted Jennifer Smith, a consultant with PAST. Smith has worked with retired players in need and arranged for Grimes to visit the organization's headquarters in New Jersey. Rather than focus solely on the addiction, doctors plan surgery to replace Grimes' right knee, relieving the primary source of pain.

All the treatment is donated.

"The game plan was to get him to detox and cleaned up first so we could then perform surgery," Smith said.

Grimes has been at the Palm Beach facility since Sept. 22. He said he had some bad days early on, but he now seems vibrant and more in control.

But Duncan, the doctor who told Grimes of his dire prognosis unless he got help, is guarded.

"He has a long ways to go, I'll be honest with you," she said. "He's looking forward to having the knee replaced. He's told me that in the past he's tried to get off the pain medication but had to go back on it because the pain was not gone. But what is different this time is the pain is going to be gone, I mean, considerably. It won't be 100 percent."

Grimes said he is ready for whatever lies ahead.

"There is a certain amount of surrender that has to be done," he said. "I had trouble swallowing my pride, admitting to myself - then to the people here, and then to the world - that I have a problem.

"I just want to be the husband and father I used to be. That is what I am out here to do."