Johnny Manziel Says ‘Constant, Daily’ Drug Use Caused Him to Lose 40 Pounds in 9 Months After NFL Release

After being released by the Cleveland Browns following a disastrous two seasons in 2016, Johnny Manziel's descent into drug addiction nearly cost him his life. 

The enigmatic, controversial athlete was one of the most polarizing players in college football history during his time at Texas A&M. In 2012, he became the first freshman to ever win the Heisman Trophy, awarded to the nation's best player. However, he became known just as much for his erratic off-the-field behavior as for his on-field prowess, and the reputation followed him to the NFL and eventually led to his dramatic dismissal from the Browns. 

From there, things just got worse.

"When I got cut from the Browns, I felt the biggest weight lifted off my shoulders ever," Manziel said in the new Netflix documentary Untold: Johnny Football, which debuted Tuesday on the streaming service. "But that didn't translate into what I experienced and what I would deal with in my everyday life."

Manziel was eventually dropped by his agent, Erik Burkhardt, and his father Paul Manziel withdrew his name from his son's company after repeated attempts to get him back into rehab were unsuccessful. 

"The people around me and closest to me were in the mindset of, 'We have to let him go,'" Manziel said in the doc. "When that happened, it was full-blown 'I'm gonna rub this whole thing in your f—ing face. You think you've seen something now? You haven't seen sh— yet.'"

Despite their apparent best efforts, Manziel was impenetrable to his entire family in the months after his release.

"It was so out of control," Manziel's mother Michelle said in the doc. "But he couldn't hear it. His mind was so gone."

Without football to hold Manziel accountable — at least to the extent that it ever could — he accelerated his partying to a higher degree than ever before.

"[It was] the first point in my life where I really ramped up my drug use to a constant, daily thing," Manziel said. "I was mostly doing a lot of coke and taking Oxys. I went from 215 pounds in January to 175 pounds by September."

Manziel continued, "The wires in my head seemed very twisted," and he was eventually diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Still just in his mid-20s, Manziel thought he was purposefully taking himself to the edge of a cliff, he said.

"I had planned to do everything that I wanted to do at that point in my life," he explained. "Spend as much money as I possibly could and then my plan was to take my own life."

Manziel eventually bought a gun and attempted to shoot himself.

"Still to this day, I don't know what happened," he said. "But the gun just clicked on me."

After his suicide attempt, Manziel returned home to be with his family in Texas. In the time since, Manziel has tried to resurrect his football career with short stints in the Canadian Football League and the now-defunct Alliance of American Football and Fan Controlled Football League.

Ultimately, his family is just happy he's still around to tell his story, however complicated it might be. 

"It's been a long, long road," his dad Paul said in Untold. "I don't know if it's been great or if it's been bad. That's kinda still up for debate. But we're blessed, and he's still with us."

UNTOLD: Johnny Football is available to stream now on Netflix.