- You get up to here during the game
and now standing outside waiting for you
is your family.
You find different techniques which can be alcohol,
pills to help you
manage that rollercoaster.
My Name is Cullen Jenkins
I'm a former Superbowl champion for the Green Bay Packer,
retired 13 year NFL veteran.
It was a rough ride for me to get into the NFL.
I was an undrafted player
out of Central Michigan.
Green Bay signed me.
They brought me into camp
and cut me right after.
And so I sat out that whole year.
I started to doubt myself.
Wonder if I'd even ever make it in the NFL.
Green Bay signed me back at the end of the season.
They sent me over to Europe.
I went over to Europe and played.
I gained a lot of confidence.
I came back, went through training camp again,
for the second time.
I made the team.
I played through everything.
There is so many injuries that
you don't even really keep track of them.
Ankle sprains, knee sprains, I tore my peg off the bone.
I can always tell people I have no knuckle right here.
I broke the bone in a game,
but the one that lingered the longest was
when I did my ankle.
So when I went to stand up,
it just gave.
I couldn't walk.
It ended up being a bone bruise.
And it never healed.
I ended up having to get surgery three years later.
They ended up drilling into the bone.
It was so bad that,
just walking around with my family,
if we go to a fair,
a carnival,
and you try to walk around,
half an hour 45 minutes into it I'd have to
sit down and just
rest and take a break
and everybody would have to wait for me.
I think it's just gonna be part of football.
There is no way you can have people
as big as they are, as fast as they,
as strong as they are,
running and colliding without there being some concussions.
They do all of the work with helmets.
Trying to teach different tacklings now.
And things to help try to limit the amount
of concussions that you get.
It's gonna be there.
It's no way to completely eliminate it.
I wouldn't say every game,
but you did see a lot.
A lot of it.
Nothing makes sense.
You couldn't remember the play calls.
You'd have to tell your teammates
sometimes you know,
you see the teammates saying what you did.
Be like, yo, can you help me out?
I don't know what's going on.
You learn to fight trough it.
Managing the pain,
you gotta have treatment.
The trainers will work with you
and they'll do whatever they can to help you to heal
and recover,
but that stuff is a process.
And it takes time.
You don't have that time.
You still have to practice
you still got games,
so by the time you're trying to heal
then you gotta go right back.
You're aggravated again.
For every practice,
I would have the same routine.
I would get out of meetings,
in an hour go to get ready for practice,
then I would take two Tylenol,
and four Advil.
And days where it was worse,
if the pain was bad,
I would substitute Vicodin for
the Tylenol and Advil,
So then when the game is over,
now you revved up some of the pain meds
are starting to wear off.
Now you wanna try to get your mind
to calm down and relax.
So you turn to alcohol.
I'm like, I need to go have me a few drinks
so I can settle down.
Chill out, relax.
The nature of football
you have to constantly
go from here to here.
Here to here.
And so you try to find the quickest ways
to get up to here,
when you need to be here.
Then when you're not,
don't need to be there anymore,
you try to find the quickest way to get back down.
If I got really beat up,
in the game,
I'd come home and I'd take a pill
and I'd drink with it.
It would become,
I wouldn't necessarily say too heavily,
but too often.
During then you can justify it because you say
this is why I'm doing it,
I'm doing it because I'm hurt.
I'm aching.
I need to relax.
Try to get some rest.
Try to get some sleep.
But then once football ends,
and you're still doing it.
And now you're like,
why am I still doing it?
There is no reason.
Before I had an excuse,
now I don't have an excuse.
Lot of players smoke weed,
smoke marihuana.
The testing process is an annual test.
I think it's a joke,
to begin with because
it's just all you have to do
is have enough self control
to stop during that testing window
so that you're clean,
then you can proceed with doing what you wanna do.
I never did it that often
I wasn't one that would do it every day,
for me personally I liked to kind of
be focused more.
Kinda of like, be feeling more the right state of mind
throughout the day.
I first got into CBD oil through family members.
They talked about a lot of the problems and pains
that I was going though,
and they brought me a sample of it.
I didn't know anything about CBD,
I heard cannabis and I thought it was just
something to get you high.
So I didn't even touch it.
I was like whatever.
Finally after two weeks they kept asking me about it,
how does it make you feel?
And I'm like alright,
I'll finally try it.
I started with the drops.
And you take the drops and
you just put it under your tongue
so it's oral oil.
I first started taking it to help me sleep,
and I was surprised because it doesn't get you high at all.
And so, then I started asking questions.
I'm like, well what exactly is it?
And that's when I started learning more
and they started explaining it to me.
This stuff can benefit you a lot.
It slowly started helping me with not just in sleeping,
but with pain,
so my energy level would be higher during the day
because I'm sleeping better at night.
Inflammation that I would have,
was started being better and going down.
It was something that was very surprising to me.
One of the reasons I got involved in it
is for the simple fact that I like it so much.
When you go to something and you try it,
and you say,
wow what is this?
This really helps.
How come I've never heard about this before?
So you do the research
and you see that it's not available everywhere.
It's something that's up and coming,
and people don't understand
so we're trying to spread the word,
to get people knowledgeable and understanding
about what exactly CBD is.
From a business standpoint,
I think that it's great.
I think that it can eliminate
a lot of just the opiod crisis
and help with a lot of different things for people.
In dealing with the pharmacy,
I got involved with Fresh Farms CBD.
We've got the oils.
We've got sports balms.
Education was something that was a big part for me.
And that's why I really liked the role
that I'm playing in this knowledge because
I get to help educate other people
that were just as ignorant to it as I was.
Cause you hear anything with cannabis
or hemp and all you think of is getting high,
and smoking weed but,
once you're educated and once you do the research
you realize that CBD isn't even doing any of those things.
If it is illegal,
why?
Opiates are illegal.
With adderall, all the medications like that
they test you for them,
but if you're prescribed by a doctor,
and you get it documented and signed
then it's okay.
No telling what is
does to you internally
form taking all the pills and the pharmaceutical drugs
that you get.
So I don't understand
why they're lagging behind with the CBD
if it's just here for the benefit of healing you,
then why won't we allow the players to do it,
especially if it can help prevent them
from being addicted to these drugs
or having these bad side effects,
from these drugs,
being introduced to the CBD oil,
has really helped me to focus on more healthier ways
of trying to go forward with my life
and getting away from the old bad habits.
Now, without taking that stuff,
just taking the oils,
I'm able to wake up feeling refreshed.
So you have more energy.
You go through the day,
your outlook is different
because now you're not,
looking for that escape form things.
(upbeat music)