By the end of my third year, I was one of the most productive frontcourt players in the league, an acknowledged all-star who could give his team 20 points and 10 rebounds just about any night of the week. Those are the kinds of numbers that people notice and that invariably lead to a feeding frenzy in free agency. In terms of basketball, things could not have been much better. I loved the game and I was having fun playing at a level that I wasn’t even sure was attainable.
I was also a total weed-head.
I rarely drank or even went out much anymore. Alcohol is a far more social drug than marijuana, in part because of its legality, but also because it works as a social lubricant. When I would drink, I wanted to hit the clubs and be the life of the party. When I’d smoke, I just wanted to chill and hang with a couple of my boys. It didn’t take long to reach the point where the sober hours were outnumbered by the inebriated hours. I hardly ever went out during this period, and when I did, I’d nurse a drink for a couple of hours, just to have it in my hand and keep people from questioning me; I didn’t want to look out of place.
I’d wake and bake every single morning—literally roll over, shake the cobwebs out, and light a joint. And I’d smoke the whole thing myself. The high would carry me all the way through morning practice. After practice I’d grab something to eat, come home, smoke three or four blunts—big, fat ones—and then get something to eat. Most of this was done with Dog and some of his posse, or with a couple of my friends from home. That was the routine: just smoking and eating and playing ball. Sometimes we’d invite some girls over and have a little party at Dog’s mansion. But it was all very self-contained and clandestine. I got along with all my teammates, but unlike the previous year, I rarely hung out with them on the road, and definitely not when we were home. This probably led people to think that I was more of a straight arrow than some of the other guys.
Every day began and ended with weed. I smoked to wake up, and I smoked to facilitate sleep. In the middle I smoked because . . . well . . . I liked smoking. The world was a more comfortable and manageable place when encountered through the haze of cannabis. As long as I was balling at an elite level, no one was going to ask any questions. I certainly wasn’t asking any of myself. As far as I was concerned, marijuana was integral to my steadily expanding success on the court. I was calm, relaxed, confident. It was almost as if the game had slowed down, and I could see everything more clearly. Weed was the magic elixir responsible for all of this—or so I told myself. And there was no way I was going to change the routine.
There was just one little problem: I was not the savviest guy in the world when it came to procuring drugs. It’s not like I had a reliable contact in Milwaukee; for the most part I counted on the largesse of friends or other guys on the team who smoked regularly. Aside from Glenn Robinson, there was no one who smoked as much weed as I did. Benoit Benjamin, a well-traveled veteran center who joined the Bucks in my third season, was also a fairly prodigious smoker, so he’d hook me up as well, but my constant nagging and pestering sometimes provoked annoyance. Just to be clear, none of us was selling weed. We all had money, and Glenn usually had plenty of weed, so he mostly didn’t mind sharing. But after a while I lived in a near constant state of agitation over whether I’d have enough weed to get through the coming days. I didn’t recognize this for what it was: typical drug-seeking behavior, in which the addict’s life revolves around nothing so much as the restocking of his supply. To me it was no more worrisome than making sure I had the right pair of basketball shoes, or that I was properly hydrated during a workout. Weed was just another tool in the kit.
But if that tool happened to be dull, or, God forbid, missing? I would freak out. Through bad planning or other circumstances beyond my control, this happened with some regularity. We’d be on the road for a few days, my stash of weed would invariably diminish, and I’d have to run down to Glenn’s room to replenish. Dog was my boy, my weed partner, but sometimes I tested his patience. Like a lot of guys who smoke copious amounts of marijuana, Glenn was fond of midday naps. More than once I interrupted him. He’d open the door, and with an annoyed expression on his face, he’d just shake his head.
“Again, Vinnie?”
“Yeah, sorry, Dog.”
“All right . . . come on in.”
In the same way that I would visit the team trainer for treatment of a sore ankle, I visited Dog for “medication” that would sustain my current level of play. I was an all-star getting accolades for my game, but far from thinking that weed jeopardized that status, I had become convinced that the drug facilitated and even enhanced my career.
But there was a steep price to pay, in the form of a handful of frightening episodes in which my heart began racing after I got high, and I wound up in the emergency room, on an IV drip, lying to the docs about what had happened and pretending that it was just a panic attack. I’m not talking about a minor escalation of pulse; I’m talking about something that felt like tachycardia—like I was about to have a heart attack. I started thinking about guys like Len Bias and Reggie Lewis and Hank Gathers, young men whose careers and lives were cut short by cardiac arrest. (In Bias’s case, his death was a direct result of drug use.)
The first episode occurred in March 1996, prior to a game in Chicago, against the Bulls. Chicago is an easy ninety-minute drive from Milwaukee, so we usually bussed for this game. I’d been up late the night before; I set my alarm for eight o’clock (the bus was scheduled to leave at 10:00 a.m.), and smoked a joint as soon as I woke. Instantly, I knew something was wrong. Instead of the usual wave of relaxation that came over me with a morning buzz, I felt a rush of anxiety. I had trouble breathing; my heart raced so quickly and loudly that I thought it might jump out of my chest. I tried to relax.
Deep breaths . . . deep breaths. Take it easy, Vinnie.
No good.
In a desperate, amateurish manner, I tried to meditate, figuring the episode would pass soon enough. But it didn’t. The symptoms escalated, to the point that I thought I might pass out or even die. My college buddy Mike was living with me at the time, so I called out to him for help.
“What’s wrong, Vin?”
“I don’t know. I think I might be having a heart attack. You have to get me to the hospital.”
Mike helped me downstairs and drove me to the emergency room, where I was attended to quickly and dramatically. Medical personnel rushed me right past the front desk and into an examining bay before even filing out the proper paperwork. I was quickly hooked up to an array of machinery, given an IV, and peppered with questions.
“Do you have a history of heart disease?”
“No.”
“Have you ever had an episode like this before?”
“No.”
“Are you on any type of medication?”
“No.”
And then the big one . . .
“Do you use recreational drugs, and have you taken anything today?”
Long pause . . . “No . . . never.”
The docs and nurses were surprisingly calm about all of this. I presume they had heard and seen it all before; whether I was telling the truth or not was almost irrelevant. They were merely checking the appropriate boxes.
“Well, clearly something unusual is happening, Mr. Baker, so we’re going to have to keep you here for a while and monitor your condition.”
They recognized me, which helped ensure a degree of discretion and privacy, or at least as much as was possible within the crowded confines of the emergency room. I appreciated the attention and sensitivity and professionalism, but I also knew that I couldn’t afford to miss the bus to Chicago, as then there would be myriad questions to answer—from the coaching staff and management, from fans, and from the media. While this episode was nothing more than a panic attack, it was bound to raise eyebrows. When a team’s star player winds up in the ER—for any reason—it’s big news. Even as the medication coursed through my veins and slowed my heartbeat, as my mood stabilized and the anxiety faded away, and with it the fear of death by cardiac arrest, I squirmed at the prospect of public scrutiny. I felt relatively normal and wanted to get out of the hospital as quickly as possible, before anyone on the Bucks got word of the episode.
After an hour or so, I told the attending physician that I wanted to leave. The doctor strongly discouraged me, suggested a full battery of tests, and perhaps an overnight stay in the hospital.
“This is not something to take lightly, Mr. Baker,” he said. “We want to be sure you’re all right.”
“I’m fine, believe me.” Then I proceeded to spin a convincing yarn about previous anxiety attacks and similar episodes with benign outcomes. The doc was sympathetic, but ultimately unconvinced. I kept looking at my watch, insisting I’d be okay.
“I have a game to play tonight, Doc. I really have to go.”
In the end, the hospital declined discharge. If I were to have had a heart attack two hours after being released from the ER with a clean bill of health, the hospital would have been liable. Prudence on their part demanded further testing. Prudence on my part was something else: I had to leave. So I signed something known as a Discharge Against Medical Advice (DAMA) form, which provided legal absolution to the hospital. I thanked everyone for their kindness and professionalism, and walked out. Mike drove me to the arena, where I caught the bus to Chicago without anyone’s being the wiser. I went through shootaround without incident, got something to eat, and took a nap.
And then I got high in my hotel room before the game.
That night I had 21 points and eight rebounds in a nine-point loss to the Bulls. Three nights later, in Atlanta, I had 34 points and 10 rebounds against the Hawks, and two nights after that I had 25 and 12 against the Celtics. It was one of the most productive three-game stretches of my career, and it came on the heels of what felt like a near-death experience. And I was stoned for every minute of each game.
I’m sure some of my teammates in Milwaukee suspected there was an issue. Terry Cummings, for example, would occasionally give me a sideways glance during practice . . . a look that seemed to say, Son, there’s something going on here. But he wouldn’t put his thoughts into words; it was just something I felt, probably because Terry was such a clean-cut, thoughtful guy.
Armen Gilliam, another of my teammates on the Bucks, would also toss subtle hints my way: a look of concern, for example, or an inquiry, out of the blue, about how I was feeling. Armen never confronted me personally, but he did talk to my father once. I resented it at the time, of course—that’s what addicts do; they get pissed off when people try to help.
My output continued to improve, despite my best efforts at sabotage. I averaged 21.1 points and 9.9 rebounds that season, played in the All-Star Game again, and generally continued to perform like one of the league’s top centers. In the summer, though, came another frightening episode related to smoking weed. Much like the previous time, the effects were instantaneous. I took a hit, and my heart started racing. But this one was even worse. My chest felt constricted; I was light-headed.
Oh, man . . . this time it really is a heart attack.
I was alone and had to drive myself to the hospital. I raced through the streets of Milwaukee—flying through red lights and stop signs at fifty, sixty miles an hour. Other drivers leaned on their horns as cars jumped out of the way. I felt like I was going to black out behind the wheel. I gripped even tighter as I tried to take slow, shallow breaths.
Hang on . . . hang on . . .
At the hospital—the same hospital, incidentally—there was much commotion, just as there had been a few months earlier. Same set of questions, same denials on my part, and the same nonjudgmental response from the doctors. This time, however, I was in no hurry to leave. I stayed for several hours, went through a battery of tests, and ultimately was determined to have suffered nothing more serious than a panic attack. They released me with what amounted to the following recommendation:
Try to relax.
I couldn’t relax. Whether for physiological or psychological reasons, my response to smoking had become dangerous and unpredictable. Could I play without weed? Could I even get through the day without it?
I had no idea.
I spent a lot of time that summer training with Glenn Robinson. Two or three times a week we’d get together at the Cousins Center, where the Bucks practiced, and work out. The sessions were intense and productive, except on those occasions when I felt dazed and confused. This happened with greater frequency as the summer stretched on; instead of getting in better shape, I was regressing. I had trouble breathing. My legs were heavy and sore. Sometimes I’d get light-headed after just a few minutes of warming up. On the worst days, my heart would begin racing. Then it would slow down. Then it would race again. I could feel my pulse in my throat, as if my heart were trying to climb out of my body.
It was at once disgusting and terrifying. At the end of one of those sessions I decided that I had to stop smoking weed.
“I’m done,” I said to Glenn.
He smiled, laughed a little.
“Sure you are, bro.”
I was 100 percent serious. I quit—not quite cold turkey, but pretty close. By the time the season started I had cut way back on weed, and by the middle of the season I had stopped completely. But I didn’t get sober. I just traded one drug for another.