D.C.'s Quaranta: I Was A Drug And Alcohol Addict

• Washington Post, Monday, June 16, 2008 1:30 PM

In one of the most revealing interviews ever with a Major League Soccer player, D.C. United midfielder Santino Quaranta told Steven Goff the story of his five-year addiction to pain-killers and alcohol, and how it threatened both his career and his life.
 
Quaranta was the youngest player ever in MLS when he made his debut for United as a 16-year-old striker in 2001, but despite the promise that earned him a total of 11 senior U.S. caps, he suffered numerous injuries and dips in form over the following years. The pain-killers he received for those injuries coupled with a late-night lifestyle lead to addiction, lack of fitness, repeat injuries, and a depression that finally caused him to call the league office last October and beg for help.
 
"He tested positive for cocaine in 2006, but because he was a first-time offender, MLS did not suspend him and the results were not made public," writes Goff. "In the following 18 months, however, his addiction grew progressively worse, culminating with a three-month stay at a treatment facility in Malibu, Calif., last winter." Quaranta called himself "a one-dimensional alcoholic and addict. When I tell you nothing else mattered in my life, I am not lying. To know there was a way out was a blessing."

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