Book Excerpt: MARINOVICH: Outside the Lines in Football, Art, and Addiction

MARINOVICH: Outside the Lines in Football, Art, and Addiction

By Todd Marinovich with Lizzy Wright

Published by Matt Holt Books/BenBella Books

Hardcover

If you could be anyone in Los Angeles, who would you be?

It wasn’t a complicated poll — classic fodder for the Mark & Brian Show. I loved these radio personalities, rarely missing an episode on my way to work.

The dash clock showed 7:45 A.M. I was supposed to be on the training table getting my ankles taped. Bring on the late fine. I wouldn’t be satisfied with a cliff-hanger. As I rounded the corner to enter the Raiders training camp facility, Brian teed up the results.

The first choice was obvious: Magic Johnson. He was synonymous with Los Angeles. Even his HIV diagnosis had barely tarnished his public image.

The second pick nearly caused me to crash my ride.

“Todd Marinovich.” Out of all the athletes, musicians, actors, and celebrities in Los Angeles, the audience chose me — pure insanity.

There’s no way anybody would want my life if they knew what it was really like.

Two hours later, the Raiders released me.

So much for the fairy tale.

December 1, 2002.

The syringe is too dull to pierce my jugular.

There are no virgins left on my body; every vein has been abused to silence the agony. I am desperate for a reprieve, but it will be short-lived before the storm returns, bearing down with unrelenting sheets of hurt, doubt, and self-loathing. Each time I’m hopeful the heroin will permanently silence this raging tempest, but I’m never so lucky.

The smell of death lingers in the fetid air. I don’t want to die, yet this isn’t living.

As I sharpen the large-gauge needle with a file, the scraping metals sound as wretched as I feel. It’s an out-of-body ache as I look down on an unrecognizable man. My skin hangs loosely from my weak bones. I’m a shell of a person, emaciated and propped up against a wall, alone in a vacant warehouse in East Los Angeles. I rise to shatter the mirror because I’m afraid of what I will see.

I forgo a tourniquet. It feels like a noose around my neck and a terrible way to die. But I need to expose the entry point for relief. I take a deep inhale as I’ve done a million times before. I’m not duck-diving a wave in the surf, though; I’m risking my life for a high. Is this my fatal last breath? It doesn’t matter; it’s not a choice. If I don’t shove the needle into this swollen vein, the agony of withdrawal will become all-consuming.

I brace myself against a filthy sink, leaning in as my lungs scream for air. My body fights for its life as the lights dim. I’m about to go dark, so I thrust the needle into my neck. The skin pops, and I wait. As my eyes flutter, I weave in and out of consciousness. My synapses slow to a crawl as I imagine blood mushrooming into the syringe to signal blissful contact. The euphoric warmth surges faster than a rising tide throughout my body. Extracting the weapon from my left hand, I apply pressure on the puncture point. It’s like covering a garden hose with my thumb as the blood wants out to expose the carnage.

This can’t be me, but it is.

Excerpted from Marinovich, copyright © 2025 by Todd Marinovich with Lizzy Wright. Reprinted with permission from Matt Holt Books, an imprint of BenBella Books, Inc. All rights reserved.

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