Rex Chapman opens up about addiction struggle, journey to recovery

Rex Chapman spent a dozen years with the NBA, but during that time he was also battling addictions that cost him relationships, finances and more.

His new memoir, "It's Hard for Me to Live with Me: A Memoir," co-written with Seth Davis, explores his struggle and recovery.

Chapman spoke with ABC News' Linsey Davis about his journey and the book.

ABC NEWS LIVE: So let's start with that title, "It's Hard for Me to Live with Me," how did that come about?

REX CHAPMAN: Initially, Seth Davis, who co-wrote the book with me, and Simon & Schuster, I think they were like, mulling over "The King and I" or something. But evidently Seth asked me one day, near the end of the whole process, 'Do you think you'll get married again?' Or, 'can you see yourself in a relationship?' I said, 'I don't know.' I said, 'I don't think I'll get married again.' I said, 'I wouldn't want to do that to someone else. It's hard for me to live with me. I'd like to take myself in smaller doses if I could.' So… I guess they read that and felt like it was poignant. I didn't. I just said it. I was being sincere.

ABC NEWS LIVE: In last seven years of your career, you end up having three surgeries, given a lot of painkillers [and] you become addicted. What made you decide: 'I want to write about it and share my story'?

CHAPMAN: Seth called me up one day, this is several years ago. This is probably right at the beginning of the pandemic, and I'd been through rehab. I'd gotten in trouble in 2014. I'd gone to rehab. I'd gone through the process of getting clean and had to really learn how to kind of live again and then really had kind of gotten back into a normal routine. And Seth called me up one day and said, he saw me on a news show and was talking about, I think, the George Floyd murder. And, [he] called me up and said, 'Hey, you want to change the world?' I didn't know what he was talking about, but he said, 'I think you're ready to tell some people some things.' And I was like, 'All right, I guess so.' So it was probably him, and I don't know that I'd have done it [or if] I would have done it with anyone else.

ABC NEWS LIVE: You also talk about having an addiction to gambling, going and making millions of dollars in the NBA to, at one point, living in your car. What do you attribute to being able to get free of both addictions from gambling as well as drugs?

CHAPMAN: Gambling may have been even harder. It's not hard to gamble when you don't have any money, so that's not that's not an issue now.

I didn't know why, [but] I knew I liked gambling. It was something I'd done since I was 6. Thoroughbreds. Only thoroughbreds, I've never bet on a sport in my life. I think it's stupid, which betting on thoroughbreds is probably stupid, but I didn't look at that as an addiction because I could go and do that all summer long or whenever, and then I'd go play basketball for a few months.

I might not do it for months, but I always came back to it. It was always one of my go-to things that I like to do. I didn't realize it was just me not having a coping mechanism.

There's a lot of other things that you know you can be doing that aren't good for you.

ABC NEWS LIVE: What advice would you give somebody who right now and they're in the middle of some kind of addiction?

CHAPMAN: Talk. Talk to somebody. If you can go to therapy, go to therapy. If you can afford to do that, if you can't find somebody, anybody and talk to them.

ABC NEWS LIVE: You've talked about how your addiction pushed your family away, but ultimately, how key were they as a support system for you?

CHAPMAN: I mean, incredible. My kids love me. I know they love me. From the moment they were born, I was done for, all in, that's a perfect combination of me and their mom. And we both can't love them any more. We had our problems and our issues all due to me. She's a saint. She put up with an addict her entire marriage, her entire marriage.

And addicts lie, and cheat and that's what I was. And that's why I say it feels kind of fraudulent sitting up here. Because, I've tried to do things better going forward, and I know I'm a better person, but I wasn't this person with her. And that's, our kids' mom, and she's the best mom. She raised them, I played with them.