Soccer star Ashlyn Harris is coming clean about the unhealthy Adderall addiction she had while attending the University of North Carolina.
On the most recent episode of the Question Everything With Danielle Robay podcast, the 39-year-old former U.S. women’s national team goalkeeper said she was “misusing” the combination drug often used to treat narcolepsy and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“I was taking it all the time. I would go days without sleeping. It was wild,” she said. “I felt like I was gonna give myself a heart attack. I was crushing it. I was snorting it. It was so problematic.”
According to WebMD, Adderall is classified as a stimulant and combines amphetamine and dextroamphetamine to “increase levels of natural brain chemicals, such as norepinephrine and dopamine.”
After a while, Harris noticed the drug starting to have additional side effects, which made it even more addicting.
“Then I was like, ‘Oh, it makes me skinny. It curbs my appetite,’” she remembered. “It was just a toxic, toxic time for me because it was the first time that I started to have my character tested because I started to get injured.”
“It got really, really dark, and I had to make some serious adjustments,” Harris said.
It was her college coach, Anson Dorrance, who finally helped her kick her habit.
“Anson would have me read books,” she remembered. “I started reading this book called [Man’s Search] for Meaning, and it’s about suffering and reframing it — and it changed my life.”
After an illustrious career playing professional soccer from the time she graduated college in 2009, Harris decided to leave the sport behind and retire in 2022.
At the time, she was still married to her now ex-wife, Ali Krieger, whom she met while playing on the women’s national team in 2010.
The two eventually split in 2023, and Harris is now romantically involved with One Tree Hill actor Sophia Bush.
Reflecting on the end of her four-year marriage, during which she and Krieger adopted daughter Sloane (now aged four) and son Ocean (aged two), Harris said: “I think it comes to a point where you are at the end of the rope.
“And you either put it around your neck or you drop it. That’s where I was,” she continued. “I was miserable. I wanted more for myself and I wanted more for my children on what their expectation of love is.
“How am I gonna try to teach my four-year-old daughter about being, like, strong and independent and loving her body and her inner self and her inner worth and all these things when I f***ing hated myself?”
Krieger has since moved on from their marriage, too. The former athlete hard-launched her relationship with Scottish soccer player Jen Beattie on her Instagram Story last Thanksgiving.
