Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger says he struggled with an alcohol and pornography addiction in the past.
On Saturday, Roethlisberger, 38, appeared at the ManUp Pittsburgh conference, and the athlete said it was God that saved him from his obsession with porn and alcoholism. “I’ve fallen as short as anybody. I’ve been addicted to alcohol. I’ve been addicted to pornography, which makes me then not the best husband, not the best father, not the best Christian I can be. You have to dedicate yourself and understand that you can get out of it because of the grace of God,” Roethlisberger told former Steeler and show host, Tunch Ilkin, per Joe Rutter of TribLive.com.
Since then, Roethlisberger says the Lord has kept him aligned and focused. “I’m trying to be a better Christian than I am an athlete at football. I push myself every day to do that. It starts here,” he said. “It’s not always easy. People don’t realize all the time that us athletes, we’re human. We sin like everyone else. We make mistakes. We get addicted to things. We sin.”
Back in 2009 and 2010, Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault. The first woman was Andrea McNulty, who claimed Roethlisberger raped her in a Lake Tahoe hotel in 2008. Roethlisberger said the allegations were not true, and the parties ended up settling with a civil suit against Roethlisberger out of the courthouse in 2012. No criminal charges were filed. A college student in 2010 then said Roethlisberger raped her in the bathroom of a Milledgeville, Georgia, nightclub, according to The Bleacher Report. The Baldwin County district attorney’s office did not come after Roethlisberger with charges, but the NFL suspended him for six games, which was later lowered to four games because he violated the NFL’s personal conduct policy.
Adult film star Stormy Daniels opened up in her book Full Disclosure about how Roethlisberger walked her to her Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2006 and asked for a “good night kiss.” She said when she denied him, he pushed her on the hotel door and said, “come on.” She wrote, “I was terrified. I am rarely terrified.” Daniels says even after she went into her hotel room and closed the door, Roethlisberger stayed there for several minutes, reputedly knocking on the door until he finally left.
