Keith Closs (left) Getty/Jeff Gross In an interview with SLAM (via SB Nation), former Los Angeles Clippers center Keith Closs says his alcoholism was so bad he even drank during games.

“I was drinking on the bench, too. That wasn’t Gatorade in my water bottle; it was whatever I’d brought with me from the liquor store on the way to the arena. I had grown very resentful of the fact that I wasn’t playing…I felt like I was wasting away.”

Closs, who has been sober for years now, began drinking at an early age after his father introduced him to whiskey, he says.

But problems intensified when he chose to attend Central Connecticut State University.

“I visited [Central Connecticut State University] and one of my future teammates knocked somebody out at a party at Trinity College,” Closs says. “I knew right there [CCSU] was where I wanted to be. I was into that type of thing.

“I was already a full-blown alcoholic by then. I was living a double life,” Closs continues. “But college was the first time I actually had any real problems related to my drinking.”