Former Giants first baseman and World Series hero Aubrey Huff said he was “high as a kite” during the club’s 2010 victory parade, and his struggles with anxiety and depression in two subsequent seasons were the partial result of stimulant use during his career.

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Bay Area TV Sports: What to watch on Sunday-Monday In an interview with KNBR to promote his book, Huff said he began taking Adderall in 2009, and called the stimulant, which is prescribed to treat attention-deficit disorder, a more powerful performance-enhancing drug than steroids.

“You just felt mentally invincible,” Huff said. “Think of Adderall like this: it’s a PED. You’ve got steroids, right? Everybody thinks steroids are the biggest PED going. I don’t believe that. Because what’s the biggest thing in baseball you need in order to be successful? Your mind, right?

“Steroids aren’t going to make your mind any stronger. But these Adderall things? My focus was laser sharp, the air was clean, it was crisp, every fan was like in 3-D. I mean everything around me … the ball looked bigger. Oh, I felt amazing! I could go 0 for 4 and it did not affect me.”

Adderall is a banned drug under Major League Baseball policy, but many players have applied for and receive a therapeutic use exemption. Players who tested positive without an approved exemption have been subject to suspensions and fines.

Huff said he was high on Adderall “every game, pretty much” from 2009, but the drug use began a vicious cycle in which he suffered from insomnia and developed an alcohol dependency to help him sleep.

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He said the anxiety and panic attacks he experienced in 2012, which sent him to the disabled list for a time, were a partial result of the guilt he felt from using a performance-enhancing drug.

He said it wasn’t because his performance had declined steeply after signing a two-year, $22 million contract after the 2010 season.

“That wasn’t what caused the anxiety for me,” Huff said. “For me, it was just a massive load of guilt. Using behind my teammates. Well, some of my teammates knew. But my wife didn’t know for the longest time, and she caught me red-handed using the stuff, when I told her a million times I wasn’t. So it was just a lot of off-the-field issues for me.”

Huff tells his story in “Baseball Junkie: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of a World Series Champion,” and wrote that he became so depressed that he held a loaded gun to his head while contemplating suicide in 2014.

He said his faith and his family served to brighten his outlook on life – and gain perspective on what was a personal rollercoaster after leading the Giants in 2010 to their first World Series title since moving to San Francisco in 1958. That celebration culminated in the victory parade in which Huff held aloft his lucky underwear to the crowd.

“Here I am in 2010, I’m pulling out a red rally thong — by the way I’m high as a kite doing that, waving that rally thong around,” Huff said. “I’m a guy from Texas. I get shot for doing stuff like that.

“At that time, I’m on top of the world – 2010 World Series champ, everybody loves me, team leader, that whole deal,” Huff said. “And in 2012, I have a picture of this parade and I’m in the back, Hunter Pence is throwing the (sunflower) seeds and everybody is on stage cheering and I’m in the back, blurred, head down, with the biggest frown on my face. I was a ghost in 2012. I felt like I didn’t earn it. I felt like I didn’t belong there, and I didn’t.”

Huff said he used to believe that people who suffered from depression were mentally soft until he experienced it for himself. He said he wrote his book to help others better understand the condition.