The NFL says that Inexperienced Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers didn’t violate league guidelines when he beforehand consumed the psychoactive beverage ayahuasca.
Via ESPN, “NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy stated Monday that it wouldn’t have triggered a constructive check consequence on both the substance abuse or performance-enhancing substance insurance policies collectively bargained by the NFL and its gamers’ affiliation.”
Rodgers, who’s at present making ready for his 18th season within the league, has created fairly a stir throughout coaching camp along with his revelation that he consumed ayahuasca in Peru previous to the earlier two seasons. In every of these seasons, Rodgers was named the league’s most precious participant, his third and fourth time profitable the award respectively.
Rodgers stated he doesn’t “suppose it’s a coincidence” that he claimed the highest particular person honor after these experiences in South America.
“I actually don’t. I don’t actually imagine in coincidences at this level. It’s the universe bringing issues to occur after they’re purported to occur,” Rodgers stated on an episode of the Aubrey Marcus Podcast final week.
Rodgers stated on the podcast that the expertise left him endlessly modified.
“For me, I didn’t try this and suppose ‘oh, I’m by no means taking part in soccer once more,’” Rodgers stated, as quoted by USA Today. “No, it gave me a deep and significant appreciation for all times. My intention the primary evening entering into was ‘I wish to really feel what pure love appears like.’ That was my intention. And I did. I actually did. I had a magical expertise with the feeling of feeling 100 completely different arms on my physique imparting a blessing of affection and forgiveness for myself and gratitude for this life from what appeared to be my ancestors.”
Rodgers, who has spent the whole lot of his profession with the Packers, went deeper on the topic in an interview with longtime football writer Peter King that was published on Monday, explaining how the expertise in Peru got here collectively.
“I’ve an expensive good friend that I’ve identified for 25 years that went on an ayahuasca journey in 2019. He got here again, and we performed golf at some point and he instructed me all about it. I stated, okay, I feel it’s time that I do it. So we put collectively a visit to Peru [in 2020] and had a fantastic expertise. Then I went once more this offseason and had one other stunning expertise. Completely different, very completely different. Completely different dimension group, completely different quantity of days,” Rodgers told King.
“We sat three completely different nights with the medication. I got here in with an intention of doing plenty of therapeutic of different relationships and bringing in sure folks to have conversations with. A lot of the work was round myself and determining what unconditional love of myself appears like…,” Rodgers continued. “In doing that, permitting me to grasp unconditionally love different folks however first realizing it’s gotta begin with myself. I’ve acquired to be a bit extra mild with myself and compassionate and forgiving as a result of I’ve had some damaging voices, damaging self-talk, for a very long time. A whole lot of therapeutic went on. There’s issues—photographs from the nights, the journeys—that may come up in goals or throughout the day I’ll take into consideration one thing that occurred or one thing that I thought of. It’s continually making an attempt to combine these classes into on a regular basis life.”
For years, the NFL took a hardline on leisure drug use amongst its gamers, routinely handing down prolonged suspensions for mere hashish use.
However in recent times, the league has relaxed its drug coverage. Throughout the 2021 offseason, with a brand new collective bargaining settlement taking impact, the NFL didn’t conduct random drug exams for marijuana, marking a sea change within the league’s rulebook.