Scott Cochran has explained why he abruptly quit the Georgia football staff after four seasons in February.
The former Alabama head strength coach, who has worked for Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs in various capacities since 2020, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a piece published Friday that he has become a full-time advocate for addiction treatment. Cochran co-founded the American Addiction Recovery Association with Georgia political veteran Jeff Breedlove, with the goal of making it a nationwide organization.
“I am a nervous person. I have a strong focus on nerve regulation. “You always get butterflies,” the notoriously hyperactive Cochran told the AJC. “The goal is to get them to fly in formation. But if you’re not frightened and anxious, I doubt it’s significant to you.”
Addiction, of course, is a personal issue for Cochran. He claims he struggled with a painkiller addiction both while at Alabama and after leaving to join the Georgia staff in 2020.
Cochran, 45, told the AJC that he decided to seek treatment after his wife, Cissy, discovered him asleep in April 2020. “She found me dead,” he says.
Cochran stated that one of the reasons he left Alabama after 13 years and five national titles under Nick Saban was to seek a change of scenery in order to overcome his addiction. He began taking medications to treat headaches, he said, and gradually progressed to crushing and snorting opioids purchased both legitimately and illegally.
He left Alabama to become Georgia’s special teams coach, but the COVID epidemic, which began in March 2020, isolated him and fueled his addiction. After collapsing at home that spring, he attended a rehabilitation clinic in Massachusetts, which only he and his wife were aware of at the time.
Cochran resumed using shortly thereafter, including the strong and lethal drug fentanyl. In late June 2021, he was urged to tell Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart about his addiction, as they had been close friends while they were on Saban’s staff at LSU.
“I literally said the words, ‘I am a drug addict,'” Cochran explained. “You could nearly hear the air leave his voice.
“And I became emotional. I said, ‘I’ve been battling this for a long time.'”
Cochran returned to rehab in Massachusetts and remained sober for over two years. However, he relapsed during the 2023 season, stepping down from a full-time coaching position to become a special teams analyst, and returned to rehab in January.
Cochran left from his Georgia job in February and subsequently met Breedlove, an addiction survivor who formerly worked for politicians such as Gov. Nathan Deal and Congressman Bob Barr, after speaking at a recovery event. The two discussed “filling a gap (Breedlove) saw in the recovery advocacy world” and collaborated to start AARA.
Cochran is the president of AARA, and Breedlove is the CEO. According to the AJC, the organization will “join the voices of addicts and their families” to “advocate for better addiction recovery programs in the private sector and for addiction recovery funding.”
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