It all began with a bad decision at a Manhattan bar in 1993.
Fresh off back-to-back Stanley Cup championships and a first-team all-star nomination, Pittsburgh Penguins power forward Kevin Stevens was on top of the world. At 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, nothing had ever stood between him and success — until he was offered narcotics.
Stevens wrestled with the decision in his mind for a moment before deciding to accept the white powder offered to him. He didn’t really know what it was or what it could do, but he’d soon find out.
“I was 28, I never did a drug in my life,” Stevens told the Deseret News earlier this year. “I didn’t even know what drugs were. Never really knew anything about it, but I had that gene. ... I’d never done any drugs, so I’d never activated it.”
It wasn’t long before Stevens was hooked on cocaine, though it wasn’t yet at the stage of a full-fledged addiction. He’d use occasionally, but not to the point where it ruined his life.
Not yet, at least.
A few months later, he suffered a career-altering injury in a collision with New York Islanders heavyweight Rich Pilon. The two players' heads collided, knocking Stevens out on impact. Unable to protect himself, he fell to the ice, forehead first.
He had to have his forehead reconstructed with nine metal plates.
It turned out the painkillers prescribed to him would eventually do him more damage than the broken bones and damaged frontal lobe.
“I’d already opened up the can of worms with the cocaine, so now the pain medication came in and then from there it was (downhill),” he said.
Stevens had always been known as the most fun guy on the team — someone everyone gravitated toward — but over time, his addiction replaced that personality with darkness.
Zane James' story
Utah teenager Zane James lived a similar story, though his struggle with addiction did not begin with a bad decision. For him, it was an on-ice injury that lit the match.
At age 16, while playing Junior B hockey for the Seattle Ravens of the Northern Pacific Hockey League, James suffered a traumatic brain injury. Doctors cleared him to play after a recovery period, but before the end of the season, he was severely concussed again.
In treating James’ injury, doctors prescribed him pain medication, and within three months he was addicted to opioids.
Six months later, he was using heroin. Nine months after that, his family was grieving his death.
“We were just floored,” said his mother, Tiffany James. “All we could think about during that time frame is really, ‘How did this happen to Zane?’”
The James family has since learned about the connection between brain damage and addiction.
According to the National Library of Medicine, “(Traumatic brain injury) survivors with no evidence of mental illness or substance abuse-related service utilization in the year prior to injury (have) a 4.5 odds ratio of substance abuse within the first year post-injury.”
“He was optimistic about his future,” Tiffany said. “He just 100% couldn’t wait to get to college. But his TBI and that loss of hockey completely changed everything overnight.”
Like Stevens, Zane James was jovial and fun-loving. His parents recall frequently receiving videos from other parents while Zane was on hockey road trips that showed him singing, dancing and entertaining everyone else.
“He was the most unlikely candidate,” Tiffany said. “He was a product of Utah hockey. As parents, we had our kids fast-tracked on competitive sports to keep them away from drugs — that’s what you do. He didn’t have a history with drugs. He wasn’t troubled. He was not a challenging kid in any way. He was so infectiously happy — people were super drawn to Zane. He’s very charismatic.”
Stevens' descent
Stevens' addiction impacted his life in a major way, too.
His play in the 1993-94 season was worse by his standards, but achieving 41 goals and 88 points is still an impressive feat. Every year after that, though, he struggled.
A series of trades sent him through the majority of the eastern United States (plus a stop in Los Angeles), each team hoping to be the one that would revive his career. But as long as his focus was on drugs, he would never be the same.
“When you want to be a good hockey player, you’ve got to commit to it,” he said. “Everything has to be about hockey. I lost that.”
Stevens was in and out of rehab, which limited the number of games he played many of those seasons. With his focus being on drugs, he stopped working out as much. He let the little things slip.
He called it quits on his NHL career after eight years' worth of addiction forced him out of the league.
A few years later, he took a job as a scout for his beloved Penguins, but drugs limited his ability to do that job, too.
After retiring, Stevens hurt his neck while lifting weights. A friend offered him Percocet, which sent him on a 12-year opiate spiral. As was the case with cocaine, he wasn’t familiar with the dangers of taking opiates.
He lost everything during his opiates phase: his family, his scouting job, his savings, his possessions — he even sold his Stanley Cup rings for drug money. He bounced from doctor to doctor in search of pain medication to give him his next high.
Despite having gone through countless rehab facilities, Stevens never truly got sober until he was arrested for dealing drugs.
He doesn’t know why that was his rock-bottom, but it spurred a change.
He spent the better part of a week in jail before posting bail. He started attending daily Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, which he still does today.
The judge allowed him to walk free with a $10,000 fine and three years of probation, along with a mandate that he participate in public speaking events to warn others of the dangers associated with drugs.
Power Forward and Power Forward Utah
The mandate led Stevens and his sister, Kelli Wilson, to start Power Forward, a nonprofit organization that both educates people on the dangers of drugs and gives financial support to those leaving addiction recovery centers.
“I know how hard it is to get sober (and) stay sober,” Stevens said. “So I kind of just jumped into it and do what I’ve got to do to help people.”
Power Forward pays for sober living after individuals graduate from treatment centers. After leaving rehab, people often have nowhere to go, which drives them back to their old friends and, ultimately, their old habits. Power Forward offers them a fresh start.
And it’s that work that brings Stevens to Utah.
After he and Wilson started the organization, Wilson, who lives in Park City, heard Zane James’ story. She recognized an opportunity to join forces with another family who was impacted so heavily by drugs following a hockey injury.
“They were just heartbroken,” Tiffany James said. “So they called us and they were like, ‘Hey, we’d love to help you honor Zane’s memory in a positive way.‘”
They banded together to form Power Forward Utah. While the services offered by the two branches of the organization are slightly different, they both provide sober living for those who are leaving rehabilitation.
Since its founding in 2023, Power Forward Utah has helped 80 people toward their goal of long-term sobriety.
“We are losing an entire generation of men and women to the opioid and now fentanyl crisis,” said Tiffany, co-founder of Power Forward Utah, in a press release. “These are good people from good families. The old notion that only bad kids are using drugs is a thing of the past. I don’t know a single family that doesn’t have some experience with the opioid crisis.”
Power Forward Utah has been almost entirely funded by the James family, primarily using the funds from a civil settlement following Zane’s passing.
Advice for those struggling with addiction
“You just have to jump in with two feet,” Stevens said when asked for his advice to those trying to get sober. “I was, for so long, one foot in, one foot out. That’s a terrible place to be because you’re always going to go back.”
Zane James’ parents have advice for those seeking to help loved ones through addiction: Keep good, open, honest dialogue and always keep the door open.
“You have to know when someone is coming to you and asking for help, that they truly want help,” said Aaron James, Zane’s father. “They’re not just telling you that for no good reason. There’s an ask, and as a parent, you have to be in a position to respond in the most loving way that you can.”
“You have to really believe that someone can overcome this,” Tiffany James said. “Nobody sets out to be an addict. Life happens, so just do your best to keep an open heart and an open door and find avenues to support them.”
Now, after nearly nine years of sobriety, Stevens enjoys a good life. He has resumed his work as a scout for the Penguins, though he says the most important thing in his life is helping others get to the point he’s at in recovery.
“I still have to work at it almost every day to stay sober,” he said. “It’s not something that all of a sudden you get sober and you stop. I still go to four, five (sobriety) meetings a week and I’ve still got to put it first in my life.”
