INDIANAPOLIS — Colts veteran offensive tackle Braden Smith missed the final five games of last season because of a personal matter.
Now, he’s detailing just how intense the situation was.
Smith, in an interview with the Indianapolis Star published Tuesday, said he has a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder that prompted him to spend 48 days in a treatment facility and to ultimately turn to a psychedelic drug that he believes helped save him.
He was so tormented, Smith said, that he contemplated suicide.
“I was physically present, but I was nowhere to be found,” Smith told the newspaper. “I did not care about playing football. I didn’t care about hanging out with my family, with my wife, with my newborn son. “I was a month away from putting a bullet through my brain.”
Smith, 29, said he was eventually diagnosed with a condition known as religious scrupulosity. According to the International OCD Foundation, religious scrupulosity differs from the healthy practice of religion because it is driven by anxiety over engaging in actions that might offend God or be seen as blasphemous. This creates obsessive behavior — including constant prayer or repeated repentance — that can begin to dominate a person’s daily life.
“There was only one person that was ever perfect, and that was Jesus,” Smith, a second-round pick in 2018, told the Star. “When you’re trying to live up to that standard, actually live that out, it’ll drive you nuts.”
Smith began seeing a psychologist early last season after confiding to his wife, Courtney, that he was planning to retire after the season if his condition didn’t improve. Smith eventually checked in to a mental health facility in Colorado in November. But after spending weeks there, Smith saw only minimal improvement.
He later turned his attention to a psychedelic called ibogaine, which is not legal in the United States but has shown some promise in treating mental health in scientific studies. Smith traveled to Mexico to undergo treatment with the substance.
After the treatments in Mexico and his ongoing therapy, Smith says he is in a good place.
“I wasn’t here last year. I was physically here, but I wasn’t. I want to be me again here, and I want the people around me to experience that, because I do feel like I do have something to offer the people around me.”
Braden Smith
“I don’t do compulsive prayers at all anymore,” he told the newspaper. “I don’t do the replacing the good with the bad. If I have a bad thought, it’s just, like, OK, that’s one of many thoughts. I’ll just move on with my day and don’t let it affect me. I used to spend like 3 to 5 hours a day in my head, doing compulsions. It was so exhausting.”
The Colts are comfortable with where Smith is at.
“Braden Smith is back and he’s in a great spot,” general manager Chris Ballard said last week. “I think people forget how good Braden is.”
Given Smith’s original salary cap figure of $19.75 million for 2025 and his recent history of knee issues, the Colts asked him to come back under a restructured deal. Smith agreed to a return for an $8 million salary, lowering his cap figure to $10.4 million.
Smith said he agreed to the terms because he has unfinished business in Indianapolis.
“I wasn’t here last year,” he told the Star. “I was physically here, but I wasn’t. I want to be me again here, and I want the people around me to experience that, because I do feel like I do have something to offer the people around me.”
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