Ryan Lochte is making some massive changes in his life.
The 41-year-old ex-Olympian revealed this week that he went to rehab and shared the surprising — and positive results.
“I am so happy right now, and the big reason is that I’m 54 days sober. Yes!” He said in video posted to his Instagram account that, at times, got emotional.
Lochte, one of the most decorated US Olympians of all time with 12 medals, has lived through a very public downfall since coming into the spotlight.
He infamously faked a gunpoint robbery during a drunken incident at the Rio Games in 2016 which ruined his image. Lochte nearly died in a November 2023 crash in which his truck collided with a garbage truck while he was on his way to pick up his three kids from school.
“After my accident in 2023, I fell into a really dark place — depression ,loneliness and feeling like I was giving up in life, which led me down a road of substance abuse,” he said. “With everyone going on in my life, I need to make a change, a drastic change.”
In recent months, a high-profile divorce from Kayle Rae Reid, his wife of seven years, has put his name and party-boy reputation back in the headlines.
She claimed to have found “mostly empty baggies of cocaine” around their house — including in one of their children’s bedrooms — and that she caught Lochte “inhaling nitrous oxide” in front of one of their kids.
Lochte copped to using drugs in the home, but denied having done so “in front of or around my children.”
Eventually, he revealed, he checked himself into a Florida recovery center.
“The staff there … they helped me realize that substance abuse isn’t a solution, it’s just a distraction that makes things worse,” he said in the video. “I’m thinking clearly, I’m motivated, and I’m moving forward
“There’s a lot of stigma around substance abuse. In life, you’re going to get knocked out or hit a road block. There’s no ifs, ands, buts around it. It’s not how you get knocked out, it’s how you keep moving forward.”