11-11: The date that changed Darren McCarty’s life

Four-time Stanley Cup champion Darren McCarty has a tattoo on his left wrist to remind him of the most important date in his life.

It isn’t June 7, 1997, when he scored the winning goal against the Philadelphia Flyers to give the Detroit Red Wings their first Stanley Cup in 42 years.

Nor is it March 26, 1997, when he fought Claude Lemieux of the Colorado Avalanche in one of the most memorable nights in Joe Louis Arena history.

The date is 11-11.

Nov. 11, 2015, was the last time McCarty drank alcohol or took opioids. On Wednesday, the 54-year-old Detroit hockey icon celebrated 11 years of sobriety.

“Anybody who knows me, I have 11-11 tattooed on my wrist,” McCarty said on Greg Wier’s “More Than Just Luck” podcast. “Since 11-11, 2015, I’ve been free of all alcohol and opioids and stuff like that. So I couldn’t be more grateful sitting here today.”

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McCarty, who wrote about his struggles in his book, “My Last Fight: The True Story of a Hockey Rock Star,” acknowledged that getting sober wasn’t easy.

“I picked up the bottle of sobriety many times and dropped it,” he said. “And this time the difference is that I don’t have a date. I always had a date in the back of my mind, even if it was 20 years, right, that I could go back and do it.”

His perspective eventually changed.

“If I do this, I die. If I drink, I die,” McCarty said. “And, you know, it makes like the old surrender is actually victory because you don’t have to worry about it anymore.”

“If I drink, I die”
Ex-Red Wing Darren McCarty

McCarty said he realized around his seventh year of sobriety that his anniversary had taken on a larger meaning.

“This date isn’t for me anymore,” he said. “It’s for everybody else and for me to continue to prove that I’m not that person that I was before.”

He now measures his life differently. Hockey is what he did, he said, not who he is.

McCarty finds purpose in helping veterans and children, providing opportunities through Grind Time Wrestling Academy in Detroit and connecting with people throughout the community.

In the darkest moments of his life, he said, he began asking himself whether he was living the purpose God had put him here for.

“I believe now I am,” he said.

His advice to anyone struggling with addiction or mental health challenges is straightforward: reach out, talk to somebody and get help.

McCarty has another message, too.

“Just know no matter how bad it is, it can be done because I’m living proof,” he said.

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