Erik Kramer was an intense, fearless competitor who had a respectable 10-year NFL career, including five as a quarterback for the Bears.

But these days, Kramer, 47, is just trying to cope.

Five months ago, his 18-year-old son died of a heroin overdose.

"It has not been easy," Kramer told the Tribune in his first extensive interview since the tragedy. "I have been going through a divorce for the last two years. It has only added to it. It has been very difficult.

"But you find yourself and you find faith and the strength to go on. And when you have other kids, like I have Dillon who is 13, there is no option for anything else but to find a way. One day at a time, one conversation at a time and just persevere."

Griffen Kramer, a high school quarterback who had been struggling with substance abuse, was found dead at a friend's house on Oct. 30 in Agoura Hills, Calif.

Just two months earlier he had claimed sports were helping to keep him off drugs.

"If it wasn't for football," he told the Ventura County Star, "I might have fallen into the rabbit hole and not make it back out."

"The thing about that article, when it came out, I knew at that time Griffen was still doing drugs," said Erik Kramer, who works for Fox Sports Los Angeles and as a TV analyst for Bears exhibition games. "He was trying to present himself as someone who had gone through drug treatment, come out the other side and had turned his life around."

In fact, Kramer said football was a curse for his son.

"He thought he should grow up and be in the NFL and be a superstar," he said. "I think he carried that weight with him. From a very early age, it was very important to him to out-do his father. And as he got older, he didn't have the work ethic that it would have taken.

"So in football … he was the backup quarterback. … And the thing that broke my heart was knowing that it would take focus, it would take more on his part."

On Oct. 29, Griffen met friend David Nernberg at Sumac Park in Agoura Hills, police said. They drove to a nearby cul de sac, where Kramer allegedly injected heroin and became ill and unconscious.

Nernberg then allegedly dragged Kramer into his car and drove around, calling friends, asking if he could take Kramer to their houses. Nobody agreed.

Nernberg then drove to his own house and dragged the unconscious Kramer to his bedroom, authorities said.

The next morning, when Nernberg woke up, Kramer was still unresponsive, and Nernberg called 911. By then, sheriff's officials said, Kramer probably had been dead for hours, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Nernberg, 19, was arrested Nov. 17 and charged with involuntary manslaughter and possession of a controlled substance. He is awaiting trial.

"I learned through Al-Anon that you can't make every encounter a fight or struggle," Kramer said. "So you tend to keep (the conversation) to news, weather and sports and support him the best you can. But you cannot force drugs out of his world. It has to be something they come to on their own.

"I would always text him and tell him I love him, or call him and leave him messages. He would choose not to pick up the phone, or he would occasionally allow me to take him to lunch or dinner.

"We just kept it simple and there was no tension or anything of that nature. We talked about the Bears or Peyton Manning and the Colts or football or the weather. But he wouldn't offer up a ton. He was always in the process of covering up his life with me.

"Then I learned he was doing heroin. … It's not a subject that you want to talk about. I did bring it up once, but we didn't get very far with it."

In the last few years, there has been a dramatic spike in heroin use among teenagers, national studies show.

"The drug is less than the price of a movie ticket ($10 dollars a hit)," said Kimberly Groll, an alcohol and drug addictions counselor at Care Clinics of Naperville. She said suppliers often come out to the suburbs and introduce the drug to youngsters for free initially, to get them hooked.

"I would consider it an epidemic throughout (the country)," Groll said. "When we grew up, you associated heroin with shooting it up. … But today, the kids are snorting it. And today the kids are smoking it. This makes it easier for them to use."

Griffen, who was a senior at Thousand Oaks High School, had transferred from Agoura High before his junior year, after going through a drug-treatment program.

"Kids that get involved in drugs, they need treatment," Kramer said. "But … the parents need it as much or more. Many of the problems are parental.

"I have been in Al-Anon now for a couple of years. I have gone through the drug-treatment center where Griffen was. I continue to be a part of that culture. And to me, drug addiction is a self-absorbed disease. It's also a disease of non-accountability. And parents do enable by never allowing their kids to be accountable and responsible.

"Griffen had a lot of challenges that made him very susceptible to going down that road. … But you just feel like, if you can just keep him going and keep him alive until he is 22, 23, 25 …"

Kramer said by the time his son had entered rehab, he was failing in school and getting into fights.

"He sort of lost hope scholastically," he said. "His drug encounters were going up. He had not yet gone into heroin. And he was sober for about a year. … Then he went back to where he wanted to do drugs again."

Kramer's focus now is to help educate parents — and teenagers.

"You have to give up parties, you have to give up your friends, you have to distance yourself," he said. "They say (in drug treatment) the only thing you have to change is everything to maintain your sobriety. That's because sobriety for these kinds of kids is life or death.

"There are only two outcomes. There is a severely impaired life where you are going from your next high to your next high. Or there is death. That's all there is."