I guess you never read any of the excerpts from Deanna's book. He was some piece of work. They were college sweethearts and had a child born in college, but he wouldn't marry her and after being drafted their relationship became very rocky and on again, off again through his early years. She often left him over drinking binges coupled with outright indifference for her or their child. They finally did marry, I think shortly after the addiction to pain meds incident when he appeared to have bottomed out, and they had another daughter born in '99, but then she eventually threatened divorce him over his alcoholism. He finally sobered up for good at that point. So he's now been sober for half his career...He has spoken about missing out on most of the older daughters childhood in some of his many recent retirement musings...
He was absolutely a handful, on and off the field. Holmgren managed to rein him in for a time in GB, but it was yeomans work and he left two years after the Superbowl season with Brett still battling his on and off field demons. There was a piece about their early years in SI:
CNNSI.com - SI Online - SI Flashback: Warmed up - Wednesday January 09, 2002 02:42 PM