Johnny Manziel reveals bipolar diagnosis, says he's sober

Johnny Manziel recently did an interview that aired on “Good Morning America” on Monday, and in it he revealed that he’s sober, and also that he’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The 2014 first-round pick, who hasn’t played a snap in over two years, said that people have approached his family and asked, “What the hell is your son doing?,” and it wasn’t until the day his mother broke down recounting such an interaction with him that he realized how his behavior was affecting others.

Manziel seemed to be quite forthcoming in speaking with reporter T.J. Holmes, saying of the behavior that led to him being booted by the Cleveland Browns after just two years, “I had a sense of entitlement about what I had accomplished and the age that I’d accomplished it, and it got so ingrained, only caring about what Johnny wanted,” he said. “Even though I thought I was doing what I wanted, I was miserable.”

Manziel said his “end goal, 100 percent” is to get back into the NFL, and that he isn’t drinking.

“Here’s the way I look at it: going back throughout the last couple years of my life, I was self-medicating with alcohol, and guess what: I thought it was making me happy and helping me get out of that depression to a point of where I felt like I had some sense of happiness,” Manziel said. “But at the end of that day, you’re left staring at the ceiling by yourself, and you’re back in that depression and back in that hole, that dark hole sitting in a room by yourself, being super-depressed, thinking about all the mistakes you’ve made in your life, what did that get me? Where did that get me except out ot the NFL? Disgraced?

“I went a solid five months until I really fell into a little bit of a depression, where I didn’t drink, I didn’t do anything, but still, i was going to therapy and the difference that I noticed was i started taking a look at my mental health a little bit and making it a priority in my life, to where I’m taking medicine for bipolar and I’m working to try and make sure I don’t fall back into any type of depression, because I know where that leads me and I know how slippery of a slope that is for me.”

He said he was diagnosed with bipolar last year, at a facility in California.

“I can’t help my mental makeup of how I was created, but if I stay on these meds, and I continue to do what I’m doing right now – I think my dad, my mom, Bre [he’s engaged to Bre Tiesi], they would all agree that they’ve seen a drastic change.”

But Manziel is realistic about his reality, saying, “Will that be the same going forward? I’d like to say yes. But at the end of the day, it’s to be seen.”