Barret Robbins disappeared for nearly 24 hours before Super Bowl XXXVII. Now, for the first time since his disappearance, the Raiders' All-Pro center has gone public, telling his story to Andrea Kremer on Outside the Lines Nightly.

	Robbins

During their extensive interview, Robbins is asked by Kremer, "You are in Tijuana, do you even realize 'I am away from the team'?"

Robbins responds: "No, I didn't. The hardest part to me is that the feeling I had was that the game was over and we had won and that was the way I felt ... it's crazy to me."

The edited transcript:

ANDREA KREMER: You win the AFC championship game, you only have one week before the Super Bowl. What was Super Bowl week like for you from the start even?

ROBBINS: It was surreal ... looking back on it, it was almost like it wasn't happening. It was a whirlwind ... it really was.

KREMER: At what point during the week are you starting to feel something, I don't know what something is, you need to tell me, but what point?

ROBBINS: Wednesday I started to feel different ... started to go through ... the signs of this bipolar episode ... the first signs ... a real odd, scared feeling, and it got worse.

VOICEOVER: Bipolar disorder is a stress-sensitive condition associated with a chemical imbalance in the brain and marked by extreme mood swings. More than half of those diagnosed with bipolar disorder have problems with alcohol and/or substance abuse. It is manageable ... but not curable.

KREMER: When you start feeling these things, what do you do? What then began to happen?

ROBBINS: I didn't know what to do. To me what I did was I started drinking ... I wanted to medicate. I thought that something was wrong with me ... maybe it was my painful foot. Maybe it was stress was getting to me, I didn't know. I didn't know at the time so I felt that, I felt that drinking was going to make it go away.

KREMER: Reportedly you were last accounted for at the 11 p.m. curfew on Friday. Do you remember that?

ROBBINS: Yes.

KREMER: OK, what happened after that?

ROBBINS: Well, I left. I left the hotel. I don't know what for. I wandered around aimlessly. I could remember seeing people that I knew. I could remember riding around with people that I knew but I didn't know why I was or where I was going or what I was doing. I just ... I didn't know. I didn't have any answers for that. I don't have any answers for that right now. All I know is I was not where I was supposed to be.

KREMER: So you are driving around; are you staying up all night?

ROBBINS: Yeah, I didn't sleep: I didn't sleep.

KREMER: Where did you go?

ROBBINS: I don't ... I don't remember. Really don't. I remember the morning of Friday, Friday morning, or Saturday morning, I remember being somewhere by the ocean and looking for a way home, or looking for a ride or ... I don't really know what I was looking for ... telling you the truth because that's where I was; I was lost.

KREMER: There were reports you ended up in Tijuana?

ROBBINS: I did.

KREMER: What were you doing there?

ROBBINS: I don't know. I really don't. I'd like to say I could tell you exactly, but I don't.

KREMER: How many episodes like this do you feel you had had before, what number episode was this?

ROBBINS: Maybe three. But I have also had times where I have had episodes that could have got worse and didn't, looking back on it, but I ... not conscious to me.

KREMER: Where does this rank in terms of the three episodes?

ROBBINS: That's an easy one. It doesn't get any worse than that. It doesn't get any worse than that.

KREMER: Why?

ROBBINS: I mean, this was the biggest game of my life. This was everything I had worked for as a child, as a young man, as a collegiate athlete and going into the pros, this is everything I had worked for and ... that's what makes it the biggest. I mean, it's unbelievable to me.

KREMER: You are in Tijuana, do you even realize "I am away from the team?" What do you think you are doing?

ROBBINS: No, I didn't. The hardest part to me is that the feeling I had was that the game was over and we had won and that was the way I felt. That's the way my brain was functioning to take the stress off or to alleviate whatever it was, and I don't know why, but that's what was going on in my brain and that's ... it's crazy to me.

KREMER: You are in Tijuana, you think you are celebrating the victory of the Super Bowl?

ROBBINS: Well, yeah, yeah. And it sounds odd, but it's just ... that's the way ... that's the way my rationale is going or my head was going ... I was out of it ... I guess I had been found at another bar in San Diego and someone got me home, I don't remember anything from there.

KREMER: There's been reports people had overheard you talking about when you were going to take your own life. What is your recollection?

ROBBINS: I do not remember saying that, but I know it's true.

KREMER: Do you remember any of those feelings, though?

ROBBINS: I do, I do ... I remember feeling that low and how bad it was.

KREMER: How afraid were you?

ROBBINS: I can't really say that I was afraid ... I guess I just didn't care, it just didn't matter.

KREMER: What do you recall of Bill Callahan telling you [that] you were not going to play in the Super Bowl?

ROBBINS: I don't remember that at all. And that's ... simple as that.

KREMER: Do you even realize on Sunday it's Super Bowl Sunday?

ROBBINS: No.

KREMER: You still think the game is over?

ROBBINS: Yeah. I mean, I don't in reality because I am seeing what is going on, but in my head I was so far out of it, it didn't matter.

KREMER: What do you think you are doing? Did you recognize people?

ROBBINS: At that point, on Super Bowl Sunday, I understood that I wasn't going to play in the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl was today.

KREMER: What do you remember feeling?

ROBBINS: I was out of it, so it's ... it wasn't like a big letdown or a big emotional thing because my brain is shut down. I had shut down from the stress and everything had shut down ... and you know it wasn't like I was crying my eyes out, I was just out of it.

KREMER: At this time during Super Bowl Week what medication are you on?

ROBBINS: I wasn't on any medication. That's the one thing that I wanted to tell people is that ... or let people know is that I was not on medication ... I was not diagnosed prior to this incident with bipolar disorder so I have been living with this bipolar episode for over 10 years that I had known about, you know, where it was ... where I had history of these episodes without having been diagnosed. So I had no medication.

KREMER: So it wasn't as though that was a trigger going off, this medication?

ROBBINS: No.

KREMER: Did you even watch the game? Did you watch Super Bowl XXXVII from your hospital room?

ROBBINS: No.

KREMER: Have you ever watched the game since?

ROBBINS: No.

KREMER: Why not?

ROBBINS: I guess it's just something I haven't been able to confront yet.

KREMER: Is watching the game something that in your opinion would be a necessary step towards your continuing recovery, confronting that?

ROBBINS: No. I am going to let that be in the past.

KREMER: What was your reaction when you found out that the team had lost the Super Bowl, you weren't playing?

ROBBINS: I felt terrible. You know, my teammates had worked so hard and I felt terrible, I really did. I felt terrible the position I put a lot of guys in. I felt terrible the position I put my coach in. I felt awful about that. I also felt awful about the fact that they lost, I really did, that we lost.

KREMER: Well, what is changed?

ROBBINS: Well, I am sober. It's the first time I have been sober, I look back, in 15 years. I wake up every day and I ask God to keep me sober today and I go to bed every night and ask God or thank God for keeping me sober. So just being that way ... it's been a roller coaster.

KREMER: Are you an alcoholic?

ROBBINS: Yes, I am.

KREMER: Talk about getting out of the hospital and going into rehab ... when you are at Betty Ford, are you there first and foremost to work on being an alcoholic or to work on having mental illness?

ROBBINS: I was there to work on my alcohol abuse. That's what I was there to work on. I was diagnosed within those three days as being bipolar and was medicated ... So I was able to receive my medications at Betty Ford, so I went there on the basis of dealing with my alcoholism ... I just saw a path of destruction, everything I had done, the way I had been, just things, the aftermath of things, just looking back and seeing how I was drunk, drunk; for so many things. Drunk for ... my daughters, picking up my daughter from school, things like that, just little things, the way I had been, the way I treated people, the way I had gone about things, are some of the things I had to look back on.

KREMER: Do you remember being drunk coming into meetings?

ROBBINS: Yes, I did that a few times.

KREMER: What is bipolar disorder?

ROBBINS: Bipolar disorder is a mental illness where ... it's basically manic depression is what it is, where my brain goes from mania to depression at a high level and a very, very low level, whereas other peoples' brains don't do that, or other people that don't have bipolar, they don't go as high and as low, and that's as much as I can really say and it's manic depression, that's what it is. It's real.

KREMER: I have never been through a bipolar episode; what does it feel like?

ROBBINS: Well, I think from all the things I have said, I mean, you could imagine that it's not a very delightful thing to be going through. I have tried to explain to people like this, it's like driving a car, being in a car in the driver's seat on the freeway ... steering wheel doesn't work, gas pedal, brake pedals don't work, gears don't work, yet you are staying the course and you are on the freeway. You don't have any control and that's how I felt.

VOICEOVER: In early March, following his 30-day stay at the Betty Ford Center where he was treated for bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse, Robbins began to work out at the Raiders' facility. He had minor knee surgery in April and started to rehab. ... But he wasn't around the majority of his teammates until the Raiders' organized offseason workouts began May 19. On that day, head coach Bill Callahan brought in Robbins to address the team for the first time.

KREMER: What was that like to step in the Raiders facility?

ROBBINS: It was odd. It was real odd. It's still a little bit odd.

KREMER: What does odd mean?

ROBBINS: Not normal ... Not normal.

KREMER: How do you perceive people are looking at you?

ROBBINS: Like I had a big "loser" on my forehead or "drunk" written across my forehead ... no ... just generally not ... I knew that I had support, but I also know there's people out there that don't know really what happened and it was something I was going to have to deal with so that was my best way of dealing with it is go ahead and dealing with it head on.

KREMER: How much do you want to continue playing professional football?

ROBBINS: I really ... I can't tell you enough that I ... 100 percent. I am 100 percent into playing football again.

KREMER: And for the Oakland Raiders?

ROBBINS: And for the Oakland Raiders.

KREMER: What have you been told is your status with the team?

ROBBINS: Well, I am down to the bottom. I am back ... having to prove myself ... it's like another rookie year for me. I am going to have to start from the bottom and work my way up. So that was something that Bill said to me and I don't have any problem with that. That's the way it is. You have to face the consequences and that's good with me.

KREMER: Football is a business. Do you think you are going to be an Oakland Raider next season?

ROBBINS: I hope so.

KREMER: But do you think so, knowing the climate, knowing the way it is in the locker room? Bill Callahan apparently has made it clear to the team, if you want him back he will be here and if you don't want him back he's not going to be here?

ROBBINS: That's fine. The one thing I can't do, I can't change other peoples' minds; I am going to show up every day and I am going to show these guys that I want to work and I want to be here to win a championship. And that's fine with me, if there's ... a bounty out or if they don't want me then ... I guess I have got to weigh my options after that, but I want to be here, absolutely as an Oakland Raider.

KREMER: What are you doing now to get treatment for both your alcoholism as well as your bipolar disorder?

ROBBINS: I see therapists two times a week. I see a psychiatrist two times a month. And I also do marriage counseling once a week as well. So it's pretty intense and it's ... something I lean on.

KREMER: How concerned, scared ... you pick the word ... do you feel about having another episode?

ROBBINS: I am very concerned about that ... That's something that, above and beyond football, is life and reality, and that scares me, it does. You know, it scares me for my children ... that I have put them through anything like that again, not knowing where I was or something like that, it's a scary situation, but I have faith in the doctors, I have faith that the medication will work, and I have faith that my therapy can ... give me the tools to deal with that situation when it comes ... I will be really happy. I know family will too.

KREMER: How much of a battle is it for you?

ROBBINS: It's a battle. It is. You know, it's truly a battle. But I have confidence that it's going to get better, and I have confidence that I am going to get better at doing the things it takes to win that battle every day.