"Stairs - my natural enemy," Rayburn groaned good-naturedly, wobbling up the stairs.

Ashley Rayburn said she cried when she visited her husband at the drug-treatment facility, though not because he was in a treatment facility.

"It was the first time I saw him eat a full meal in probably four months," Ashley said. "He would just snack. He'd lost a ton of weight. When he did eat, it was just crap, nothing of substance at all. He was tearing his body apart."

Said Sam: "I'm pretty sure the pills were doing something to my gastrointestinal tract - anytime I would eat a large quantity, it would make me sick."

He figured he lost 40 or 50 pounds from his top playing weight of around 320 pounds.

Now, his wife said, "I feel like he's kind of back to where he was when we were first together. He's happier. If we go shopping, to the grocery store, he's not so caught up in having to leave so he can get more pills. He can actually be there and be in the moment."

In the previous week or so, Rayburn said, he had cleaned his pool, mowed the lawn, shampooed some carpets, dug up a water pipe, fished for catfish and bass ("caught nothing"), took his family to the zoo in Oklahoma City, got his English bulldog bred (he hopes), cleared some brush with his cousin, and helped Burdex at the weight room.

Now more than 80 days clean, Rayburn said he hadn't been tempted.

"Once I had the initial two or three days of detox, got my mind back straight, you couldn't force a pill down my throat," Rayburn said.

The strongest thing he's taken, Rayburn said, is a dip of Copenhagen chewing tobacco - he had one under his lip as he talked.

One possible route for his criminal case is that it will be sent to Drug Court, an Oklahoma program where he would have a strict probation period of about 18 months. Failing or missing a drug test, getting arrested for any reason, or even missing a therapy session could send him to jail. But sentences often get dismissed if the program is completed successfully.

"The Drug Court is probably a little more intense than he needs," said Hoch, Rayburn's attorney. "It's more for people with long-term addictions. They may want him in there. But he's able to get through treatment programs on his own."

Rayburn doesn't know what the future will bring. He made a few million dollars in the NFL, and even if he's not set for life, "I wasn't an idiot with my money," he said, other than the cash that went for pills.

Still, he doesn't know how his court case will affect any high school coaching aspirations.

"Ten years from now, I'd like to be coaching somewhere - high school, college - doing something football-related, because that's definitely my passion," Rayburn said. "I love to be around it. I love to be around guys that love to be around it. It's kind of one of those deals, I want to be saturated with football at all times. I still sit at home, that's all I watch all day. I like to catch up with what Philly's doing."

The dark days of the addiction included needing a wheelchair in a drug-treatment facility because of the pain. Some people might wonder if he wished he had never played football. If he got a replay, Rayburn said, he would do a lot of things differently after he retired.

As for the game itself and the pain it brought him, "there's no doubt in my mind, if I could go back to when I was 12 years old and I could tell my story to my 12-year-old self, I would still do it," Rayburn said. "Without a doubt, I'd do it in a second."

Contact staff writer Mike Jensen

at 215-854-4489 or mjensen@phillynews.com.