Urban Meyer reveals frightening details of his battle with anxiety and depression

Published Sep. 13, 2016 2:25 p.m. ET

Aaron Torres

Urban Meyer's final, few, sad years as Florida's head coach have been well-documented: the chest pains that caused him to be hospitalized, the drastic weight loss when he was so consumed with work he forgot to eat meals, the near-manic obsession with winning which he literally believed would one day lead to his death.

On Tuesday, Bleacher Report released a fascinating in-depth sitdown with Meyer, which chronicled his fall at Florida and re-birth at Ohio State. It included sad, vivid and never-before-heard details about his struggles in his final years at Florida and his refusal to get help -- specifically from his own wife, Shelley, who is a clinical nurse.

Maybe the most revealing aspect from the story was that in those final few years, Meyer was so obsessed with winning -- and so unable to shut his brain off from thinking about football 24/7 -- that the only way he could sleep was by taking Ambien. And even that didn't really help.

Here are the sad details via B/R:

It's just one of many examples of the despair that Meyer put himself and his family through during his time at Florida.

Later in the article he describes winning his first national championship with the Gators, and how after they won the title, he immediately believed he had to win another one to prove any doubters wrong. When he won his second title two years later, Meyer said he locked himself in a room and began texting recruits because he thought he had fallen behind other teams with coaches out on the road.

While those were the sad days in Gainesville, things have changed quite a bit since he arrived in Columbus. The Bleacher Report story goes in-depth from the "contract" his family famously made him sign, to the health precautions he's now taking, and even the mental health experts he speaks with regularly. He has also become much more prone to accepting guidance from his wife, who is again, in the field, and who he regularly calls several times a day.

And in terms of the Ambien he once needed to sleep? Well, he's off that too.