Ryan Lochte is seeking professional help for alcohol addiction following a drunken incident in his California hotel room.
“Ryan has been battling from alcohol addiction for many years and unfortunately it has become a destructive pattern for him,” said Lochte’s lawyer, Jeff Ostrow.
The news comes after the 34-year-old Olympic swimmer was involved in a drunken tirade at a Southern California hotel yesterday morning, after he tried to kick in his hotel room door.
Police were called to the scene in Newport Beach around 3 am but no arrests were made and Lochte was able to ease the situation with the hotel.
The incident prompted the 12-time Olympic medalist to acknowledge that his drinking is a serious issue that requires professional help before getting worse.
“He has acknowledged that he needs professional assistance to overcome his problem and will be getting help immediately,” said Ostrow. “Ryan knows that conquering this disease now is a must for him to avoid making future poor decisions, to be the best husband and father he can be, and if he wants to achieve his goal to return to dominance in the pool in his 5th Olympics in Tokyo in 2020.”
This is not the first time Lochte has been involved in a drunken dispute.
Surveillance video shows Ryan Lochte, second from right, and teammates, at a gas station that they vandalized during the 2016 Olympics.
In 2016, he was arrested in Brazil during the Rio De Janeiro Summer Olympics for vandalizing a gas station and then returning to the US and lying about the incident.
The incident became known as “Lochtegate” after the swimmer admitted to “over-exaggerating the story” that he and his teammates had been robbed at gunpoint at the gas station.
He later said in an interview that he had been drunk. He was suspended from domestic and international swimming competitions for 10 months and lost his sponsors in the process.
Last year he was cleared of criminal charges in the Rio Olympics scandal. But Brazil’s Superior Court overturned that decision in June.
This latest incident comes just weeks after Lochte married PlayBoy model Kayla Rae Reid, with whom he has a one-year-old son.