Mike Heuerman disappeared into the ‘fog’ of opioid addiction after football injuries at Notre Dame. He emerged full of gratitude and advice.

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Mike Heuerman rides up on his bicycle and immediately jokes about being a 25-year-old undergraduate at Notre Dame.

Heuerman is headed to lunch at McAlister’s Deli. He could chain his Schwinn to a pole but instead leaves it freestanding on North Eddy Street.

Heuerman (pronounced HIGH-er-man) is a lean 6-foot-4, with a gold chain hanging over his white Under Armour long-sleeve shirt. His blond hair is close-cropped under a baseball cap that says “Grey Oaks,” the country club in Naples, Fla., where his family plays golf.

He orders a ham-and-turkey sandwich and an iced tea. He sits and fidgets. His legs bounce. He turns his cap backward, then forward.

Amid the nervous energy, he recalls a proud moment from his fantasy football draft when he snagged a player his fellow owners didn’t know.

Heuerman had a special bit of intel. He had watched Episode 3 of HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” during which Waller spoke of finding sobriety after “getting high like literally every day” while with the Ravens in 2016.

Football gave him natural highs. It gave him access to coaches such as Urban Meyer, Jimbo Fisher and Brian Kelly. It gave him purpose, structure and friends. It gave him entry to an elite university. And it provides the livelihood for his older brother, Jeff, who plays tight end for the Broncos.

Heuerman doesn’t blame anyone or anything for what happened to him. This story has no bad guys. Maybe that’s what is so jarring about it.

He raves about the doctors who got him through six hip and core surgeries in two years. Unlike so many Americans caught in the web of addiction, he says he was not overly prescribed.

Heuerman has nothing but appreciation for Notre Dame, which honored his scholarship and allowed him to return after he received an academic suspension.

Heuerman went from a promising tight end lighting up rooms with his energy to a slacker sleeping until the afternoon.

“The toughest time as a dad,” Paul Heuerman says, “is when you’re talking to your son and it’s not him. It’s like somebody else is in his body.”

Heuerman at one point considered himself a drug addict “with standards.” No meth, no heroin. Before long he was snorting a substance he didn’t even know. One day while he was passed out on the floor, his roommate kicked his foot and asked, “Mike, you good?”

Rehab saved him, and now Heuerman is stronger than ever. He is loaded with gratitude as Thanksgiving approaches and full of advice for kids and parents.

Ask about his class called strategic business technology, and Heuerman beams while discussing the rise and fall of companies such as Blockbuster and Netflix.

Mike and Jeff got size from their dad, who is 6-foot-9. Paul captained Michigan’s 1980-81 basketball team and once guarded Magic Johnson in an exhibition game.

Jeff was the nation’s No. 20 tight end prospect in the Class of 2011, per the 247Sports.com composite rankings, and considered Michigan. But he chose Ohio State, knowing that Michigan was about to fire coach Rich Rodriguez.

“Jeff Heuerman,” Meyer says, “is like a son. Mike was very talented and very athletic. And the family is as good as it gets.”

At Notre Dame, Mike struggled to put on weight despite trying to consume 6,500 calories a day. He says he was in “blistering pain” as a freshman in 2013 with what doctors initially diagnosed as a hernia. Turned out he had fractured his right hip in high school and completely torn off the cartilage.

Heuerman got his weight up to 230 pounds before his second season but was in such pain, “I remember sitting on the bench in front of Touchdown Jesus and just breaking down.”

As his left hip compensated, his core muscle tore away from his pubic bone. Eventually he had to have both hips operated and re-operated on, ending his football career.

Depressed and in physical pain, Heuerman became more dependent on painkillers such as Oxycodone. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that in 2018, 2 million Americans misused prescription opioids for the first time. More than 47,000 died from overdosing. That’s more than 130 people a day.

The Heuerman home was alcohol-free because of what happened when Paul was 17. He lost his 19-year-old sister, Kristine, to a drunk driver.

Jeff took the medications at the Broncos complex and had a trainer drive him home. The next day, he could not recall getting a ride.

Paul and Melissa Heuerman remain friends after divorcing 10 years ago. She will host a meal with her fiance’s family for nearly 50 people.

“They all love Michael; he takes a special interest in everyone,” Melissa says. “He remembers their names — and their dogs’ names. He lights up a room.”