Scott Cochran uses a megaphone now.

For years, he didn’t. Roaming the sidelines, and weight room, at Alabama, the strength and conditioning coach filled the room and stadiums with his booming voice. He did the same at Georgia as special teams coordinator. Along the way, Cochran grew in prominence and helped both programs win a total of seven national championships. And yet, the coach with a voice loud enough to be heard around the SEC, needs a megaphone.

“There’s this fear if I yell too loud, if I start coaching and enjoying it too much, if I start getting that juice too much that I’m going to start getting headaches,” Cochran told AL.com.

Those headaches led Cochran down a dark path into an addiction to painkillers and opioids. Now the head coach at West Alabama, Cochran opened up about his addiction and recovery recently to AL.com in an in-depth documentary titled “Scott Cochran: Whispers in the Weight Room.” It’s the latest episode of the AL.com series “Iron Docs.”

“Now I get to just be raw, real and me,” Cochran said. “There’s no secrets now.”

AL.com’s Clay Yeager directed and edited the 30-minute documentary that details Cochran’s coaching career that turned into a story about addiction.

Cochran became an integral part of Nick Saban’s dynasty at Alabama, but it came with a cost. Cochran couldn’t find a way to deal with the migraines he got from all the yelling.

“Everything is going right, I’m not going to get addicted to some pill,” Cochran said. “Like c’mon.”

By 2015, the New Orleans native was hooked. By then, he was snorting pills. Eventually he was getting doctors in multiple states writing him prescriptions for painkillers.

He didn’t realize it was a problem until about 2018 or 2019, after Alabama had won five national championships with him and Saban.

“That’s when I tried to outrun my disease,” Cochran said, mentioning the move to Georgia.

Cochran shared in the documentary how it didn’t work. Eventually, he decided to take time off from coaching, stepping down in early 2024. Cochran then went on the road, speaking about his addiction journey as part of his nonprofit the American Addiction Recovery Association. And now, he’s back into coaching, but he isn’t done sharing his message.

Cochran’s using a metaphorical, and literal, megaphone to tell his story.

“God gave me this voice,” Cochran said. “And now, what am I going to do with it?”

Watch the complete documentary in the video at the top of this page.

Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.