BY Michael O’Keeffe
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

LAKE WORTH, Fla. – Randy Grimes will never forget the moment when he realized he would beat the addiction to painkillers that damaged his marriage, strained his relationship with his children, and threatened to send him to an early grave.

Tears rolled down Grimes’ cheeks during what he calls his “burning bush experience” in the autumn of 2009, two weeks after he was admitted to Behavioral Health of the Palm Beaches, a South Florida drug-treatment facility. As the former NFL lineman wrote in his journal at a picnic table in the center of the BHOPB campus, a collection of peach-colored buildings surrounded by palm trees and lush lawns, he realized that the physical symptoms from drug withdrawal – the diarrhea, sweats, sleepless nights, aches and pains – had subsided.