Dennis Rodman checked into an alcohol-rehabilitation center to re-evaluate his life, not give up drinking.

“I needed to decompress from all the things I was going through,” Rodman said Friday by phone from Miami. “I was trying to get this game going and get everything going in North Korea. It was a lot.”

Rodman recently spent three weeks in a New Jersey-based facility when he returned from his latest trip to North Korea. He had organized a group of retired NBA players to travel to North Korea for that exhibition game. He suffered a meltdown during a CNN interview and also sang “Happy Birthday” to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the start of the friendly game.

Rodman said he will return to the rehab center every six months “to see where I’m at.”

The 52-year-old Rodman, who won five championships with the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls and was one of the NBA’s fiercest rebounders and most colorful personalities, denied he is an alcoholic.

“I don’t need to drink,” he said. “I don’t need to do anything. I went to rehab just to sort things out. That’s it.”

He said he could curb his drinking and did not have a problem because he doesn’t drink every day. “I’m not an alcoholic,” he said. “An alcoholic drinks seven days a week. I don’t drink seven days a week. When I drink, I don’t hurt nobody, I don’t have no DUIs, nothing like that.”

 

Rodman said he planned to return to North Korea. “The people over there are not bad people,” he said.