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In a "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" report that airs Tuesday, former BYU and Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon talks about his many lingering health problems — and admits he has considered suicide.

McMahon says that when he heard about other NFL veterans "killing themselves, I couldn't figure out how they could do that. But I was having those thoughts myself. Feelings of inadequacy. And just like you're a dumb-ass. Once the pain starts getting that bad, you figure you'll take the only way out. If I would've had a gun, I probably wouldn't be here."

The "Real Sports" segment profiles the Super Bowl-winning 1985 Chicago Bears — media darlings who suffer from more than their share of physical and mental disabilities three decades later.

William "The Refrigerator" Perry, Keith Van Horne, Wilbur Marshall and Richard Dent — among others — are physical wrecks. Walter Payton dies of liver disease in 1999.

And Dave Duerson shot himself to death in 2011.

"I had the same thoughts myself," McMahon says. "I just didn't have no way to do it. … I can totally relate to it now."

He is front-and-center in the "Real Sports" report, which airs Tuesday at 11 p.m. on HBO.

"I was on painkillers my last 11 years in the league," McMahon tells Gumbel. "I was eating 100 Percs a month just to function" — medication he grabbed from "bowls of pills sitting out" in the Bears' locker room.

And there were "hundreds" of painkiller shots.

"Twelve knee surgeries, seven on the right, five on the left," he says in the HBO show. "Three right shoulder surgeries. Tore half my kidney off. Broke five ribs off my sternum. Broke my neck at some point, they didn't tell me about.

"Other than that, I feel good."

Not so good, clearly. He tells Gumbel, "I just lay in my room for days … weeks," just "staring at the ceiling fan."

He also talks about his memory loss — that he'll get up, intending to go to the store and then forget where he was going. That if he gets to the store, he can't remember how to get home.

"Hey, people always thought I was nuts anyway," McMahon says. "Well, I'm finally living up to it."