Updated

Dennis Rodman checked into an alcohol-rehabilitation center to reevaluate 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 organized a group of retired NBA players to travel to North Korea for that exhibition game. He suffered an angry 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."