Where I make myself unpopular by sharing my feelings

(Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)

I have a friend who tells me she is sometimes compelled to comment on other people’s blogs when they write something she finds ridiculous, but then she remembers that it’s their blog and they can write whatever they want.

Well, this post will probably be one of those posts she and others will want to comment on because they find it ridiculous. And you all are welcome to it. Knowing that, I’m still compelled to get something off my chest. I started this blog as a way for me to get things “out” and I’m not going to stop now just because I have an unpopular opinion.

I’m from a very large family. I’m one of 50 grandchildren on one side and one of seven grandchildren on the other. (There are a lot of us.) As large as we are, we’ve not been immune to tragedy. Most of us knew about death long before our classmates and we’ve had to deal with many more losses than your average family. We’ve also had to endure many instances where loved ones fought (and usually lost the battle) addictions. Name an addiction and I have a close relative who has gone through or is going through it. I lived for quite a while with someone who battled alcohol and drug addiction over a period of DECADES before his body succumbed to the abuse it had taken all those years. And he isn’t the only one my family has lost to addiction.

So I have a better understanding than many of what it’s like to live with an addict. Watching Josh Hamilton’s continual ballwashing from ESPN last night brought a lot of it back to me. I think it’s wonderful that, after a few falls, Josh has straightened his life out and no longer is taking drugs. It’s even better that he’s been able to go back to the “job” he loves and be successful at it. But doing that doesn’t make him any better than his baseball counterparts. Nor does it make him a ‘hero’. While I will be the first to agree that drug addiction is a ‘disease’ of sorts, it’s a preventable one. Instead of shooting up that first time, you decide not to. Instead of snorting your first line of cocaine, you refuse. In the 80s “Just Say No” turned into a national joke, but there’s a little bit of truth behind it. If you didn’t start doing the drugs in the first place, you wouldn’t develop an addiction to them.

I’m not immune to addiction. My personality is that of an addict (ask anyone!). I’ve been in situations I’m not proud of and I’ve also gotten myself OUT of situations that would have ended badly for me. I don’t expect praise or pity. I’m just happy to have control of my own life or to not have dragged anyone I care for into my own issues.

You don’t hear ESPN talking about that do you? About what he put his family through because of the addiction? His wife and children and what they endured while he was living the ‘high’ life and throwing away his talent and livelihood? You don’t hear them talk about how he went back to using after he had been clean, just to have to clean up again in 2005. It isn’t a feel-good story if you delve deeper than “he regrets all the tattoos he got while he was high”. Hamilton’s rise from addiction will never erase what the people who loved him most likely went through while he was getting those tattoos.

Josh Hamilton is an inspiring story. Junkie makes good and becomes Major League All Star. But let’s not forget, there are plenty of players out there who didn’t screw up their lives and make a tremendous comeback but are still worthy (if not more so) of our admiration. Many’s the time I feel compelled to point out to people that Jon Lester isn’t “classy” or a “good guy” just because he battled cancer. You don’t get immunity for having gone through hardships. It doesn’t make you better than someone else.  What you do AFTER that is what makes you the better person.  What kind of person you become – not just what kind of baseball player – is what’s important.

So, sure, give Josh Hamilton his props. He found God, turned his life around and is living his dream. Just don’t forget what he did in order to get here. He isn’t a hero. He’s a flawed human being, like most of us, who was lucky enough to get a second (well, third or fourth really) chance. Something a lot of other people don’t ever get.