Several years ago a friend of mine cheated on his wife.
He didn’t just cheat, however. He literally met another woman for a drink at a bar near his house. A bunch of people he knew walked in and, literally, saw the mistress sitting on his lap.
Shockingly, he’s no longer married.
The point is, cheating isn’t always mere cheating. It’s a cry to get caught; a cry for help.
Again—a cry for help.
I can’t say for certain what Josh Hamilton was doing a few days ago, drinking openly in a bar in Dallas. But, as the husband of a social worker and the son of a substance abuse specialist, I’ll take a pretty educated guess that he was crying out. There’s no other explanation I can think of. When one merely craves drugs, or craves sex, but isn’t trying to say something via his actions, he does so discreetly. Far away from home. In private. In the shadows. Hamilton did nothing of the sort. He knew people would see him drinking, and also knew—all too well—that people would talk about it. It’s the nature of the world we live in, with Twitter and Facebook and texting and camera phones and the like. There’s no escaping your public actions; no ducking a bad situation.
So why did Josh Hamilton, a recovering addict, drink before the public? Because he needs help, and wanted people to know of such.
One more point: I recall when HBO’s Real Sports aired a piece on Hamilton several years ago, and it discussed his current life. With the Rangers, Hamilton has a recovery coach. He never has more than $20 with him; has his wife with him—as a support, but also as a guard—all the time. It’s not a bad idea, in theory, but in practice it’s a recipe for disaster. A drug addict should never, obviously, sit before a pile of cocaine or a heroine-loaded syringe. However, a person can’t hide forever; can’t spend his entire life behind a brick wall.
It just doesn’t work.
Josh Hamilton is crying for help.
I hope people listen.
