There were plenty of reports today about the Josh Hamilton relapse and while it stinks that he was unable to keep himself sober, it certainly could have been worse. Josh Hamilton, for those who don't know, is a baseball player for the Texas Rangers, a pretty darn good one too. A former number one pick in the draft, Hamilton had gone through major substance abuse problems in the past and went through a lot of treatment to get back to the place he is today. His relapse involved three or four drinks at a local bar, it did not involve drugs or anything else. He currently has three drug tests a week to keep him from getting back into the habit. Hamilton had a rough emotional year, as he was the player who through the baseball up into the stands, causing a man to reach for the ball and fall to his death. The man's son watched him die and it was quite horrible. For Hamilton to keep himself sober through inadvertently causing another man's death is astonishing.
It made me think a lot about the various addictions I have, which are much more minor than Josh Hamilton's issues, but still tend to crop up from time to time. We all have our various addictions: technology, procrastination, anger, food, alcohol, television, etc. Learning to cope with these small and large addictions and leading a productive life can be a challenge. I realize that Hamilton is a major public figure, being a professional baseball player and all, but I think it was awesome for him to immediately come clean about his relapse. How often do we hold ourselves accountable for our various relapses into negativity, doubt and unhealthy behavior? I think that we can learn a lot from Hamilton in that we can make a mistake, own up to it and move on positively with our lives in the future.
Today in my personal writing journey, I worked on the introduction to a new secret project, wrote a blog tour post about "the past" and posted a blog post about character writing prompts about the fearful.
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