Josh Hamilton, divorce and relapse — chicken or egg? And ixnay "divine plans" and AA

Josh Hamilton, neither
'good' nor 'bad" but possible
'ugly' of addiction.

Troubled Los Angeles Angels player and former star outfielder Josh Hamilton and his wife, Katie, are reportedly divorcing, in the latest update related to his alcohol-and-cocaine relapse this February.

The "trigger" for the relapse, reportedly, was a fight between the two.

Chicken or egg? Were they at the point of breakup before his binge a a Super Bowl party, and he decided to try to medicate his sorrows? Or, did he just lose control, and the divorce filing followed? That said, Katie claims she was "blindsided" by his filing. That, in turn leads to ...

At the same time, I sure hope Josh knows what he's doing. Per that story link, it was him, not her, that filed for the divorce.

It seems clearer than ever he needs team support, and not owner Arte Moreno and general manager Jerry Dipoto trying to kick him under the bus, since an arbitrator has ruled Hamilton did not break league drug policy. Teammate C.J. Wilson, who joined the Angels as a free agent a year before Hamilton, and is also the team's union rep, knows that. And, without antagonizing the higher ups, manager Mike Scioscia also does, as he said last week:

It’s a unique situation,” Scioscia said. “As an organization, first and foremost, we want to make sure Josh is getting the help and support he needs. That’s important for Josh to get back to where he needs to be and getting on the field and playing baseball. Things are open-ended, and there’s a natural frustration I think that goes with uncertainty, and that’s kind of what we’re dealing with.”

Indeed. 

That's even truer because the explicitly religious restructuring of Hamilton's life, going beyond the 12-step movement's injections of god to overcome an alleged "powerlessness" that addicts supposedly (but not actually) are inflicted with, is connected with his current father-in-law. So, if he's choosing to "bail" on that, I sure hope he finds some alternatives for support and structure. On the other hand, per the language of the filing, he may have gotten tired of this.

It notes:

“The marriage has become insupportable because of the discord or conflict of personalities … that destroys the legitimate ends of the marriage relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation,”

So, apparently the conflict had been ongoing. Suffocating, maybe? Especially since it seems that Josh's parents, per the story of how he became addicted, may also have been smothering or suffocating? Yet, maybe Hamilton thought he needed some "liquid courage" (or a powdered version) before pulling the trigger on the filing.

And, I'm not going to berate him for that. As noted, this — his wife and even more his father-in-law Michael Dean Chadwick  — were his most basic part of his sobriety support structure.

That said, their Christian-based ideas on this are ... well, as if they've been tooting some of Josh's coke.

Start with this:

“God told me he was going to give Josh baseball back, but it wasn’t going to be for baseball,” Katie Hamilton said in a public talk in 2005. “It was going to be for something much bigger. He was going to give Josh a platform to help others. It’s not by accident that all the things that have happened in our lives have happened.”

So, Katie, God told Josh to relapse so that he would have a bigger platform?

Uhh, you need to read your own bible: 

Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? (Romans 6:1-2)

So, no, Josh doesn't need a yet-bigger platform. Beyond that, isn't that self-righteous, and just generally egotistical, to think that Josh Hamilton was somehow specially called, chosen, or anointed?

Survey says yes.

Besides, related to that, Alcoholics Anonymous says, in its "big book" and elsewhere, that "ego deflation" is key to sobriety. (It actually may be for a certain percentage of Type A male alcoholics, like Bill Wilson, but for many people, healthy ego building, not ego deflation, is key to sobriety.)

That said, if you have a god powerful enough to overcome your "powerlessness," then why didn't said deity keep you from being addicted in the first place?

Well, that's because, even though AA sprung from semi-Calvinist background, it doesn't believe in double predestination. Rather, like Lutheranism, it believes in single predestination. If it's good, then it's all god, and god chosen. If it's bad, then it's all your or my fault.

Again, nobody is "powerless" over alcohol or other addictive substances. One may become close enough to powerless after starting addictive use again to never quit for good, but that's why this has more than two sides.

And, Katie Hamilton sounds a bit whack in other ways, with her "dating other teams" as the analogy for Hamilton looking to leave the Rangers in free agency, as he eventually did.

Let me take this as a chance to say that AA and NA, and the 12-step movement in general aren't the best answer for many, and, as we enter into the world of evidence-based medicine, aren't the scientifically proven be-all, on average, for anybody.

There are secular — non-religious but NOT anti-religious — options out there. I recommend one called Lifering Secular Recovery.

As for Hamilton? Besides sobriety itself, he may need to find a balance point, getting support, structure, and perhaps another family in the future, but without being "smothered."

Josh Hamilton and the 'disease theory' of addiction

Josh Hamilton, neither
'good' nor 'bad" but possible
'ugly' of addiction.

Now that Los Angeles Angels former star outfielder Josh Hamilton will officially get no suspension for an alcohol and cocaine relapse, both the moral scolds and the "there, there" folks are coming out in force.

The scolds say that Hamilton just needs to "man up" or whatever. The "there, there" types usually talk about addiction as a "disease" where Hamilton just can't help himself.

The moral scolds? They've been a thorn in the side to addicts long before Alcoholic Anonymous as the first 20th-century addiction recovery support. They're generally off base, and often of the type to selectively apply their "man up" ideas.

That said, note that I called AA "20th-century." I did NOT call it "modern."

Second, for the "there there" folks, outside of 12-step circles, the "disease theory" of addiction does not have universal support.

Given that it came from a non-medical organization, and is also decades old, and that things like the "neurotransmitter theory" has been shown to be incomplete at best on depression and serotonin and, more directyl to this issue, on "rewards" and dopamine, we probably should back off on a broad-brush use of the idea, even more so when you add in that we still don't know a lot about consciousness or free will and volition.

(And, if a person on Hardball Talk thinks that his HMO disagrees with me, and that article, for any other reason than money, namely meds being cheaper than talk therapy, they're stupid indeed. Or, at a minimum, simplistic.)

Beyond that, nobody is "powerless over alcohol," nor over an illicit drug. If so, nobody would ever quit.

Of course, the 12-step movement solves this with the injection of god, then adds irrational insult to irrational injury by claiming it's not religious.

This is like the Lutheran "single predestination," one even more illogical than Calvinist double predestination. People get blamed for their addiction, but not credited for stopping it.

Again, nobody is "powerless" over alcohol or other addictive substances. One may become close enough to powerless after starting addictive use again to never quit for good, but that's why this has more than two sides.

Beyond that, "good liberals" should note what this piece says: promulgating the disease theory may be harmful to addicts. Take that with a grain of salt, though; a BIG grain of salt. It's by Stanton Peele, who pushes "moderation" for and to too many people, in my opinion.

That said, a 20-year-old kid with his first DWI shouldn't be force to attend AA; neither should he be forced to attend a secular alternative. In many cases, moderating one's behavior should be the first approach.

And, on both that issue, and understandings of addiction in general, that's why, once again, we need to quote the Iranian philsopher Idries Shah:

“To 'see both sides' of a problem is the surest way to prevent its complete solution. Because there are always more than two sides.”

Exactly.

Often people want to see only one other side not just because it's easier to think in black-and-white than shades of gray, but also because it's easier to "win" an argument if there's only one other "side." Hey, I can still be like that myself.

Now, the situation at hand, since an arbitrator has ruled Hamilton did not break league drug policy?

I'm not looking for MLB to throw the book at Hamilton. Nor am I looking at MLB or the Angels to treat him with kid clubs. I expect both, beyond their business interests and legal restraints, to treat him in the best way possible for him.

Related to the legal angle, I have to disagree with Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk. It's possible that at least part of the leaks in all of this were NOT by the Angels, but rather by Hamilton trying to stay ahead of the story. "Goes to motive," as the old legal saying avers — an old legal saying which Calcaterra, a formerly practicing lawyer, knows. And, with Hamilton, I believe he has the mindset to do that.

That said, it's more likely that the Angels were the leakers. I suspect that GM Jerry DiPoto is "venting" anger he'd really like to direct at owner Are Moreno for pushing for the Hamilton signing. DiPoto, let's not forget, at the time Hamilton was a free agent, wanted to resign then-Angel Zack Greinke rather than letting him walk in free agency. Survey shows that would have been a MUCH smarter move. Sabermetrics shows that, outside of one fantastic year in 2010, adjusting for The Ballpark's hitter friendliness, Hamilton was good to very good, but not great, otherwise, with the Rangers. (That said, Greinke, if we compare ERA+ to OPS+, straight up, has been throughout his career what the non-2010 Hamilton was in Texas.)

Steve Howe, with his seven suspensions and still not "learning," shows that, just like Christians talk about "why some and not others" on "being saved," that addiction is a mysterious issue. It also shows that it's not the business of MLB, or the Angels, to, well, to go beyond business. They will help him to the degree it accords with best business practices first, and true sympathy second. They will cut him off at the pass to the degree they can to the degree it accords with best business practices.

(For those who can't remember, Howe died in a one-vehicle rollover where he was the driver, and toxicology reports show he had meth in his system.)

Speaking of, one person has a good perspective on this: Angels manager Mike Scioscia, who played with Howe on the Dodgers.

Of Howe, at his death, Scioscia noted:

"Clearly, he was a kid who never reached his potential, but for a short time he did. The feeling of regret, he never expressed, as far as I know."

That second sentence, especially, is noteworthy.

Of Hamilton, he said last week: 

“(A)ddiction is a terrible thing, and he’s trying to deal with that.”
 “I don't know if there is any use looking back, whether surprised or relieved or whatever,” Scioscia said. “I could go either way, but most important is for Josh to pick up the pieces and get himself where he needs to be first with these issues and then we'll see where he goes from there as far as getting to baseball activities. So we’ll see.”

Scioscia may not even remember what he said about Howe. But, the idea is important. Hamilton’s not too likely to be going down the same road if he’s regretful.

As for “problems”? Howe, if not “born to be wild,” was certainly determined to be that way.

Hamilton? I think, per his Wiki page, his car accident, a small determination to be a little wild, and perhaps smothering parents that he wanted to escape, are all factors.

One point in common so far? Evangelical Christianity didn't "save" Steve Howe from his addiction; so far, it's not been a magic cure for Hamilton, either. That's not to claim it's all Christianity's failure, but it is to note above that the 12-step movement's "god deal" ain't so totally true, again.

Meanwhile, back to addiction in general.

Alcohol is not that strongly addictive physically. And, even many illicit drugs, without repeated administration on a regular basis, are less physically addictive than the nicotine in cigarettes.

This all gets back to the medieval "cur alii, non alii?" question. In English, that's "why some, not others?" In other words, whether for salvation or overcoming addiction, why do some "get it" but not others.

As for addiction in general? I still lean toward the idea that, if you've crossed some invisible barrier into "abuse," to use the professional phrase, abstinence is almost surely the best option. But, that's not set in stone yet, either.

And, let me take this as a chance to say that AA and NA, and the 12-step movement in general aren't the best answer for many, and, as we enter into the world of evidence-based medicine, aren't the scientifically proven be-all, on average, for anybody.

There are secular — non-religious but NOT anti-religious — options out there. I recommend one called Lifering Secular Recovery.

(Meanwhile, on the baseball-playing front, Commissioner Corleone, aka Rob Manfred, seems determined to risk a repeat of the 1994 lockout.)

The St. Louis #Cardinals face some backlash on their #OT18 patch

Oscar Taveras — should Cards
have a commemorative patch?

All St. Louis Cardinal fans, and many dedicated baseball fans, are aware that the St. Louis Cardinals' young outfield call-up, Oscar Taveras, was killed in the offseason. Paul Lukas, who does ESPN's UniWatch, talks about the patch the team will wear — and the controversy behind it, which is getting further discussion at Hardball Talk. (That said, if blogs amplify pre-Internet 'controversy" tenfold, social media does that a hundredfold.)

The controversy is that, if you want to look at it bluntly, Taveras killed himself, as well as his girlfriend, Edilia Arvero, because he was driving with a blood-alcohol content 5 times over the legal limit in the Dominican Republic. (Note that I said "killed," which I know puts it starkly, but did not say "murdered," which puts it wrongly.)

At the same time, Alcoholics Anonymous calls alcohol "cunning, baffling and powerful." If we modify that somewhat, to "the irrational drive for too much alcohol is cunning, baffling and powerful," we're just about right. I've blogged before about the irrationality of drunkenness and college campus sexual behavior and issues of consent, among other things.  These issues aren't "easy."

(This is NOT an endorsement of AA as "the solution" to alcoholism, nor is it claiming that Taveras was an alcoholic.)

Of course, this isn't a first for the Birds. Josh Hancock killed himself (but nobody else) in a DWI before the 2007 season. And, as the Hall of Fame informs us with this link, the team wore a patch for him.

And, it's nowhere near a first for Cardinals driving while intoxicated.

Yahoo reminds us that David Freese had two DUIs, in 2002 and 2009. And, ESPN's take on his second DUI notes that Scott Spiezio got one in late 2007, before the start of the 2008 season, and that, even though he'd had a decent year in 2007 as a role player, the Cards immediately cut him.

And, of course, we can't forget long-time manager Tony La Russa and his own DUI arrest, which came less than two months before Hancock's fatal crash.

The patch, illustrated at left, is iffy. I wouldn't do it, if I were the Cardinals, without PSA announcements connected to it.

That could start with videos on the Jumbotron, urging people to not drink and drive. An obvious first one would come from Carlos Martinez, who tried to stop Taveras that night.

We would also then have fliers — if not mandatory with beer sales, at least at beer booths. Stamp beer cups with Mothers Against Drunk Driving's logo or something, too.

That might not be perfect, and I don't claim my ideas are great. But, rather than simply castigating the team, some constructive criticism may work better.

I sent this Tweet:

@Cardinals In addition to #OT18 patch, take this as opening to promote alcohol safety awareness w/beer sales. Using his death as an example.
— SocraticGadfly (@SocraticGadfly) February 12, 2015

A more generic one,

Then this one:

@Cardinals You could get Taveras testimonials from teammates as part of Don't Drink and Drive and Designated Driver campaigns, too.
— SocraticGadfly (@SocraticGadfly) February 12, 2015

To the team's official account.

Let's see if anything happens. (Since sending them, another HBT commenter suggested putting "MADD" below the original patch to make a new one.)

Oh, and Tony La Russa, to the degree at all that your DUI reflects a "culture" during your years as Cards' manager, why don't YOU cut a Don't Drink and Drive video for MLB as well as your own personal animal rescue work?

I don't mean that in terms of punishment; you're years past that. Besides, I don't claim to have an innocent past on this issue.

But, if you truly care about the Cardinals of today, many of whom you managed, and if MLB with a new commissioner in Rob Manfred, and you formerly working in the commish's office under Bud Selig, this would be a way of making an effort to fight this problem, as well as any part you may have had in it, if you did.

The idea is that the Cardinals should work to make this so that this is not an issue they're facing every few years.

Beyond that, in today's Net world, it's de rigeur PR to do something like I suggested above. If the Cards had, they probably wouldn't be getting flamed so much.

This all said, back to the patch, or to patches in general.

Paul Lukas raises one other issue, too, and in the age of social media, especially, I think it’s a very good one:

In addition, the bar for being uni-memorialized seems to have gotten much lower. Memorial patches used to be reserved for former players and major figures related to the team. Nowadays, for better or worse (as with most things, it's probably a bit of both), we see memorials for the owner's wife, the minority stakeholder who nobody even realized was connected to the team, the assistant trainer's brother-in-law, and so on. According to a breakdown on the Baseball Hall of Fame's website, there have been 49 uniform memorials over the past five seasons. To put that in perspective, that's more than the total that appeared in the five decades from 1931 to 1981. Moreover, players on some MLB teams have even worn other teams' memorial patches.

Have we distanced ourselves from death too much? Do people need to hear Bach’s beautiful “Komm süsser Tod,” or the “Dies Irae”?

Like this?

Come, sweet death, come, blessed rest!

Come lead me to peace ...

Oh, and I have a dozen or more requiems in my CD library; semi-regular readers should think it not at all strange for a secularist to listen to religious music about death and the afterlife. I can appreciate such things, and the spirit behind them even while not accepting the belief systems.

#NationalGeographic jumps the shark, claims #AA has scientific proof

National Geographic has officially jumped the shark, claiming that science supports the 12-step model. Apparently, not only does NG not recognize that there's no real research supporting this, it's unaware of alternatives like Lifering Secular Recovery, SMART or SOS.

 Now, to make things look "sciency," it has, among people interviewed, not only the usual suspects of 12-step only rehab clinic owners, but the famous Andrew Newberg! Pop neuroscience in the name of religion leading to support for AA. Given that Newberg hasn't had the highest of scientific standards, but has a name for research, or "research," into neuroscience proving, or "proving," the value of religion, it's no wonder he's quoted.

At the same time, by his being quoted, it's proof that "spiritual but not religious"  actually is indeed religious, if we want to talk about what's being proven or not.

First Amendment trumps 12-Steppers again

When will officers of the parole, rehab and other parts of the legal system finally learn that AA is a religion, under two U.S. appellate court rulings, rather than either be ignorant or lie? And, in light of that, assume that NA is the same?

And, when will they either ignorantly or arrogantly stop costing the rest of us money through leaving state governments, or the federal one, open to lawsuits, damages, etc.? And, since the 9th Circuit, which includes California, was one of two federal appellate courts, in 2007, to have already found AA to be religious in First Amendment terms, this case is even more egregious.

Considering that the Bay Area is home to a major "secular" recovery group, Lifering Secular Recovery, parole agent Mitch Crofoot is either very ignorant or very lying.

Arianna Huffington wrong AND clueless on Alcoholics Anonymous

While the Divine Ms. A has done a lot of good in supporting the growth of the liberal blogosphere, it comes as no surprise, knowing her NewAgeish tendencies in some areas, to know that she totally misses the boat with blank-check support for AA. That, in turn is part of a larger and sadder blank-check support for “faith-based initiatives” in general. (Oh, BTW, what would the Bush Administration, or the Greek Goddess (snark again) do, if a Wiccan or Satanist applied for a faith-based grant?)

Here’s the nut grafs of how she’s wrong:

The evidence is overwhelming that it's infinitely harder to rebuild shattered lives without acknowledging the spiritual dimension of human nature. No, this doesn't mean accepting Jesus as your personal savior. It simply means that, as Alcoholics Anonymous and its many offshoots — including Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, etc. — have shown, acknowledgment of a higher power is central to recovery.

First, Bill Wilson only inserted more religion (yes religion, not “spirituality”) into AA because Dr. Robert Smith’s AA group in Cleveland was growing faster than his own in New York City. Wilson was a former stockbroker, and like most salespeople, didn’t care WHY something was selling, just that it was.

But, the more serious claim that AA, and the other 12-Step offshoots, “work”? Not at all. Here’s some of the dirty little secrets AA doesn’t like to admit:

According to AA’s own Triennial Survey of its membership (conducted every three years, of course), of 100 people who join AA today, only about five of them will still be there a year from now. In five years, that figure will shrink to a mere 1.6 to 2.6 percent. These figures have remained consistent for decades. Compare this with the figures describing the natural outgrowth of a substance problem: of Americans who say they’ve ever had a substance problem but have since solved that problem, fully 80 percent claim they either outgrew the problem naturally, or buckled down and took care of it on their own, without any outside help whatsoever.

In other words, AA and other 12-step groups don’t work. And, for the Athenian Airhead to cite AA as a success model so blithely shows she didn’t do any research on her subject. (And, her dissing of atheists in the same column only underscores that; it also puts her broader credibility on the line.)

Of course, as the person above notes, and, as the Greek Gidget sneeringly dismisses, the bigger issue yet is that enforced AA (as for people convicted of alcohol-related offenses) is illegal, per multiple U.S. District Court rulings.

Besides, Huffington is ignorant of Bill Wilson’s real “higher power” when he got sober — belladonna. It’s easy to hallucinate all sorts of spirituality shit when, well, when you’re on a hallucinogen! She apparently also ignores Bill’s late-life jaunts into the world of LSD.

Oh, no. The Athenian Airhead utters this instead:

Leading the nitwit parade on this issue are two very strange bedfellows: Barry Lynn, who has made a career out of warning people of imaginary threats to the separation of church and state, and Pat Robertson, who is worried about “opening the floodgates ... of the federal treasury to aberrant groups” like the Church of Scientology, the Unification Church and the Hare Krishnas.

I guess Rev. Pat doesn't know that the Hare Krishnas have provided help to homeless veterans, recovering addicts and prison parolees with the help of government money for close to 20 years.

First, seven years later, I wonder if Miss A. has admitted that many of these threats aren’t “imaginary.” (I suspect many fundamentalist backers of Bush, if they do worry about things like climate change, simply assume they’ll be “elevated” during the Rapture to serenely watch the world bake. Heck, some may substitute Chinese CO2 output for Soviet tanks and say global warming is the prophesied Armageddon.)

Second, I don’t care whether the International Society for Krishna Consciousness is “aberrant” to Pat Robertson or not, it’s still unconstitutional for it to get money like this.

The ruling of liberal faith-basers’ “favorite” Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, and his blatherings about “civil religion,” aside.

LSD father dead at 102 — no he’s not?

Maybe Albert Hoffman (pictured at right by Alex Gray) kept having flashbacks to the age of 39. I doubt the chemical compound of LSD itself kept him preserved to 102. Anyway, the man who helped usher in the modern drug age is now dead.

The Dallas Morning News, which filed his death under its religion blog, interestingly, has this quote of his:

“I produced the substance as a medicine. ... It's not my fault if people abused it,” he said.

The New York Times story notes that he called it his “problem child,” but again, that it wasn’t his fault. And, per the Times, this is probably why the News filed his death under “religion”:

“As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light.

“It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness and blissful security.”

Another sidebar: A son of Hoffman’s died of alcoholism at the age of 53. Though Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill Wilson is not listed in the Times story as among Hoffman’s direct contacts, such as Leary and Aldous Huxley, Wilson nonetheless used LSD on a semi-regular basis in the mid-1960s and at one time thought it could be an alcoholism treatment by helping alcoholics find AA’s mythical “higher power.”

Reason has more on Hoffman.

Though Dr. Hofmann called LSD “medicine for the soul,” by 2006 his hallucinogenic days were long behind him, he said in the interview that year.

“I know LSD; I don't need to take it anymore,"”he said, adding. "Maybe when I die, like Aldous Huxley."

But he said LSD had not affected his understanding of death. In death, he said, “I go back to where I came from, to where I was before I was born, that's all.”

As an atheist, I can say that LSD, or other “entheogens,” don’t get you any closer to humus than no drug at all. And, accepting that, coffin, embalming and all, you will return to soil someday is different than believing you are mystically interconnected with “all.”

Anyway, I couldn’t resist the Timothy Leary joke.

George Bush: Petulant dry drunk

HUHHH? Yes, you read that exactly right.

Shrub has never used the term “alcoholic/ism” to label himself or his past behavior, but it’s nonetheless a good descriptive term.

This ”Listen” article from the Washington Post, pointing out his most annoying speech habits, perfectly illustrates what could be called Bush’s “dry drunk” personality. Although not connecting the dots in that particular direction, KKevin Drum does provide more good background.

Shrub himself, as far as we know, never went to Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, I don't buy into everything AA says — in large part because I’m an atheist and the religion-hidden-as-“spirituality” angle is too much. But it's not all wrong, either.

Take its description of the stereotypical alcoholic. If you understand where AA comes from, I think you can accept that as a legitimate description of a certain class of white male alcoholics, into which George W. Bush fits perfectly.

That said, while recognizing that an oft-used term in AA, "dry drunk," can be, and is, used as a control/beatdown label, it has a degree of validity, too.

And that's what you have here: George W. Bush, petulant dry drunk, doing the psychological equivalent of holding his breath until his face turns blue. It’s like a 5-year-old inhabiting a grown-up's body. Of course, I believe that's around the age his sister died, and, without justifying his behavior, there may be a serious connection.