The Alcoholic Playbook: Control Play

The names, places, and circumstances may vary, but you can be rest assured that most alcoholics and addicts follow a very predictable path. The same rationalizations, secrecy, prevarications and red herrings are used by gutter drunks to Boston bluebloods as if they were all using the same playbook; I call it The Alcoholic Playbook.

Looking more like the star of a tribute film to John Candy than a professional athlete, John Daly, an alcoholic with a bipolar golf game, will run the route for us today demonstrating the “Control Play". With at least three trips to the Betty Ford Clinic for alcoholism, four ruined marriages, and a gambling habit that has cost him upwards of $50 million- obviously control is not one of John's better talents. However he does not let this fact get in the way after an alleged drinking incident in the Hooters hospitality tent led to a golf analyst commenting, “The most important thing in his life is getting drunk.”

“That hurt. There were some rumours flying, probably because of my past. My lifestyle has been great. I'm eating too much, but I'm hardly drinking at all - and I never go out. I guess that's just the way my life is going to be for a long time because of my past.” ~ TimesOnline

”But I’m hardly drinking at all”… uhhh yeah, right John, you’ve got the drinking under control. You’re an alcoholic yet somehow you rationalize eating too much and the comments of a talking head as being more harmful than the fact the YOU ARE STILL DRINKING! A good sand wedge will not extract you from this relapse trap.

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This quote was rather disheartening to me because I have always admired his brutal honesty and ability to bounce back and succeed even after the most spectacular failures. An underdog and scrappy fighter, John Daly was an alcoholic that made no excuses and held his head high… until now.

The control play is one practiced by fledgling, practicing, and relapsing alcoholics and addicts. It’s sort of a trick play that consists of the alcoholic oxymoron “controlled drinking” that is shielded from scrutiny by other issues that run interference. In John’s case it’s the overeating and snide comments of others that he is using as interference to cover the fact that he started back drinking. Hopefully it will not be the case, but I would give good odds that eventually it will be these same very issues that his clouded mind will use to rationalize ratcheting up the drinking as a coping mechanism.

I call controlled drinking an alcoholic oxymoron because the two words are absolutely contradictory in this context. An alcoholic that is even considering drinking is already effectively, out of control.