How insidious. How cruel. How sad. Why would a young man with all the talent in the world, let it go up in an alcoholic haze? I don’t pretend to know the world of Josh Gordon, but I have a slight idea into the world of an addict. Without boring you, I have been in recovery for over 20 years. I hit my bottom and I work on staring down my demons all the time. I don’t say this to have anyone congratulate me for being strong or to polish my apples. I bring it up as perspective.
How many demons or unresolved issues is Gordon facing to have not one, two, or three violations of the NFL drug policy, but to have four? With millions of dollars on the table, high-class lodgings in glamour cities around the United States and even sometimes London or Mexico City, how can he look at that and say….”fire it up”. I know that as I type this more news comes out and it wasn’t illicit drugs, what he was busted for was alcohol. Alcohol helped kill Roy Tarpley as we saw on January 9th, and alcohol was my drug of choice.
I and most of us addicts/users in recovery don’t have half to lose what Josh Gordon has yet those of us few that the program takes with, realize that we don’t want to lose what we have. Our car, house, job, spouse, kid…and for a moment of feeling invincible, Gordon turned away from that.
Sadly one thing that addicts learn early is that everyone’s bottom is different. For some it’s a wild bender at wherever and they were so ashamed and they realize they never want to feel that again; for some bottom is the other extreme, death. Again, I don’t presume to know anything about Gordon’s world nor his state of mind, nor the demons that drive him to take a potentially great career and throw it away for a temporary high. All I know is that life is short and I don’t think it should be spent in a fog. Good luck Josh Gordon, I hope you see that you may need help, but only you can make that decision…Godspeed.