A Zillion of Us Are Just Like Tiger

I and my zillion closest friends are just like Tiger Woods, and boy are we thankful. 

We’re addicts of one persuasion or another.  More to the point, each of us is on a path of recovery: waking to the beauty of being an ordinary schmoe––doing our best not to bullshit ourselves. 

The schmoe writing these words has been at it twenty-one years, and still I haven’t stumbled upon a more rewarding way to spend my time.

Just about anybody can join in.  Sex, booze, pot, coke, crack, smack, meth, nicotine and sugar may be some of the more recognizable forms of addiction, but they’re far from the only ones.  Nor necessarily the most common.  Anger, control, self-righteousness, being a victim, working out, reading, judgment, tidiness, blame, beliefs, hearing the world say we’re cool, or creepy––jeez, even golf––there’s no end to the compulsions we cling to like tombstones in a tornado.  There’s no end to the directions we’ll run to avoid accepting ourselves as we are.

Still nose-deep in the shock of self-destruction, Mr. Woods called his infidelity “unacceptable”.  A recovering addict with a little time on the job might have a broader view: that acceptance is essential to understanding.  Acceptance isn’t approval, after all.  Acceptance is embracing “what is” so that we might learn from it and become a more whole and resilient person. 

When the healthiest addicts I know accept the insanity of their addictions and the harm those addictions cause themselves and others, rooms fill with tears.  Eventually those tears are joined by laughter...and humor that blisters paint. 

Healing occurs, a healing based on something my zillion closest friends and I wish for Tiger Woods: the willingness to go to any lengths to become an ordinary schmoe–a guy doing his best not to bullshit himself. 

Another reflection on addiction can be found in my essay

“The Beautiful Future of Eliot Spitzer” 

Comments

[Tom Brady]

I wanted to like Mike, but indeed I am more like Tiger. While it has been 25+ years since my wake-up call, I never stop learning about who I really am, what do I stand for, and how I will leave the world a better place (something I wasn't doing very well as I could beforehand).
I can only do this with help. Tiger says he needs and wants help. Along the way, I hope he can make some better choices about who he surrounds himself with to provide that help, particularly some better bullshit detectors.

[sally Lonegren]

Wise words, Mr. R. Thank you for them! Maybe things have to get so bad that there will be nothing here that we will want to hang on to, that can make us safe, or by which we can self identify. It's scary being a groundless schmoe but there are times when the free float is a huge relief! And perhaps most especially when there are others, like you, out there who are headed in the same direction and can help.