Another Josh Hamilton thread

Yeah she could walk with enough money already if she wants to, but he is due $83M in the next three years.

 

Well, based on that last contract he signed, it's not like he's going to be broke, unless he's gone all Rumeal Robinson with his $$$.

 

I had forgotten how insane his contract is. Last three years is something like 25M, 30M, 30M. Yikes.

 

The All-Overpaid Team of 2017 is going to be a great column to write: Hamilton, Pujols, Fielder, Verlander, A-Rod ...

 

No one has ever been cured of an addictive personality.

 

I have.

 

Hmm.

In my experience -- granted, this is all second hand -- people can either substitute one addiction for another, or they can employ blocking techniques to keep the addiction at bay, but the addictive personality doesn't go away.

 

I have an older friend who is in the accelerating stages of the downward spiral (alcohol) that will ultimately prematurely end her life. When I first met her -- she's the wife of an old golf pal -- she was a heavy drinker, but at the time I didn't consider her to be alcoholic. What she was, however, was terribly, terribly obese. That problem was solved, so I thought, maybe five years ago, when she had gastric bypass surgery. Since then, she's dropped 200 to 250 pounds. She's still heavy, but not even in the galaxy of where she was before.

It was then, however, that I came to my first realization that she had serious issues with alcohol. Immediately after her surgery, she was told in no uncertain terms to abstain from drinking for six weeks, but within a week she was sipping on red wine. Now her drink of choice was (and remains) vodka on the rocks, so she was dialing it back a bit. But I was flabbergasted. Really? You can't even go a week without it ... when you're recovering from major surgery?

I don't know whether she has a so-called addictive personality, but she's damn sure an addict. First food, now booze. The other thing I'm sure of is that she's not going to have a happy ending.

 

My personality has fundamentally changed over the past six years or so. The aspects of it that made me an addict are gone, and my health has been restored without any substitute addictive behavior. And that was by design. I'd call that "cured."

It was the same when I quit smoking. I subbed with an e-cigarette for a month or so, before I realized the only way I'd quit is to entirely break from the behavior.

It's why those bullshit diets that are built on never actually having to eat less don't work.

 

Isn't it possible you don't/didn't have an addictive personality? I'm also out of my depth here, but I thought addiction was not synonymous with addictive personality, and that it can also come from the physical and chemical properties of the substance itself.

 

I know what I fought against and suppressed in trying to get clean. Or trying to quit smoking. Or trying to lose weight. If that wasn't an addictive personality, I don't know what is. Even still, the idea that one can't fundamentally reshape a destructive personality just isn't true.

Heroin addiction is largely physical. Alcoholism, in my experience, is not. Cigarette addiction is kind of in between, but nonetheless is more mental.

 

I think some people can have an addiction, but not an addictive personality.

If you're addicted to gambling and stay away from it, those pleasure centers in the brain never fire. So while the urge or the possibility may always be there, the behavior is not.

I think it's similiar with other addictions. You only act a certain way if y ou are getting the high. And you may be perfectly normal and not even crave it till that crack is opened with one drink or painkillers or a bet.