14
The narcissistic, self-centered Sam who walked the earth seeking approval and an escape from reality had been replaced at the Gateway Rehabilitation Center. It was as if the Wizard of Oz had given me a heart. My self-image and pride were now driven not by bolstering my ego but rather by helping others. Among my first ventures after I had established sobriety in the early 1980s was coaching youth baseball.
My original intent was to help my son Tim and his team on the field. But eventually I began to focus beyond teaching the kids of Monroeville to throw strikes, hit a curveball, or field a grounder. I took my responsibilities outside athletic pursuits quite seriously. I deemed it an honor to be a mentor and friend as well as a coach. The kids used me as a sounding board who could provide sage advice about a variety of personal problems. I was sometimes summoned by a teenager past midnight to talk about drug abuse, alcoholism, or issues with family members. I never told them to wait for the morning. We would sit and talk on a curb because no restaurant was open that late. I would listen intently but did not feel comfortable early in my relationships with youth dispensing advice. Among the troubled that sought out my counsel, two became doctors and a third a child psychologist. Others blossomed into successful business-people. I still feel a sense of satisfaction from helping them along life’s way.
By the time an athlete is seven to ten years old and has proven to be greatly superior to others their age, they are told incessantly about their God-given talent. I certainly was. Such proclamations remove the satisfaction and pride they receive from the hard work they have put into their sport. That can cause psychological scars that kids that age are too young to grasp. They do not even realize they were working hard to perfect their craft. They were just trying to have fun playing the sport.
The cheapening of achievements weakens self-esteem among children and teenagers. And that is a precursor to depression. When a kid is told a million times that he has natural ability, it begins to sink in. Most individuals gain self-esteem and confidence through accomplishments, overcoming adversity, and realizing they have done so. But not that “special” ballplayer. He is told that he was born to be great.
Most of the youngsters who confided in me did not fall into that category. They were plagued by a myriad of personal problems. It did take me some time to embrace the challenge of working with teenagers. I must admit my initial reluctance and fear. I felt unqualified at first to respond so I sent them to Twerski. I expressed to him my concern that I would say something wrong and send a child in a wrong direction. He laughed and said, “Sam, you’re not that powerful” and eventually told me straight out, “You help them.” He had more confidence in me than I had in myself but that gave me faith and courage. Twerski reminded me that I could not change anybody who was unwilling to change themselves. He dispatched me to the library to read books on counseling. Fateful journeys indeed.
My early counseling sessions with kids that sometimes lasted past midnight were among the most rewarding experiences of my life, more so than anything I had ever achieved on the mound. That period following my four-week stay at Gateway proved incredibly vibrant and enriching. The fog in which I had been walking around since I could remember had been lifted. It had been replaced by a clear head and the positivity that comes with possibilities. There was no more brooding, no more lying around, no more drinking. I would be in bed around midnight, up by 6:30, and out the door two hours later.
I was selling insurance by day then attending seminars Twerski recommended and going to AA meetings every night I was not scheduled to be elsewhere. I had been asked upon my departure from Gateway to attend ninety AA sessions in ninety days. I informed my therapist that such a commitment was impossible as I was coaching my son’s baseball team twice a week. He did not argue as he did with others who claimed they could not join in because he believed in my sincerity. After the baseball season I indeed went to ninety meetings in ninety days and remained faithful in my obligations.
I found it interesting, as I researched the history of AA, to learn that it was founded by a salesman and doctor, both of whom were alcoholics. Their first meeting was in Akron, Ohio, but their second was held right in my hometown of Pittsburgh. That was my AA home group. Each patient has his or her own but we were able to visit each other’s home group. I did just that while never failing to attend my own sessions. I felt a sense of dedication and purpose previously foreign to me.
My experience at Gateway proved fruitful beyond embracing the pathway to sobriety. I made new friends among the patients. We helped each other stay on the right road. Some among the eighty-five in our graduating class were not dedicated to recovery and failed to take their post-stay steps seriously, but I enjoyed the company of and my camaraderie with those who did. We would meet for coffee and pizza after many of the AA meetings. Some questioned what they had been taught at Gateway and some of the Twelve Steps but most seemed dedicated to ridding themselves of their addictions.
I was saddened to notice, however, that our AA group meetings were becoming more sparsely attended, then I learned that many had relapsed into their addiction. Six months after I left Gateway, I discovered that I was the only patient from my graduating class who had remained in recovery and sober. There were happy endings, however. Some returned to the meetings and gained success after their first or second or third or even fourth relapse. Within a couple of years, about twenty in our class remained in recovery. Their failures and successes proved to be a wonderful learning experience for me. I gained tremendous knowledge about how they treated their educational programs, therapy sessions, and Twelve Steps program and why they fell back into their bad habits.
My yearning to thrive was intense. I wanted sobriety in the worst way after learning that alcoholism was a disease rather than a mental illness. I also sought to share the secrets of my success with others so they could learn from them. Twerski thought the same way. So eight months after graduation he elicited my help with a group he called the Winners Circle, which consisted of patients who had experienced multiple relapses and met at St. Francis Hospital.
That facility was the only detox center in the Pittsburgh area. The recovering addicts, dressed in hospital garb consisting of pajamas and bathrobe, were herded to the thirteenth-floor porch—so much for superstition. Those with three or more years of continuous sobriety hosted the meetings. Each patient was asked, “Why are you here?” If any falsehoods or excuses were uttered, the veterans would shout out, “Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!” Eventually by way of these confrontations, the patients would admit to where they failed to follow the suggested recovery program (though because of the confrontations these could not be considered AA meetings). I found the sessions fascinating.
Sliding away is much easier than sticking with it. That is one reason relapses are so common. The story of one long-time patient named Ace scared me then and still does to this day because it proved how fragile the process and those in it can be. He had been twenty-one years sober. He attended AA meetings devotedly. He worked in a steel mill and did so faithfully, riding to work and back home on streetcars and buses since he had no transportation of his own. So here he came in his jammies and robe to admit that after two decades he had gotten lazy. He figured he could slip a bit and skip a few meetings. Eventually he would miss more sessions. Ace soon fell back into bad drinking habits and drunkenness. Two weeks after leaving St. Francis, after failing again to follow the recovery program and with the return of addiction depression, Ace committed suicide.
There but for the grace of God go I. His story bolstered my determination to never let my guard down. I met with Twerski an average of once a week for about four years in the early-to mid-1980s. Sometimes we talked three or four times in a week, other times I was absent for nearly a month. It all depended on my schedule or if I required help with an explanation or understanding a book I was reading, workshop I was attending, or tape I was listening to. I had become a voracious learner about addiction and its treatment. He eventually asked me to accompany or follow him to speaking sessions in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Twerski understood I had an old “drunk mobile” and little money to spend on gasoline so I could not afford to travel any real distances. He suggested I attend some workshops around the tri-state area on addiction. At this point I couldn’t afford the fees but eventually and over the next two decades I attended over forty workshops.
I cannot overstate the value of my education in forging a post-baseball career. Certainly much of the credit belongs to the man I could see in the mirror and be proud of by the early 1980s. But my turnaround in life would never have been possible without the tough love and expertise I received from Twerski. He not only spurred my recovery but directed me into a new and rewarding profession as a counselor who helps athletes often hindered on the field and suffering off it from the same disease that had plagued me for nearly two decades. The good doctor believed not only that others in the same boat would respect my background as a ballplayer but that I boasted the potential as a person to advise those in trouble.
I remained skeptical for years that I could be as effective as those with far more experience educationally and professionally. But sometimes I stumbled upon so-called experts who had no idea what they were talking about, and that allowed me to understand my worth. I recall listening to a doctor on a national news network one morning claiming that alcoholism and drug addiction were not diseases. This blew my mind because the physician was considered among the foremost probiotic surgeons in the country and had even launched a robotic operating room in the Dominican Republic. Granted he was not an addiction specialist, but he certainly should have known better. The utterance of views like his is one reason there remains a tragic amount of ignorance in the United States on the subject.
The doctor I heard on TV is not the only medical professional I’ve encountered who failed to understand addiction. This should come as no surprise considering the little education they receive on the subject. Twerski would continually cite, despite the length of time spent in medical school, how little of it centered on alcoholism and drug abuse. Perhaps they were shown an hour-long film on the subject before moving on. From all I have learned, I can state categorically this to be the case. But a vast amount of research has since proven enlightening to doctors. It has become public knowledge that addiction is indeed as much a disease as cancer and hepatitis. Most doctors who gain this knowledge have learned from the research of others. But what is most important is that they now understand the truth. Well, at least most of them do.
They would have known much earlier had they worked with Twerski. I would have as well. His strong suggestions that I embrace coursework on and reading about addiction not only aided me in my recovery but planted the seed in my heart that I yearned to aid the afflicted and in my mind that I could do so successfully. I knew that my personal experiences as a ballplayer and addict gave me a perspective that other athletes would respect. But that was merely a bonus. My knowledge base and ability to make a difference required intensive study and a passionate desire to help others.
After all, lives and careers were at stake. This was not about helping a pitcher get a sharper break on his curveball. This was about the mental and emotional health of an athlete. Sure, often I only needed my expertise in sports psychology to aid someone struggling to compete at a high level. But sometimes my words and deeds indeed meant the difference between life and death. I could not be wrong.
I also could not be wrong as a parent. The years that launched my recovery coincided with those during which Tim and Debbie reached their late teens. They are for all that age harrowing times, a crossroad between childhood and adulthood during which decisions made affect lifetimes.
Had I been an abusive parent previous to my stay at Gateway? There is some gray area there. I never abused them physically and I do not believe I did verbally. But if it is parental abuse to drink yourself into oblivion and subject your kids to seeing you passed out in your car and not knowing if you are alive or dead, then I concede. If it is parental abuse as a narcissist to focus far more on my own desires, then I concede. If it is parental abuse to spend less time with your kids playing, conversing, and teaching, then I concede. I did not believe I was a lousy parent during my career and the four years that followed. That, however, is typical of the self-centered mindset and the fog in which I was living.
Debbie reacted as one might expect to my alcoholism. She lived with serious fear—afraid that I might get hurt or even killed. She loved me. So seeing me passed out in the car in the dead of winter was very frightening for her. So was seeing me return home covered with blood after a barroom brawl. Debbie often had no idea when I would be home and in what condition. She was forced to avoid inviting friends over in the fear that I would stumble through the door in ghastly shape. One can hardly imagine the disappointment of Debbie and Tim rarely getting a chance to accompany their father on a family outing or having one cancelled because he was out on another bender.
I had been too self-centered and out of it to realize the pain I was causing the kids. Debbie spoke about her deep concern for me every time I was late returning home, which was quite often. She became sick to her stomach with worry. She would watch for my car out the bathroom window so she could hop into bed knowing I was safe. Debbie internalized the problem, convincing herself that if she were just a good girl, I would stop drinking. That she placed one iota of blame on herself is heart wrenching. She felt as the older child that she needed to take care of the rest of the family because obviously I could not.
Yet rather than feeling a sense of anger at me for forcing that responsibility upon her, she loved me more. She protected me from myself by taking the car keys away when she knew I was drunk. When Carol Ann tried that I would fight the keys away from her. But Debbie knew I would not go after her physically because she was my princess. She has told me often how proud, happy, and relieved she felt when I began rehab. And how thankful she is today that I am still around to love.
My comeuppance had been inevitable regardless of whether I sought and received help for my addiction. My kids were destined to confront or shun me, perhaps even put me out of their minds and their lives. I am grateful they had not before my recovery. Their support helped me survive the ugliest period of my existence. They had been rightfully whisked away by Carol preceding the divorce. But they were armed and ready when the therapist at Gateway asked family members to come in to confront me. They told me how I had scared and angered them. I should have known this but my disease had disallowed it. The horrible effect I had had on my family was a revelation.
The therapy staff warned me upon my departure that the process of rekindling a loving and prosperous relationship with Debbie and Tim would not be all roses and sunshine. They explained that the family bonds that had been broken would take tremendous work on my part to repair. I had to understand that actions are far more important than words. I had made enough promises to last them a lifetime. They did not want to hear any more. I became keenly aware that I had a monumental task on my hands trying to regain their trust, love, and respect.
One way I could do that was to show interest in Tim’s budding baseball career. It did not take much. The new Sam with a new perspective proved genuinely excited when his son began to display the talent that would eventually land him a professional contract. Fortunately his rise as a prospect coincided with my early recovery years. That allowed me to grow along with him.
Tim had already been exposed to both the pleasant and potentially ugly sides of the big-league lifestyle. The former was an attraction. He embraced the opportunity to soak in the clubhouse atmosphere, shake hands with the stars of the sport, watch players answer questions during post-game interviews, hear folks compare his dad to Sandy Koufax. And the dangers of celebrity life personified by me had not scared him off. If anything it buoyed his resolve during the bad old days to follow in my footsteps as an athlete but not as a man.
Early in his career at Gateway High School in Monroeville, the media placed him squarely in my shadow. Newspapers published articles referring to Tim as the son of Sam McDowell no matter how grand his own achievement on the mound. They would devote three paragraphs to me and my career then toss in a bit about Tim. But his accomplishments eventually earned Tim distinction on his own. I like to think after my recovery that I helped him become a thinking man’s pitcher. The references to his dad in articles were reduced to a sentence. He would tease me about that. Five years earlier I might have felt a twinge of jealousy. Now my only emotion was pride for my son.
During my early recovery period I grew concerned that all the comparisons made by the media would hurt his confidence. Articles that featured my strikeout records and six All-Star Game appearances could have diminished his self-worth as a pitcher but he handled outside noise far better than I had at his age. He did not boast the same level of talent that I’d had. Frankly—and I can express this with complete objectivity—few have in the history of high school baseball. He was not a natural-born athlete. That is one reason that despite his accomplishments he went undrafted out of high school. But he worked his butt off to show major league potential.
Yet I refused to allow myself to fill Tim with unrealistic hope. When he pitched a strong game for Gateway, I gave him encouragement and we discussed what he did wrong. I never indicated that his mindset should be baseball-or-bust. I wanted him to aspire to reach his goals but focus on growing as a person first and understand that self-fulfillment could be achieved no matter how his professional life played out.
I reminded him that only a tiny percentage of prospects reach the majors. He played baseball and studied psychology at American University after going undrafted out of Gateway. He was setting himself up to thrive inside or outside the world of sports. I was not going to be one of those fathers who live vicariously through the achievements of their son and push mine into a baseball career. Tim appreciated me imparting a sense of realism. I remember him telling an interviewer that he had never been ashamed of me even when I was drinking. I welcomed that sentiment.
Not that I rooted against his advancement in baseball simply because I could not handle the trappings of the lifestyle as an athlete. During his time at American I spoke with him after every game. I offered my expertise on how he could maximize his talent. He had been frustrated during his first two seasons there. Tim had been an all-state pitcher at Gateway but his performance had not translated well at the college level. He had been allowing about one run per inning. He had a hard time as a freshman and sophomore pitching against seniors. So I studied his pitching motion over the summer before his junior year and advised him on taking a better mental approach to his craft. I recall working on his windup, which had become discombobulated. I visited him with a video that showed he was throwing incorrectly. I worked with him on coiling a bit more to get full extension on his windup instead of short-arming the ball to the plate.
The tutorial paid off. His velocity increased and his curveball had more snap to it. He felt smoother on the mound. And his pitching improved dramatically. His ERA fell to about one-third of what it had been his first two seasons. He required precision in his windup and delivery as well as his location because he could not fire baseballs past hitters as I had at his age or power through mistakes.
Tim was using mind over matter. He was learning to focus on every pitch, no matter the score, no matter the inning, no matter the situation. He gained an understanding of the science of pitching at around the same age as I had. Nobody had taken the reins in teaching me how to be a pitcher rather than a thrower. I was forced to learn that lesson the hard way. I refused to allow that to happen to Tim. And because I taught him that strategic approach, he began cutting down on his mistakes. During one long stretch his junior year he allowed no home runs. In one game after his adjustment he lost a 1–0 decision to George Mason, performed wonderfully in a three-hitter, yet registered no strikeouts.
Tim had forged his own identity as a pitcher, one completely different than mine. Major league scouts had begun to take notice. I had aided selflessly in his development and it made me feel great. It was all part of my transformation into a real man. And even though he never realized his dream of reaching the major leagues, he gave it his best shot, which is all any parent should ask for.
He improved to the point where he convinced the Pirates to offer him a contract in 1988. His repertoire of fastball, curve, and changeup proved effective enough to consistently retire batters in the lower minors. He moved from rookie ball to Class A in his second season and posted a fine ERA of 2.85. He was promoted to high-A for the 1990 season and performed well again but could advance no further because of the old baseball practice of giving high draft choices every chance over the lesser players irrespective of performance. His pitching under normal circumstances would have earned him another promotion. He was placed with the higher-level club in spring training but sent back to the previous level prior to breaking camp. A couple of high draft choices who had been lingering in the lower minors were moved above Tim to see if they would sink or swim. Tim asked for his release from the Pittsburgh organization but was denied. He then quit and decided to advance his second career. Three years later they still would not grant his release. That he earned a degree in psychology from Rice University and blossomed into a well-rounded person allowed Tim to avoid the struggles so many athletes face when their sports career hits a dead end.
Soon thereafter he would join me in my professional endeavor. A new and exciting venture did not await me in 1984. I had to make it happen.