Tiger at Augusta..this has nothing to do with Buddhism

I have to write this for my own sanity. Too many emails and so forth.. I understand recovery. I started the journey almost 30 years ago.. seen 'em come and go and I have no idea what Tiger should or should not do..BUT I do know this. When I was free of the things that brought me to my knees I was not free of the things that troubled me and I had to find peace. The easiest way to do that was to be decent in all my affairs. 

I met an old man.. Near 80 at the time who had been sober for nearly 40 years. He was willing to spend time with me. A lot of time with me.. and he showed me by his actions how to find the comfortable way of living that seems to elude so many who come in for a break in the action.. So if Tiger asked for my help, I'd know what to do with him... the same thing that kind old man (well there were times he was not so kind) did with me.. and as he used to say, "if you stop doing what you were doing, 85-90% of your troubles will go away in time. The steps will fix another 5% of your troubles and the rest you are going to have to learn to live with and be a man about it.".

But there's another Problem. Brad Faxon wrote on Golf.com that he was "much more concerned about Tiger's being treated by the Toronto doctor, Anthony Galea, who was arrested in Canada last October on drug charges, a doctor who admits to using human growth hormone.". Tiger needs to square up and be a man about everything.. He needs to fire Stevie and his management team and hire decent human beings with good manners. As we say, "if you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, you only need to change one thing.. and that's everything." Good for Tom Watson  and Arnold Palmer for explaining their thinking about Tiger.. He's needs to take the questions and start to humbly act like a gentleman.. no more F-bombs on the course.. We've heard enough.. what a talent he is.. time to grow up.

Amazing to see the newcomers. Some say they are the most important people in recovery. That's not true. They do not know how to be yet and they all get very spiritual very quickly.. this all takes time and Tiger can't do it by himself. Elin is in need of a lot of help as well..the whole team needs help. That's how it works. and then as Brad says.. he needs to be a player among players.. that will sound very familiar to those who know.

Being the Helping Hand I Wish Had been There for Me...

A little over a week ago I got to do something I thought I never would have the honor to do. I got to share some of my life experience with a group of kids at a local middle school. Kids that are surrounded by a lot of mixed messages, a lot of pressure and a lot of uncertainty. I had to remember how it was for me when I was that young. All of the things that were going through my mind at that age. I can remember many outside forces that I didn't understand and really wanted some help with. The trouble was that I really didn't know who or how to ask. There really wasn't anybody there for me, at that age, that I could completely trust. So now, going into this opportunity, I wanted to be that person that these kids could talk to, and ask those questions.

Here is a little back story on me, I am a recovered alcoholic.  Really that says it all. I have been sober for over 600 days and if you want a little more info on me, check out my recovery blog here.

When I was in elementary school there was DARE, or Drug Abuse Resistance Education. Basically local police officers came into out classroom and talked to us about drugs and alcohol. What I remember of DARE was more of an education on drugs, more interest then resistance. A lot of people that are my age and went through some kind of DARE type program when they were kids often say the same thing that I do. It was more of an education about drugs and really didn't deal with the problems that were facing kids. For me it made me want to try more drugs now knowing how they were going to effect my body.
Drugs and Alcohol really changed the course of my life, really altered the very fabric of it. Not all of the changes were bad because it introduced me to the people that would introduce me to an entire new way of living. One that I never knew existed because I was never really looking. Now I have the chance to be of service to my fellow man, the still suffering alcoholic, and to a bunch of kids in a middle school.

I really wanted to talk to these kids and tell them my story. How drugs and alcohol effected my life. How it affected my schoolwork, my sports, my hobbies, my family and my future.  I really wanted to connect with them.

So I laid it all out on the line.

I told the kids all about the choices that I had made in the past. The way that those choices made me feel. How others affected the way that I made my choices in life. I just wanted to connect with them so that maybe they would feel comfortable enough with me to ask some questions. They asked a lot of great questions about all aspects of things that I covered, and even some things that I didn't. They wanted to know how I handled things like peer pressure, getting in cars with people that were intoxicated, family members that drank... basically all over the board.

After the assembly, I got to talk to a class of boys in a smaller group setting. We basically opened up the discussion to the boys, and really gave them the opportunity to get whatever off their chest that they wanted to.  It was something that I will never forget and I hope I get the chance to do again in the future.  The feeling that I had was simply marvelous. If I even connected with one of the kids in those rooms, and made them think about those choices in the future, then I did my job.