On Never Say Die and Steve Sarkisian

I have some thoughts on sports, but not sports. I don’t care for football much. I understood it one time, for about 10 minutes in 1996 when I was just the right combination of drunk and high. But this isn’t about football. This is about alcoholism and addiction and never being just the right combination of drunk and high.

This is about the death of “never say die” and the deconstruction of the mindset that surrender is synonymous with defeat. This began as a Facebook comment on a distant friend’s page—a thread about Steve Sarkisian and his leave from USC. I had never heard of Mr. Sarkisian until yesterday. As I was typing on my phone in the wee hours of the morning, I realized there was more I wanted to say.

As the Executive Director of a drug and alcohol treatment center, I feel confident saying you wouldn’t believe how many people never get help because they are afraid to tell their employers, or take leave from work. Of those who take that step, we struggle with helping them to understand the importance of putting getting better ahead of getting back to it.

To ask for help, whether of your own volition or the insistence of one’s family or employer is the one of the hardest things any alcoholic or addict will do. That feat, in and of itself, is commendable.

To ask for help working in an industry (sports) that depends on never say die to survive and the refusal to surrender in order to profit, is worthy of accolades.

As a coach or an athlete, that mindset is used to your benefit. As a practicing alcoholic, or a drug addict, it is a death sentence for you, your family, and your team.

Most have the opportunity to get well in private, and even that feels impossible. I commend every person who walks through my door because it takes so much strength, bravery, and courage to make it that far.

In an industry where asking for help, or being required to by your employer, will be publicly used against you to spit vitriol because someone doesn’t like your team and is angry you’re winning, or does and is upset over some losses, maybe bad call you made this season or in one long forgotten by most, taking that step toward getting well is a courageous act on a road to victory.

To accept that, for all your winning, you can’t beat this alone; to take on a team of strangers, for the coach to be coached; to say “I need help” or “yes, I will accept help,” to acknowledge that, for all your talents, strength, experience, and wit; for all your victories—every play you have devised to beat this alone has failed, and you have been bested, defeated by alcohol of all things, is powerful.

It is brave and it is courageous. It is the real “never say die.”

It is the essence of “Fight On!”