And not just for the cheap shot reasoning that Green Bay is a drinking town with a football problem, but because he's in a bad spot. A really bad spot.
I can't imagine having to go through trying to sort out the ashes of your life while trying to make a living in the NFL and having countless others judging and second-guessing you if you're foolish enough to read a newspaper or surf the Web.
For as prevalent as addiction is in our society, many choose to ignore it, hope it's a stage they're going through and hope it gets better. Rationalizing your own behavior and continuing to repeat mistakes is a tough cycle to get caught in.I know because despite being sober since August 23, 2001, it's something I have to fight with on a near daily basis. For that reason alone, I'm really hoping that Robinson can come back this year in Green Bay and try to turn his life around.
Not that he's doing that badly, mind you - just that his mistakes are played out on talk radio and ESPN crawlers at the bottom of the screen when they happen. Sure, it's a big deal to be speeding, evading police and continually making apologies, but I'd bet everything I have that he wasn't the only impaired driver on the road that night.
And not just any road - that same road. To the point that at least one drunk driver passed the squad cars that had Robinson pulled over. There is no way you can change my mind on this.
The trick is that while hundreds of drunk drivers will be pulled over this weekend, we won't know any of their names. They'll quietly be sentenced, seek help at the court's urging and more than likely relapse again. You know the saying about how you can't force someone to get help in those situations unless they want it?
That thought process is completely correct.
It's easy to chalk up constant binge drinking to a bad week at work, or a rough stretch in your life. Name an excuse and I've probably used it at one point or another to justify my drinking and my subsequent behavior. It's when things start to spiral that your world gets out of control.
Here's the rub; no matter how depressing or out of whack your life is while you're drinking, the tough part is once you start to dry out. You're supposed to avoid old friends you drank with, you're grumpy and short with people and your old habits die hard.
And that's not the worst part.
Imagine feeling ashamed almost constantly for every waking hour, coupled with the overriding feeling that you're left to clean up a mess from a party you weren't even at. It's rough and when you're not prepared for it you need to be very tough or very lucky.
As I tried to set right old friendships I'd ruined, I was fortunate to have smart, forgiving people who were able to look at the situation and chalk it up to the alcohol. I was fortunate that most people took my apologies and accepted them for what they were and moved along from there.
"People don't get mad," one friend told me. "Dogs get mad." She told me she'd been hurt, frustrated and disappointed in me, but not mad. When you're trying to put the pieces back, this passes as a good day.
One of the worst feelings I've had in my life was feeling like a criminal as I tried to get in contact with a girl I'd dated briefly in college. Her friends refused to give me her e-mail address and insisted on talking to her first before I could. They promised to hand her my contact info and leave it up to her.
When you've done so much wrong in your life that you aren't allowed to make an apology, you realize exactly how bad things have become. You have to earn your way back from that, which is something I'm not sure Robinson has figured out yet.
It's easy (even for me) to stand back and judge him, asking ourselves why a man with natural talent and millions upon millions of dollars in the balance can't "just stop drinking," focus on football and let that be that.
It's the rational move, but it's not the whole story. Fuck touchdowns and paychecks, what he needs to worry about are old friends and hurt family members, because I'd guess this is impacting them, too.
So while professional success plays a key role in an athlete's life, it probably shouldn't be a priority right now for Robinson. I can only imagine how nice it is for him to go and practice for a few hours each day to give him time off from legal and publicity problems that are dogging him after his arrest this summer.
He's only 26 now, with plenty of time to live up to his potential as an athlete. I'm honestly hoping he finds a way to live up to his potential as a human being along the way.
(Photo from CNN/SI)
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