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Houston Sports Legends in Recovery

The word is out – our speaker series will return in-person with Houston Astro and Baseball Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell as the keynote speaker at our 2021 Fall Luncheon on October 15, 2021. Along with Craig Biggio, Derek Bell and Lance Berkman, Bagwell was part of the “Killer B’s”, the core lineup for the Astros in the late 90s and early 2000s. During his run, the Astros qualified for the playoffs six times, culminating in a World Series appearance in 2005! Despite his success, Bagwell struggled with addiction, reminding us that this disease can affect anyone – even our hometown heroes. Here are three more inspiring Houston sports legends who have dedicated themselves to a life of recovery.

Houston sports legend Jeff Bagwell's induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame

John Lucas

John Lucas played on and off from 1976 to 1990 as point guard for the Houston Rockets as he struggled with substance use disorders behind the scenes. The team repeatedly suspended Lucas before he started treatment for his substance use in order to stay in the NBA. Lucas has been in recovery for more than 30 years now, and has started his own recovery program for athletes while also serving as an assistant coach for the Rockets.

Bill Worrell

A native Houstonian, Bill Worrell was one of the most prominent voices in Houston sports for four decades. Worrell served as a television broadcaster for the Houston Astros for 20 consecutive seasons, as well as the television play-by-play announcer for the Houston Rockets from the early 1980s until his retirement earlier this year. At the height of his career, he committed to a life in recovery after struggling with alcohol use, and credited his long-standing career to his sobriety.

Earl Campbell

Earl Campbell, nicknamed “The Tyler Rose,” was the Houston Oilers’ legendary running back from 1978-1984. The local-boy-turned-pro-football-star never shirked from any challenge—a quality that made him one of the great football legends of all time, but led to significant physical injuries. Campbell found relief through prescription painkillers, which eventually took over his life. In 2009, he undertook the challenge of living drug and alcohol free after his sons initiated an intervention. Campbell shared his story at our 2012 Fall Luncheon, helping The Council to raise more than $400,000 to make recovery possible for his fellow Houstonians.

To help local individuals and families get the education and treatment they need to recover from the effects of addiction, join us on October 15^th at our annual fall luncheon with Jeff Bagwell. Purchase a ticket here.

The Promise of Intentions

This guest post is written by David Sunday, outreach coordinator and veteran liaison for The Council on Recovery.

As we move into another exciting year full of possibilities and opportunities, I was struck by the number of New Year’s resolutions the crossed my social media. It brought up the question, what is a resolution? Merriam Webster defines a resolution as the answer or solution to something, a firm decision, to do or not do. That was very intriguing to me. As a person in long term recovery, working a program and involved with the recovery community, I often hear sayings like “one day at a time” or “easy does it”. There’s even an old joke poking fun at the disease of addiction that quotes, “The three words you never want to hear from a person in recovery say are ‘I was thinking…’”

simon abrams k T9Zj3SE8k unsplash — Photo by Simon Abrams on Unsplash

Today, we’re able to laugh at ourselves, but we also recognize that we are works in progress, and that every day we try to be just a little bit better than we were the day before. Some days we have clarity, and others, we simply know that tomorrow is a new day! We try our best to be gentle, first with ourselves and then with others.

Maybe it makes sense to simply change our language a little.

Using the word intention instead of resolution reminds us that today we will make every attempt to show up as our true and authentic selves, and in doing so knowing that we have done our part. After all, there is only today, we no longer live in yesterday and tomorrow is not a guarantee. Our intention is all we really have, as psychologist Ram Dass has taught us to “be here now” in this place together.

This writer’s love for the people of the recovery community stems from acceptance that we are all enough, perfectly imperfect. We no longer need to measure up to a standard because we are already there, but maintaining the intention that there is always room for improvement. Every single day is a new beginning and a new chance to create a life well lived!

The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 56

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 56 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

In the commercial world that is the core of the economic society in which we all live and work, the experience of bankruptcy, along with the economic impacts of death and divorce, is one of the horrors that some of us have to experience. We can define bankruptcy as insolvency, a condition in which the financial equity in one’s organizational structure or life system has been entirely exhausted and the ability of cash flows to service all sorts of debt obligations is nil; it is an experience that horrifies us and the commercial worlds in which we all live. There is a set of laws called the Bankruptcy Code (the “Code”), formerly known as Title 11 of the U.S. Code of laws and regulations which governs precisely how the process of bankruptcy is meant to work to allow individuals, corporations and other organizations to resolve the conflict presented by their debt obligations and, then, to be rehabilitated.

I have had some experience in this world and it strikes me how it resonates so powerfully with the experience of addiction, the descent into its worst nightmares and the process to recover and build a sober life. I have come to believe that life in our economic world is replete with people that span the full range of experiences, from those for whom success and wealth seem to come with consummate ease, to those who just can’t keep it together and are always on the edge of, or deep in the throes of insolvency. It is much like the range of experiences of all humanity with addictive substances and behaviors. Many of those at the dark end of the economic cycles are increasingly caught in the web of insolvency as a result of a spendthrift and wholly irresponsible patterns of life. They seem powerless over the experience of living beyond their means and their life increasingly becomes unmanageable.

The process of recovery for such people is also much like that for the alcoholic and addict, working with consultants, therapists, family and friends to discover a new way of living and managing daily affairs. There are many parallels in the descent into bankruptcy and the process to recover to a sound and responsible way of living.

I have a good friend who has worked in this world most of her life, helping debtors to migrate through the myriad of processes that the Code provides. I was at a meeting with her one day, where a number of distressed debtors – individuals, couples and small companies – sat in a large room ringed with small alcove offices. The small offices were occupied by officials of the Court system and the meeting, called a Chapter 13 meeting in Texas, was to allow for the Court system and the debtors to come to terms with the precise nature of the debtors’ insolvency and develop a procedure for its resolution to be presented to and approved by the Bankruptcy Courts themselves. As different debtors were called to a particular office my friend went with them, as their counsel, to explain and arrange each of their processes of resolution. As I sat there observing, I was struck by the fear and anxiety on the faces of the debtors and the ease and comfort of my friend’s manner in working with them to a resolution. She was an “angel of mercy” moving about the room, very much like the presence that recovering alcoholics who serve as sponsors have in a room full of distraught and anxious newcomers of AA and its sister12 step programs. Both are wonderful experiences to witness, the newbie alcoholic starting to work the steps with a sponsor and the bankrupt beginning the processes of financial rehabilitation with her/his counsel, both nurturing recovery with a presence of deeply committed service.

The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 55

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 55 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

Santa Catalina is an island offshore southern California, “26 miles across the sea…” from Long Beach. The “26 miles…” line is from a 1958 song by the Four Preps, a male quartet of Hollywood teenagers whose name conveyed their image…preppy, well groomed suburban kids in white shirts, identical suits and skinny ties. They had a number of hits in the late 50’s and 60’s as the popular music world was moving from traditional rock ‘n roll to folk ballads.

But the island of Santa Catalina eschewed their image. It was a quiet, very rocky, almost magical island whose main harbor and city then and now is Avalon, a quaint village of shops, restaurants and B&B’s. Avalon also was a very reverent name in ancient Celtic legends.

Avalon was an island in the marshlands of Wales where spiritual beings with great healing powers were said to reside. It was also the place where the magical sword, Excalibur, was reportedly to have been forged, the instrument that empowered King Arthur with a mantle of invincibility.

When Arthur was wounded in his battles with Modred, he was transported to Avalon where he was attended to and healed by the Enchantress Morgana le Fay. While Avalon on Santa Catalina today is just a nice quaint city on a distant isle, those of us blessed with the miracles of the Process of Recovery can easily see it in its mythological constructions. Travelling there across the water, entering the beautiful harbor, walking among the rocky hills of the island, we can imagine ourselves as Arthurian Knights, reveling in the bliss of a magical existence, immortalized in so much literature…for our lives in the “sunlight of the spirit,” afforded by our diligent working of the program, is precisely that…is it not?

The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 43

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 43 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

In the multi-season show, Stargate SG – 1 and its offshoot, Stargate Atlantis, there is a force to be reckoned with called the Replicators, which are antagonistic self-replicating machines that are driven to replicate themselves by consuming both alloys and technologies of the nearest most advanced civilizations. They grow to destroy the societies which spawned them. Their original beginnings were a mistake of an earlier species and they prove very difficult to eradicate.

It occurs to me that there is an interesting parallel here with the recurring incidence of the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction in families. The disease seems to replicate itself in strange ways…it consumes us and our families across generations and among siblings and cousins. Sometimes it skips people in generations or in extended sibling or cousin relationships, but when it does strike, it can be as deadly as it was for the original sufferer.

In the Stargate Atlantis story, the Replicators are finally controlled by the development of a “disruptor gun” which breaks down the electromagnetic bonds inherent in the replicator machinery and causes them to disintegrate. My parallel with the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction and the replicator menace as told in these stories provides an interesting twist here.

We break down the replication of our disease in family structures by getting sober, by developing and maintaining a life of committed sobriety and service, which begins to model new, healthy behavior patterns. These create a psychological and spiritual force which disrupts the development of the disease in our loved ones, thus breaking down the elements of the disease in the family structures and the tendencies for it to replicate. Our loved ones absorb these patterns of recovery and service into their psyches and, in time, that helps them deal with their own latent or initiatory tendencies; they can thus avoid the patterns that could lead to future development of the disease.

In 1995, Pete Hamill, a journalist in New York, published a memoir called A Drinking Life. It is the story of his Irish family’s drinking history, his own early life consumed with alcohol abuse, and his career associated with a community of people of some renown where the one defining constant was alcohol. He hit a bottom one day and, recalling his familial history with alcohol, he said to himself: “The madness must stop. The madness stops here,” and he stopped drinking forever.

In our own commitment to sobriety and to a life of service, we help to eradicate the replication of the disease for all future generations.

Crystals Can Enhance Your Meditation Routine

Meditation is the key for some who are in recovery. It helps people feel more energized, gain focus and relaxation and can increase consciousness. All of these are important so that the recoveree can maintain a healthy life balance each day. Crystals can assist recoverees with these goals and aid in the discovery of their sober identity.

Amethyst

Amethyst distracts you from addictions and withdrawal symptoms. This crystal helps recharge the mind, body, and spirit. It helps recoverees reconnect to their own spirituality, open their minds to wisdom, and wash away negativity.

Carnelian

The bright orange Carnelian crystal is used to help those who struggle with overeating and marijuana addiction. The Carnelian is a form of quartz that makes users feel both energized and protected. When the Carnelian is held in the right hand and the Azurite crystal is held in the left hand, users can feel relaxed. Drinking Carnelian infused water or wearing jewelry will ease fears and give you more determination during recovery.

Clear quartz

This crystal can help those with a history of substance abuse. This not only works for those recovering from opioid and chemical drugs but for those wanting to resist caffeine and sugar. Clear Quartz helps cut down stress, ease withdrawal symptoms, and tries to block addictive thoughts.

Lepidolite

This crystal helps develop hope, trust, serenity, and acceptance within a person. Lepidolite helps transform recoverees by encouraging self-love, patience, and optimism. This stone is especially helpful for people who have PTSD or manic depression because it stabilizes emotions.

Rose Quartz

This crystal is known as the stone of love and can help you see the reality of toxic relationships. This stone is also effective for people recovering from addictions such as nymphomania. Rose Quartz calms and encourages recoverees to rediscover their love of the arts, music, and writing.

Crystals can be used alongside physical meditation activities such as yoga. They help those in recovery transform their mind, body, and spirit. If you are in need of relaxation and meditation, The Council offers weekly yoga classes. For more information, please click here.

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