Addiction?

So Tiger Woods had his say today and it was well done. Does the Fan forgive the guy? Hey, it's his business, not the Fan's. The Fan just wants to know when he'll play again. This little fence mending expedition comes a few weeks after former GM and ESPN analyst, Steve Phillips, talked about his sexual addiction. At the sake of sounding all uneducated and stupid, the Fan's take on all this is heavy on the skepticism.

Look, we all have cravings. In fact, right now the Fan is really craving Kentucky Fried Chicken. But life is full of these cravings. The balancing act is to balance the cravings with the end results. If the Fan eats KFC, he ends up making weird noises on the porcelain fixtures and has many agonizing moments therein. The Fan gets this craving several times a month and gives in to it perhaps once a year. But that one time is enough to educate for the rest of the year. Cravings are something we want. Reality is what we know will/could happen if we give in to those cravings.

There are legitimate addictions. Tobacco is among the worst. But chemical addictions are very real. In those cases, the body is altered and chemical deficiencies scream out to be heard. Yeah, those are cravings, but until help or will is summoned, the price of giving in to those cravings goes unheeded.

The Fan isn't well versed in psychology and those kinds of studies. But the Fan is aware of sexual cravings. Yeah, the Fan is a man and men get cravings. The Fan can't speak about women because he isn't one. But they must get cravings too. But when you are married or in a serious relationship, the cravings are like that KFC thing. Yeah, we know what will happen if it all blows up in our faces. Fortunately, most of us don't give in to them once a year like KFC and hopefully, we find some bliss and aid for our needs from our significant others.

And again, the Fan isn't a sociologist. But it seems that men are wired to crave women (if we have that sexual preference anyway). Studies have shown that our pulse quickens at the sight of a pretty girl. We just can't help ourselves. We also have innate (so they say) desires for conquest that go back to our human roots (or our sinful and carnal side, depending on your belief system). But as rational men (is that an oxymoron?) we make the trade off of putting a "shush" to our cravings and our nature for the convenience of a partner that makes the world a much nicer place to live.

But you put a man in a playground where there are no rules and he will try to satisfy his cravings as many times as possible. If you don't believe the Fan, watch Big Brother. When men have unlimited money, unlimited opportunities and people who will take money to feed our cravings, then that trade off system gets a little harder to deal with. Sexual addiction? No. That's just the same cravings we all have with no rules or restrictions. When you have a lot of money, you secretly think you are gifted above mere mortals and the same rules don't apply. It's very hard not to feel those kinds of "I'm special" thoughts. Tiger Woods said the same thing today.

Therapy? Sure. When a man is in the kind of fix Tiger Woods is in, then you go to therapy or whatever else your mother or offended wife thinks is appropriate. Deep down, do you really think Tiger Woods thinks he has an addiction? No, deep down, he knows that he has manly cravings that ran amok because they could and now that he is busted, he has to revert back to the trade off system. Does Steve Phillips have an addiction? No, that's what he has accepted as part of his punishment for getting caught. After all, he would like to work again.

Personally, sex and love are totally separate issues. But we are so screwed up, we can't separate them without people's feelings being hurt. We are screwed up about this issue you know. So, though the human species isn't really good at the monogamy thing, that's what we have to deal with at present and its trade off system. Those who have means and ability and who come to believe they are above it all, they do what our species is especially good at and that is finding some other warm place to put our warm places and they do so thinking that they are entitled to be above our present system.

Frankly, if we could simply separate the two issues of love and sex, we wouldn't have this problem to begin with. But let the Fan prove his point by asking you one basic question: Haven't you seen a face like Tiger's today somewhere before? Yes you have. Admit it. You've seen that same face when a man is seen walking out of a porn shop (if those places still exist in this world of the Internet) or when a man is caught participating in pregnancy classes with his woman. It's the same face. The face simply says: "Oh my, I've been caught red handed and am in this mess thanks to my cravings."

Addicts? Who knows. The Fan doesn't know everything. But this whole sexual addiction things seems pretty bogus.

Grabbing a Tiger By the Tale

The other day, the Fan's beautiful and sweet daughter told her daddy, "I'm sorry about Tiger. I know he's your favorite." After she was given a hug for her concern, she was told that it was the Fan's own fault. Our American penchant for setting up heroes is our downfall. People are people. They are unfailingly and unflinchingly imperfect. And yet, if you are like this writer, you buy the Nike Sumo driver and the Nike irons and a Tiger lob wedge and a Nike bag and shoes (the same ones Tiger wears) because you buy into the hero worship that goes along with our obsession with sports and movies and politics.

And really, the Fan should know better. It's not like there isn't a lot of history that has come before this little fiasco. Growing up, some of the most exciting sport events in history were the exploits of O. J. Simpson. The Fan idolized the guy and watched every game and bit of footage available. The man was the most beautiful and dynamic runner ever witnessed in the game of football. Then one day, the television was turned on and the police were in this odd, slow-motion chase with this white Ford Bronco. And we all found out that O. J. Simpson was the best running back in history, but not the best person.

The Fan spent nearly twenty years idolizing Roger Clemens and watching him grunt and grind his way into being the most dominant pitcher of his era. Pedro was better for a few years, but over the long haul, it was Rocket Roger. But he ultimately fell too with the PEDs and infidelity and the lies and everything else.

And those were not isolated incidents. Early hero, Mickey Mantle was very flawed as was John F. Kennedy and Wade Boggs and Joe Namath and Joe Pepitone and Rock Hudson and Rickey Nelson and a host of others.

Our problem is that we go beyond appreciating these people for their particular talents. We go beyond appreciating Tiger as the best golfer we've ever seen. We set them up as paragons of what we would like to be ourselves. That's the gist of it, isn't it? Wouldn't we have all wanted to be Tiger? Or Jeter? Or Simpson? Or Mantle? Or Marilyn Monroe? Or anyone else we have built up beyond their own humanity?

Instead, we buy into the pictures we are painted by a similarly rose-colored media and see an image that appeals to our senses of self-dreaming. The trouble is, nobody can live up to that except a few saints each generation that seem to overcome their troubled humanity. Mother Theresa comes to mind. But other than those few saints, we go beyond what we appreciate about the subject's skill level and we take it up to a hero worship.

And then our heroes turn out to be flawed, chipped and well...human. The media that spent so much effort making these people our darlings, suddenly turns into this snarling, self-righteous mass of buzzards swirling to take the very skin off of our fallen idols. And we read it all up in horror and yet fascination and our hearts sink on one level, but on another level glory in the fact that these people that we thought were so much better than us were really not.

And so we end up being wrong on both ends. First, our need to idolize a symbol of what we want to be sets us up for the disappointment. And then when the inevitable disappointment comes, we get all indignant about what has happened. Look, obviously what Tiger has done is wrong on many levels of our society. You don't get married, have kids and act like you are all gooey-family oriented and then run around with every woman you can afford. But how many of us, if we had that kind of opportunity and money and the lack of restraints would do the same thing?

But there is another funny thing that happens. Say you're Michael Jackson and you reach idol status and your nose falls off and you get caught (allegedly) playing with little boys. Then you fall from your pedestal and are reviled and ridiculed...until you die. Then, once you die, the Elvis, Michael Jackson, Mickey Mantle hero machine starts back up and the humans become idols again, this time dead ones. All Tiger has to do to beat this thing is to die, right? Let's hope and pray that he doesn't, but isn't the Fan right on this?

It's not like we need to by cynical. We just need to be practical. We can and should appreciate the skills our favorite players play with. We should admire the looks of our models along with the skills of our actors. But we need to keep in mind that they are mortals just like the rest of us. We don't need to be skeptical and think the worst of everyone. We just need to reign in our hero-building engines and simply be awed by what we see and watch without transferring that awesome ability to the person him/herself.

And when the media gets a hold of a story like this and glories in the feast of the ashes of our fallen hero's life, turn the other way. Turn it off. It serves no purpose but to make us all a little bit smaller, a little more petty and at worst, a people of hypocrites. After all, deep down, we knew they were human. Admit it.