OUR YOUTH SPORTS CULTURE IS BROKEN

My daughter was a pitcher for the Woodgrove softball team in 2017. She never did travel softball even though coaches oftentimes invited her on their teams, and she never had a pitching coach or softball coaching of any kind. All of her friends did however which left her in what is now called “house ball” with a lot of girls who were entirely new to the sport all together and were in it simply to have fun and learn the sport. Once Livy hit high school she got accepted onto the Woodgrove softball team as pitcher. All of her friends who had years of travel ball and personal coaching under their belts were obviously better than her but her pitching skills were still strong. She pitched an entire game one night and won the game for Woodgrove. This was just weeks before she got diagnosed with the life long disease of Crohn’s. She got very thin and weak and ended up being hospitalized with an emergency surgery on her colon. I informed the team mom and her coach that night asking them to inform her teammates. We didn’t hear one word from anyone during her hospitalization or afterwards. Once returning to school her coach welcomed Elizabeth to support her team on the bench during practices and games which she did for as long as she could but she was severely sick. At the end of year softball banquet many of the parents asked me where Elizabeth had been and I was too shocked to explain. I was shocked at the lack of support towards Elizabeth and lack of communication between the coaches, team mom, and players/parents. It soured our experience with the Woodgrove softball team. Today, Livy is putting her time and energy in equestrian sports with her horse and although still struggling with her Disease on a daily basis while keeping a 4.0 average and successful horse competitions I commend her for her positive attitude and resilience during a time when not many people including myself could carry out. I thought the attached article in the link below was very well written and on point in today’s day and age of travel sports and the negative effects it has had on our community which is far different from when we were kids.

https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/sports/high-school/2019/02/06/brandon-day-our-youth-sports-culture-broken/2791281002/?fbclid=IwAR2-BtCglYevXFtACXHSbBL4Mv2bz7n4JDn-NUy0kc3DEGW9-3u0SOD3bAw

IT'S A REBELLIOUS ACT TO NOT DRINK

Why is it normal to drink and a disease to stop? I quit drinking 7 years ago cold turkey, without AA meetings or support of any kind. I just decided I was sick and tired of looking and feeling sick and tired. So I decided to quit and people looked at me with pity like I was the one with the problem. Meanwhile, they continue poisoning their bodies and acting like idiots. Alcohol isn’t normal or good for the body and recent studies have debunked any health benefits from it. Remember when the medical industry promoted cigarettes before they knew better? 

Who stops after one glass of wine or one beer? Nobody I know. I used to go days without a drink but when I had a glass of wine I couldn’t stop there and most people I know can’t either. Just like some people can’t stop at one cookie or one cigarette so if they decided to stop all together do they have a disease because they can’t have just one? And those who can have the occasional social cigarette are normal? Sure some people have an addictive personality but is that really an incurable disease? I honestly don’t miss drinking at all. I don’t miss the fake conversations, the embarrassing behavior from myself as well as others, waking up in the middle of the night riddled with guilt and shame remembering those behaviors, the carb cravings and junk food binges, the god awful hangovers and how I had aged 15 years over night when looking in the mirror. 

When I’m around people drinking I can see the steady change in their demeanor and it’s actually pretty disgusting. Not many people can socialize without boozing it up. Why is that? When does that change take place from childhood to adulthood? Why is it normalized and glamorized in our society? Why are those who no longer need that crutch looked at as diseased? Alcohol has no health benefits to our mind or our bodies. It’s a huge deception to think it does. It’s poison to the mind body and soul. It’s poison to our families and loved ones and society as a whole. It’s no better than cigarettes cocaine heroine or any other drug. I’m not saying it should be illegal because cigarettes are still legal even tho deadly. If people want to smoke and kill themselves then so be it. If people want to drink and kill themselves and others thru drunk driving, violence, etc then so be it. But don’t call those who don’t diseased or abnormal because it’s the other way around. Alcohol creates disease and abnormal behaviors abstinence does not. Don’t fall for the brainwashing propaganda of alcohol and the labels put on those who don’t imbibe. Because in a society that normalizes alcohol and the shameful behavior it causes, it’s a rebellious act to not drink.

Jason Vale's book Kick The Drink…Easily! (from which some of these arguments are based alongside Allen Carr's EasyWay) puts it the best…by comparing alcohol to cocaine. When I stopped using cocaine, I stopped using cocaine. I didn't have to accept my cocaine-aholism or identify as a cocaine-aholic, and I didn't have to justify why I didn't use coke anymore. Because using cocaine isn't an accepted societal behavior. So when we stop, we don't encounter our families snorting coke with Thanksgiving Dinner, we don't go to weddings and have to avoid coke, we don't go to someone's house and ooh and ahh over his cocaine cellar, we don't meet our friends at a coke bar to unwind after work. If we use/abuse/are addicted to cocaine and kick the addiction or use, we stop, and that is that. The same goes for every single other drug on the market. It even goes for cigarettes. But not alcohol. Because we believe everyone "should" be able to drink and those who can't as somehow defective, we assign them a label and a lifetime disease. Alcoholism. 

The attached link below made me question the label put on those who choose to no longer poison their mind body and soul with alcohol.

https://www.hipsobriety.com/home/2014/12/16/my-name-is-holly-and-im-not-an-alcoholic-because-no-one-is