'Broadway Joe' puts life back on track

By Jon Saraceno, USA TODAY

 

TEQUESTA, Fla. — Last year, before America's disbelieving eyes, the man known as "Broadway Joe" morphed into "Blown-away Joe" — a melancholy caricature of the aging, boozed-up playboy quarterback without enough restraint to stop throwing wobbly passes in public.

 

Instantly, the phrase "I want to kiss you" joined his "I guarantee it" as two of football's memorable lines. Last December, after a day of non-stop drinking, the cultural icon and cocky superhero humiliated himself live on TV during an inebriated sideline interview with a female ESPN reporter.

 

That interview pushed Joe Namath to acknowledge that he had a problem — one he couldn't solve with reputation, swagger or a wink of those seductive green eyes.

 

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My Name is Roger, and I'm an alcoholic

by Roger Ebert

In August 1979, I took my last drink. It was about four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, the hot sun streaming through the windows of my little carriage house on Dickens. I put a glass of scotch and soda down on the living room table, went to bed, and pulled the blankets over my head. I couldn't take it any more.

On Monday I went to visit wise old Dr. Jakob Schlichter. I had been seeing him for a year, telling him I thought I might be drinking too much. He agreed, and advised me to go to "A.A.A," which is what he called it. Sounded like a place where they taught you to drink and drive. I said I didn't need to go to any meetings. I would stop drinking on my own. He told me to go ahead and try, and check back with him every month.

The problem with using will power, for me, was that it lasted only until my will persuaded me I could take another drink. At about this time I was reading The Art of Eating, by M. F. K. Fisher, who wrote: "One martini is just right. Two martinis are too many. Three martinis are never enough." The problem with making resolutions is that you're sober when you make the first one, have had a drink when you make the second one, and so on. I've also heard, You take the first drink. The second drink takes itself. That was my problem. I found it difficult, once I started, to stop after one or two. If I could, I would continue until I decided I was finished, which was usually some hours later. The next day I paid the price in hangovers.

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