Long post incoming, because I think itâs important that someone says thisâŠ
I know and love a lot of addicts. I worked in the field at one point and I have family members who are clinicians currently working in addiction treatment.
The weaponizing of Sorsbyâs addiction by Texas Tech has been disgusting, and the passage below heavily implies that TTUâs support of his recovery is dependent on him being a football player.
If TTU genuinely cared about Brendan Sorsbyâs recovery they wouldnât have waited until after a judge ruled he could play football to set these support systems up. And thatâs before we even address what type of trigger a $5 million check could be for a gambling addict who supposedly gambles due to anxiety and will now feel the pressure of showing he was worth the money and backlash.
If Sorsbyâs gambling is truly the manifestation of a generalized anxiety disorder as they have claimed then the least productive thing for his recovery is to turn him into a national story and a focal point for a lot of people who are rightly worried about what this means for the competitive integrity of all college sporting events.
There is a word for swooping in and fixing things for an addict so they donât have to face the natural consequences of their actionsâ âENABLINGâ
A player being punished for being an addict is not the same thing as him facing the natural consequences of crossing boundaries that he a) knew existed and b) took measures to circumvent.
I believe wholeheartedly in the disease model of addiction, and I have compassion for addicts who are trying to make a healthier lifestyle into a new habit. Texas Tech has created a false dichotomy that paints those supports as being dependent on Brendanâs football eligibility.
Not playing football does not equate to him being expelled from the university. These supports should never have been dependent on his being part of the team.
I donât believe anybody at Texas Tech is actually making Brendan Sorsbyâs addiction recovery the most important thing here. If they were, they never would have put him in this spot. They just want you to back off because they think it will help them win a few more games, and that part of this story feels way grosser to me than anything else.