Baseball, Homelessness, and Public Aid

[Jake]

http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2013/11/03...aved-fans-life/

 

Back in the spring, Cliff was in rehab again, at least his third trip in the last decade. He had promised his dying sister a year before that he was done with the drugs and the alcohol that had gripped his life. He wasn’t.

 

But now here he sat, watching baseball, and he’s never been better. Cliff just picked up his six-month sobriety chip. He’s been going to meetings, 90 in 90 days when he first got out of rehab, now three or four or sometimes even five a week. He’s staying busy — a few nights before we met at the ballpark, he called a friend from the middle of the Potomac River. He was fishing. Caught a catfish.

 

He’s been here before, clean and ready to stay that way, but never with this much commitment.

 

“I mean, they say you can’t say you’re never gonna use again, but I just feel different this time,” he says. “I’ve always done something wrong when I got out of rehab. The last time, they say you shouldn’t be around people that use, I had a drug dealer who still came around and I’d let him cut up his crack. That was insane when I think about it, because all it took was one night for me to have the urge to do it.”

 

Being at the park, he says, is a big part of doing it right.

 

After a few minutes, I leave him. He has to get back to the game. The hope is seeping out of Nats Park, but it never leaves Cliff.

 

...

 

The only reason Cliff was sitting in Nationals Park that night, and the only reason the park eventually became his getaway, was because somebody woke him up in that patch of grass nine years ago. The guy who nudged Cliff awake could have been anyone. A cop looking to take him in. Or maybe somebody trying to finish the job the fight had started. Could have been someone else looking for a fix, maybe someone trying to give Cliff his next one

 

Just a snippet. Definitely worth the entire read. I figured I'd post it in here since it would probably wind up here anyway.