During the press conference he held just now, Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers comes across as a humbled, contrite man who continues to deal with an addiction that can seize hold of him in moments of weakness. Â He called Monday night a “weak moment.”
“It never gets easy,” he said.
Based on his account of the evening, it was far more than just a drink or two. Â He said he had 3 or 4 drinks with his dinner (after a difficult personal family matter drove him to be at a restaurant by himself.) Â Then he called teammate Ian Kinsler for company. Kinsler stayed with him for awhile, and they moved to another place after the first place they visited closed. Â Later, Kinsler went home, and Hamilton promised him he was not going to go out again on his own.
But he did. He went back to the place they’d just left and had more alcoholic beverages. Â No one saw him drinking, he said, since he has a way to keep people from seeing him do it.
“Once I do drink, I can be very deceptive, very sneaky in a lot of ways,” he said.
The extra danger for Hamilton is his history with other drugs, and there’s no telling, once he starts drinking, when the “switch will flip” and he might be led to those other vices. Â He said he didn’t use anything else that night and has been tested twice for drugs since then.
He thanked the Rangers for their support and didn’t field any questions.
