God and Starbucks by Vin Baker

Author:Vin Baker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-07-11T04:00:00+00:00

10

A Fractured Life

The official diagnosis was “depression.” That was the consensus among several counselors and doctors I saw in the summer and fall of 1999, consultations mandated by the Sonics (Wally Walker in particular) to ensure that the team was making a wise investment. The heart palpitations and anxiety attacks were actually a direct result of my heavy drinking, but both are also symptomatic of depression, so it was easy to reach for that diagnosis. Honestly, though? I wasn’t depressed. I was strip-clubbing and drinking. The only time I got depressed was when I got caught. But I was perfectly happy to agree that I was depressed if it would deflect attention away from the real problem.

Not that the therapy sessions weren’t painful. They were—excruciatingly so, at times. But not for the reasons you might expect. I would admit to being sad, and to having feelings of inadequacy and fear, but I couldn’t reveal the truth. I’d just taken more than $86 million from my employer. If I admitted to being an alcoholic, I risked all of that. So I would sit there on the therapist’s couch, the tears streaming down my cheeks—honest tears, real tears—but unable to reveal why I was crying.

It was horrible, and it actually made me feel worse. I was enduring the agony of therapy, without the soul-baring catharsis that makes it all worthwhile. In short, it made me even sicker because the entire process was built on a foundation of lies.

Remarkably, given the amount I was drinking, I played pretty well that year. I wasn’t an all-star, but I was still the second-leading scorer on the team (16.6 points per game) and the second-leading rebounder (7.7 per game). Admittedly, neither of those numbers is sufficient for someone who has just signed a contract worth more than $12 million per year.

With the increase in salary came a commensurate increase in scrutiny—not merely from coaches and management, but from fans and the media, and even teammates. When you sign a big contract, it’s only natural for everyone to wonder whether you’ll still be motivated. I’d be lying if I said I felt the same hunger to succeed that I had felt prior to getting the deal. Additionally, I let my guard down and stopped worrying quite so much about the possibility of getting caught. I became a bit more reckless while indulging my addiction, and predictably the addiction grew worse.

Vernon Maxwell, a shooting guard who came to Seattle in the summer of 1999 after eleven seasons in the league—long enough to have seen just about everything—was quick to call me on my bullshit. Vern was hardly puritanical in his outlook—he enjoyed smoking weed—but like Gary Payton, he believed there were lines you did not cross. When I would show up at practice, alcohol oozing from my pores, I was crossing a line, and Vernon would let me know it.

“Vin, gotta tell you. You’re leaking right now, man.”

“What are you talking about?”

Then Vern would scrunch up his face and sniff at the air.

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