Surviving Football Withdrawal – a Guide to Recognizing and Recovering From Football Dependency
keeping the players in hot tubs and nice cars. For rebuilding or losing programs, these dependencies really threaten financial health, family well being and all manner of relationships. So, before one has to endure news that his former wife is dating Rodrigo from the South Florida Modeling Agency, immediate action is required. Fortunately, science has provided us with at least two tactics that work.
Replacement
Replacing the substance at the core of the dependency is a common strategy. Frequently, an over dedicated alum turns his attention to the basketball program. The general strategy is to decrease the dependency though gradual reduction of the substituted environment. Unfortunately, an indoor sport doesnât allow for nearly enough seating to bring enough alumni and cheerleaders together to generate the same level of interest and excitement that a big outdoor venue provides, so using basketball to replace football as an area of interest frequently fails.
The big risk to the replacement strategy occurs when a basketball program actually gets exciting. This creates yet another dependency that one has to wait until baseball season to cure. By this time, the ex-wife and Rodrigo will be a sipping Champaign in a hot tub of their own.
Should the replacement strategy be chosen, the author recommends hockey. Even at a professional level, hockey is fast enough to allow the viewer to forget about gawking at college aged coeds. And almost no one has hockey cheerleaders.
Many wives may be prevented from achieving the status of ex-wives by including them in the replacement area of interest. Replacement interests need not be sports related. Especially if oneâs wife has participated to any degree in the football season, the recovering fan will need to consider all options for replacement â just to be fair. These areas may include opera, classical music and other artistic disciplines far removed from anything resembling a sweat sock.
Rebound
The term âreboundâ is a more clever way of saying quitting âcold turkey.â After a period of time removed from the dependency, the fan will simply rebound to something resembling normalcy. Rebound depression is a natural consequence here, but⦠depression is better than sending off alimony checks to South Florida. The central tenant of the Rebound strategy is to tough it out, read the updates on what ridiculous statements the new coach makes, and watch as the best recruits in your area commit to USC. And just deal with it.
The more difficult part of this strategy comes when trying to talk the wife into unpacking the UHaul and telling her with a straight face that you will never again drop 0 to pick up the bar tab for the senior members of the Pom squad. Should the alum be successful in coaxing the wife into the house, he must actually make conversation about something meaningful â like life, love, finances and try to find areas of common interest.
These areas of common interest then overlap with the Replacement tactic as some of these conversations will require actual commitment and follow through. Attending an opera really isnât the point of this. Should you get into a situation where you are committed to participate in something your very significant other is interested in, remember that you must actually âparticipate.â When your wife attended a football game with you, she probably didnât just sit there when your team scored. Now when the fat lady sings, you donât stand up and do the wave, but you get the point. One must invest the effort to learn who Pavarotti was and what really distinguished him from John Mayer.
Joint Recovery
Occasionally, husband and wife teams will experience the same withdrawal and depression problems together. While it may appear to be an advantage to share a dedication to a particular football program, joint recoveries from football withdrawal are frequently more than twice the work. They are certainly almost twice as expensive. Since both parties to the relationship are involved in the problem, there is no one available with a strong connection to reality to set the baselines for expected behavior.
Connecting to reality is then the central part of a joint recovery. Reality consists of things like cleaning the house, paying the bills and shoveling snow. Sharing in these tasks is not something anyone would naturally give up Sports Center to do. However, the recovery requires tasks and chores to be shared. It also requires the couple to investigate what other areas of interest the relationship might pursue. These might include things like biking, hiking, dog walking â usually something ending in âingâ would work. This again implies action and participation. The exception â