The first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
CC Sabathia did just that in Baltimore in 2015, telling the Yankees that he had a drinking problem and needed to go to rehab – and that admission, and the weeks leading up to it, was indeed the hardest part of his journey.
“That picture of me smoking weed on the balcony in Baltimore, the incident in Toronto where I was drunk on the street…there were times I was crying for help in 2015, and I knew I needed it to be honest – but I didn’t know if I was gonna have the balls to go in and tell someone I was an alcoholic and needed help,” Sabathia admitted in an appearance on Boomer & Gio Monday morning. “That was the hardest part of facing it, was telling someone I needed help. The last five years since I have been out of rehab have been wonderful, but everything leading up to telling someone and facing my addiction was the hardest part.”
Sabathia joined WFAN’s morning team to discuss a lot of topics surrounding the release of the new HBO Documentary “Under the Grapefruit Tree: The CC Sabathia Story,” which premieres Tuesday night at 9 p.m. and chronicles his life and addiction, and the events leading up to his path to sobriety.
The title comes from CC’s revelation that he developed his pitching prowess in part by throwing grapefruits from the tree in his grandmother’s yard, while visiting a woman he called “his rock” as a teenager – but it goes to show that even with a good support system, sometimes, the cracks swallow good intentions whole.
“I first started drinking as a teenager, and I was a huge binge drinker from the start. It got worse in my 20s…my dad and my cousin passing away sent me on a dark path, and I ended up in rehab at 35,” CC candidly told Boomer & Gio. “I was close with my dad until I turned 12. My parents split, and I didn’t see him again until I was 16 or 17, but he was battling addiction the whole time. When we did reconnect, he let me know he had HIV, and he had his own demons I had no idea about.”
When first sitting down to make the documentary, CC's wife, Amber, confirmed to him that the things he went through as a youngster weren’t “normal,” even though he thought they were; he cited being “lucky” that his “strong” mother, that rock of a grandmother, and high school coach Abe Hobbs – who “took real good care of me and treated me like a son” – kept him as close to the straight and narrow as he could be despite cultivating his demons early.
But it still led up to a career where, as he admits in the doc, he’d often have a Crown and Sprite waiting in his locker after starts, and would binge drink for a day or two between his outing and his throw day prep for the next one.
Until that day in Baltimore, where it all changed.
“I was just tired of disappointing people. My wife and family and my teammates, frankly, were sick of it,” Sabathia said of what made him reach out for help in September 2015. “It may have seemed like a bad time, when we were going into the playoffs, but everyone in the organization understood and had a positive reaction. They really had my back and made me feel like I made the right decision.”
Sabathia was a different pitcher for the final four years of his career – both mentally and physically – but the hardest part of that transformation was the initial metamorphosis, and it was because of alcohol.
“Pitchers are creatures of routine, and even coming out of rehab, I didn’t know how I’d be able to pitch without alcohol. It had become so much a part that I thought it was what was making me good,” CC said. “It was weird to come out to have my routine change losing something that was actually poisoning me.”
Addiction is never truly “whupped,” as CC told Boomer & Gio, but for him, for now, it’s somewhat therapeutic to have been able to re-live it all in making the documentary, and having a point of reference to shine light into the dark place if he ever finds himself there again.
“It’s easy to talk about now, and to be able to go through it again, and see where I was, makes me never want to get back to that point,” he said. “To re-live those moments, it’ll help me through life; if I ever get lost and feel like I have this whupped – as an addict, you never do – but I can look back and see where I was in 2015. It’s still a struggle for me every day, but for me, it’s not letting my stress level get too high. I like to have fun and laugh and be in a good mood, so sometimes I need to go sit by myself, do some yoga or meditation, or go to the weight room – find other ways to burn off that energy.”
And if you’re dealing with that struggle, take it from CC: reach out for help, because someone will be there.
“Ask your loved ones, somebody you trust that can help you, and if you don’t have that, reach out to any kind of hotline,” he said. “The biggest thing for me was being able to turn to Amber and saying I needed help, and figuring it out from there.”
And also take this from CC: Alcoholism, like any other disease or addiction, doesn’t care who you are or where you come from, because addiction doesn’t discriminate.
“Being here, seeing so many other guys are making a lot of money, it helps you be able to navigate – but for me, whether I was the richest guy in the league or the 25th man, I was going to drink. That was me internally, the things I had dealt with as a person, driving me toward the bottle,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing I want people to know: alcoholism is a disease with no discrimination for color, wealth, whatever. Addiction is a hard thing to battle for anyone, but I’m grateful that I went through it.”
CC also discussed some Yankees topics among other things in his appearance, so check out the entire segment below, and don’t miss the premiere of “Under The Grapefruit Tree: The CC Sabathia Story,” Tuesday night at 9 p.m. on HBO and streaming in HBO Max.
Follow WFAN's morning team on Twitter: @7BOOMERESIASON, @GioWFAN, @Alsboringtweets, @JerryRecco, and @WFANMornings
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