Travis Lulay:
We’ve had family members who have dealt with substance use issues over time, and I’ve personally had several teammates. The more aware you are of it, I think the more you’ll start to see that, this is something that in a round-about way affects all of us.
In my own personal experience, I can empathize because I know these people’s backgrounds and I know that wasn’t the intention, it was something that happened to them.
Life is complex, life is sometimes messy. People are human. I think we need to be really careful about looking down on anybody in a different walk of life, or in a different stage of their life.
Wally says it all the time, our head coach, that football is life between the lines. If I know that I have guys around me who fully support me, even if I slip up, I’m the quarterback, I make a ton of decisions on the field and not all of them are going to be perfect and I have to accept that. But, if I know that the rest of my teammates are still supporting me and feeling good about me being behind centre for them and when I go to the sidelines and get a pat on the back, or hey, we’ll get ‘em next series, or we’ll get ‘em next drive or even after a loss, hey, let’s get better this week.
In life, if you have that kind of support system, if there are people telling you, listen we love you, we care about you and I want to see you to continue to get better, I think, that makes it that much more likely that a person is willing to be vulnerable or be courageous enough to take a step towards bettering themselves.
Growing up a lot of times that was what we were told, that’s what it looked like to be a man, was, you know, you tough it up, you walk it off, you find a way to deal with it right? I think there’s a ton of strength in someone being able to be vulnerable. Takes a lot of courage.
These are people that we’re living, breathing, walking, talking sharing this earth with and I think, it’s a greater, it’s a broader social issue than us versus them. This is all of us doing this thing together.
We can all be part of the solution.
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