Captain Oblivious

I read Sports Illustrated online pretty regularly, specifically the NFL page ('cause I'm a football nut, ok? There, I admit it), and I enjoy Michael Silver's weekly "Open Mike" articles. The other day, though, I had a bone to pick with Mr. Silver. So I sent him the following email:

In reference to the Ricky Williams story, you said: "Let's test everyone in every job who makes an average of more than $500,000 per year for every substance -- including Vicodin, Oxycontin, Prozac, etc. -- and search the houses of those who test positive. I think we would find that many of those houses would be made of glass."

May I make a teeny, tiny suggestion? Next time you want to point out that there are people in the world who abuse legal drugs the same way Ricky (among others) abuses illegal drugs, you might want to leave legitimate, non-addictive prescription drugs like Prozac off your list, ok? We get it - you noticed the rampant hypocrisy in our national drug policy. But leave people who suffer from serious diseases like clinical depression out of your little rants. Or are you going to pull a Tom Cruise now and tell us how much more you know about psychiatry than the people who do it for a living? Usually, you're a funny guy. Making fun of depressed people? Not funny.

I was a tiny bit irritated to see a national columnist taking a shot at those of us who take SSRIs or other medication to help us with our broken brain chemistry. Those of you who've read any of my 'rant' posts on this blog are probably amazed I was so polite. Heh. I figured he would ignore my note, because that's what usually happens to such venting, but I was wrong. He responded by email later that day, making a funny but apologetic response, and asking my permission to print something similar in his next article. Of course, I agreed immediately. The only thing better than getting an acknowledgement that he had made a mistake in his column was having him acknowledge it in the same nationally read column. And, sure enough, he followed through (third page, which I'm not linking directly so that he will get the benefit of all 7 of my readers' clicking on each page...):

OUCH! I've been called so many things in print -- including, earlier today (and I paraphrase), a specific feminine hygiene product -- but being compared to Tom Cruise might be the alltime low. It especially hurts that you are absolutely right, as the clinical psychologist to whom I'm married could have told me herself, had I bothered running it by her. My apologies to anyone I offended.

In his email response, he was more specific about the feminine hygiene product in question, which I think makes the answer a bit funnier. But I guess the editors at SI took issue with it. In any event, it was nice to remove a little bit of misinformation and maybe whittle away at the stigma about the medication some of us depend on so much.