Ailene Voisin: Miller helps expose perils of profession

LAS VEGAS – Brad Miller did something incredibly refreshing Thursday, something totally inconsistent with the macho world of professional sports. He cried for help. While he didn't actually sob, there was no mistaking the raw gulps of emotion spilling from the gut.

Listen again, closely.

He spoke for himself, for his peers, for his profession.

He spoke for a lot of people.

"It's tough to sleep, you know," the Kings center told The Bee's Sam Amick while discussing his five-game suspension for violating the NBA's substance abuse policy. "The thing is, I don't like drinking anymore … I drank way too much and didn't like who I was. It wasn't good for my relationship and the basketball and everything … I didn't like who I was … I'm just trying to find a way to change out of that, that relief …

"Other stuff needs to come up, family stuff. Starting to get underneath all the pressures … It's been a long time, and I'm just looking to get some help … I'm not a bad guy. I'm still me."

So of course he messed up. Miller's candor in no way excuses his failure to comply with the rules. He broke them again, for a third time, placing his coaches and teammates at a disadvantage for the start of the season. Yet by so addressing his issues, Miller exposed one of the game's enduring secrets. He said aloud what NBA, NHL and major league baseball players have whispered about for generations, namely that the same professions that offer fame and fortune can be costly.

This is far from an ordinary life. In a practical and physical sense, it can be brutal. The NBA motto might as well be, "Here today, gone tomorrow."

With most of the workload compressed into nine or 10 months, the regular season consists of practices in the morning and naps in the afternoon, games that continue well into the evening, meals at all hours and charters that entail traveling through time zones, occasionally evolving into red-eye flights. There is no rhythm, no pacing, nothing resembling normal routine.

"I can relate to everything he's (Miller) saying," said Chris Mullin, the Golden State executive vice president and former player who entered an alcohol rehabilitation program early in his Warriors career. "But you have to find a way to handle it because they're not going to change the games to 2 p.m., not going to schedule things around your family, not going to cancel the flights. You have to become comfortable within yourself, adapt to it, find a way."

As he leaned against a railing inside Cox Pavilion, still ridiculously trim and favoring his familiar crew cut, Mullin listened intently, then asked a few questions. He has never met Miller, he revealed, but he has an idea of what's ahead.

"What might seem like the worst day of your life can turn out to be the best thing that happens to you," he advised. "There is plenty of help out there."

According to medical experts, marijuana impairs muscle coordination and cognitive abilities. The effects remain in the system for weeks, possibly months.

"The coach can call a play in the huddle, and the player won't remember it when he walks back on the floor," said Dr. Michael Parr, a Sacramento-based addiction expert who has been an NBA consultant since the 1980s. "What I sense from Brad's comments, what he is saying here – it's lifestyle-driven. It's reasonable to assume that if you play a basketball game, you finally get home after midnight, it's very difficult to turn it all off and say, 'Now it's time to sleep.' Then you can't sleep. But there are healthier ways to deal with that. He has to find something that works."

Parr, who was among the physicians enlisted when the NBA first introduced a drug program, added: "Frankly, I think he was courageous to come out and say, 'I am done with this. I will do whatever it takes to be done with it.' "

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• Call The Bee's Ailene Voisin, (916) 321-1208.