CARON BUTLER: FIGHTING AN ADDICTION IS HARD TO DEW

Everyone has their demons, their addictions, and their hardships to overcome.  For Pacman Jones it's strippers. Darryl Strawberry had cocaine.  Ricky Williams likes his weed.  In his latest blog Washington Wizards forward, Caron Butler, describes overcoming his own addiction.

To try and give this up was CRAZY for me! I was going through withdrawals. I was in the bed sweating. My wife would turn over in the bed and ask "Are you OK?" Honestly, those first two weeks without [it] was the roughest two weeks of my life. I'm talking headaches, sweats and everything.

See kids.  That's why you should never, ever, ever do drugs.  Especially the hard ones like Caron was involved with.  You know.  The ones like Mountain Dew.

I drank at least six 12 ounce Mountain Dews a day.

We read on just to see the effects that this addiction had on different facets of his life.

It was so bad at one point that I had to have a cold one right there at the night stand before I went to bed. I had to get the coasters and let it drip a lil' bit and just have it waiting on me. Come 2 a.m.., I'd wake up out of my sleep, I'd pop one open and hear the fizz sound...and just down it!  Then I always had to have another one in the morning when I woke up. Before practice I had one too and before games I would knock back two.

Since kicking the habit though Butler has lost 11 pounds, and I assume gained a few minutes of extra sleep each night.

To overcome almost almost any habit a person needs to find a substitute for that time, effort, and energy.  Something a bit more healthy and hopefully less destructive.  For Caron that something is going to be getting more into his other habit of straw chewing.

Now that I don't have Mountain Dew in the picture, I'm going to probably fall back more heavily on one of my other funny quarks, straw chewing. Yeah, with The Dew out of my life, the straw chewing thing is probably going to get worse. Chewing straws is a habit that I developed to calm me down. It's good for my nerves. Sometimes, I'm so anxious to get out there and play and if I sit in one spot before a game and have nothing to do I'll just sweat out and psych myself out. I get so hype and I pump myself up so hard and the straws calm me down. (I prefer McDonald's straws over any other. And you better believe I know the difference!)

I guess it's only a matter of time until we find out if he has to wake up in the middle of the night and chew a straw.

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