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Football Mania

Old 09-08-2013, 11:18 AM
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EndGame
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: New York, NY
Posts: 4,677
Arrow Football Mania

Knowing that today is the first day of season-long insanity that is known as NFL Football, my attention shifts to lifelong fans who are emotionally involved in what amounts to a game. I’ve also seen some threads here leading up to today from people concerned about the connection between football and drinking.

Most hardcore fans experience extreme mood swings during a game, amplified at halftime, and then punctuated by the final score. Gambling on the games or participating in fantasy football only makes this more intense. The truly hardcore fans tend to neglect things like work, family and other important people and activities during the football season. Everything else is secondary. I've seen this dynamic in clinical practice and in my personal life.

As a means of example, the last time the New York Giants (my team) beat the Green Bay Packers in the playoffs in 2011, there followed a plethora of YouTube videos in which Packer fans were extremely drunk, unable to walk steadily or speak clearly. Most were in tears. If you didn’t know the context of the videos, you might imagine that their best friend, spouse or child had just been killed in an automobile accident. They were inconsolable. This went on -- and continues in every football town -- for weeks and months. Grieving a loss in football has long been on par with losing a loved one, through death or separation. Some people call in sick on Mondays more than once during the season, either unable to function following their team’s loss, or partially disabled due to excessive celebrating. You and I may not like this or dismiss this reality as hysteria, but it’s serious stuff.

So, for those who absolutely cannot live without watching on Sundays, monitor your feelings and don’t let yourself be tempted by the minute-to-minute ebb and flow of the game or games in which it is very easy to lose yourself.

My hope is that those who do lose themselves in football, many for an entire seventeen-week regular season, followed by weeks of playoffs, and culminating in the Super Bowl, don’t lose themselves to anything else.
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