CC Sabathia once woke up naked at a Jay-Z party after a drinking bender. Now the MLB pitcher is opening up about his addiction and recovery.
CBSN
CC Sabathia's left arm has taken him from the streets of Vallejo, California, to the mound at Yankee Stadium. One of the most dominating pitchers of his generation, Sabathia is a six-time All-Star, Cy Young Award Winner and ace of the 2009 World Series Champion New York Yankees. But his on-the-field success came with off-the-field heartbreak.
Sabathia lost his dad and a beloved cousin during his playing career, while his addiction to alcohol grew. In the opening lines of his new book "Till the End," Sabathia called himself a "weird alcoholic." "I would pitch, and then the next three days, I would drink. So the day after, right after I came out of the game, I would need a drink and would drink the next three days, and I would take two days off, pitch and do it all over again," Sabathia told CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King."So I kind of had a routine where I would normalize drinking for three days, like a bender, and would detox myself, be able to pitch — and do it all over again."Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.