Hello Recovery Friends and Followers,

WELL IT SEEMS *IRON MIKE TYSON* Wasn’t being very TRUTHFULL…..Really? Are any of you who have battled any ADDICTION really Surprised? I know a bit about over indulging in a wee to many Cocktails, and I do know about the “CYCLE” of addiction and RELAPSE, since I’ve been there myself, and Struggle with Mental illness.

As the MEDIA likes to drag all the facts out, and ADD a few tasty treats of their own to beef up a story, it is SAD, but I’m sorry to inform all that *IRON MIKE* is human, his nobody special then any other person trying and battling to STAY SOBER & in Recovery like the rest of us! He is a man just like many other men who have had many tragic events in his LIFE lately, and sometimes those OLD Familiar diseased Feelings & Thoughts come to us when we are WEAK and we partake of them when we just can’t take anymore of what LIFE IS GIVING US……….

NO, it’s not excuses for his behaviors, and NO, I’m not trying to be CRUEL when a Man is DOWN, not at all.!…..It’s trying to give INSIGHT  from experience of Addiction, Recovery, and Relapse.

It is showing that when someone has NO PRIVACEY, media and cameras in your face, when you lose a young daughter,  as it is not NATURAL to bury or out live your own child, and Diagnosed with Bipolar,  I’m saying that no matter how FAMOUS, or NOT so much, we are all HUMAN. You see, we WHO were once Addicted have learned the ART of Denial, Blame, and Excuses. And we have MASTERED the ART of Manipulation to a TEE. So it is not surprising to me or others who have been touched by addiction.**

*HERE IS HOW THE MEDIA IS SPINNING MIKE TYSON*……..

Mike Tyson opened up in an interview on the TODAY show, saying “I won’t survive if I don’t get help.”(Photo: Frederick M. Brown, Getty Images)

**In his first interview since declaring himself a “vicious alcoholic” on the “verge of dying,” former heavyweight champion boxer Mike Tyson opened up about his battles staying sober.

“I won’t survive if I don’t get help,” Tyson told Matt Lauer on the TODAY show during a sit-down interview in Las Vegas that Lauer described as “candid, confusing and revealing.”

“When I start drinking and I relapse, I think of dying,” Tyson said. “I’m in a real dark mood, I think of dying. And I don’t know if I want to be around no more.”

Tyson surprised the media last week when he used a press conference touting his return as a boxing promoter to confess his battles with addiction.

“I want to change my life, I want to live a different life now,” he said at the time. “I want to live my sober life. I don’t want to die.”

Six days after, Tyson told Lauer he’s been sober 12 days.

“It’s a real challenge,” Tyson said of his fight to stay clean. “I don’t know if I like this sober guy. It’s hard for me to live normal. Straight is hard.”

Tyson, who has an upcoming memoir, HBO special and Fox Sports 1 documentary series, told Lauer he’s been fighting demons in his head since he was born.

“Yeah, it is kinda strange and scary,” Tyson said. “I was born that way.”

Though Tyson has been making amends in his life, he still won’t apologize for the 1991 incident with Desiree Washington that led to a three-year prison sentence for rape.

“I’ve done nothing,” Tyson said. “I really didn’t do anything to her. I didn’t rape her, I didn’t beat her, I didn’t do anything to her. I’m not going to make amends.”

Lauer asked Tyson about whether all his failures will help him succeed in his fight to conquer his addictions.

“100 percent,” Tyson said. “No one’s failed more than I did. No one’s seen more than I’ve seen. I’m the king of the barbarians. There’s no one who can surpass me in the pain I’ve endured.” **

**AND ANOTHER SPIN ON IRON MIKE*…………..

TYSON: “I LIED ABOUT BEING SOBER”

Mike Tyson said he’s been lying about being sober and is on the verge of death because of alcoholism.

During a startling news conference at the Turning Stone Resort in New York, Tyson said he hasn’t had any alcohol or drugs for six days, which for him is “a miracle,” and he seemed to plea for forgiveness for being “a bad guy.”

Tyson has lived an alternately crushing and soaring life. By the age of 16, his mother was dead and his father was locked up. Boxing trainer Cus D’Amato took him in and Tyson became “Iron” Mike, the most feared boxer in the world.

That all imploded when he was convicted of rape in 1992. When he got out of prison, he recovered as a boxer to the point he fought Evander Holyfield twice, in two of the biggest fights of all time. Holyfield won the first fight by TKO, and the second one was the night a desperate Tyson took a bite of Holyfield’s ear, establishing him as one of the craziest guys in sports.

Tyson’s boxing career slowly and sadly eroded, and he began stacking pounds on top of pounds of fat. He weighed 380 pounds at one point. He’s 5-foot-10. All that boxing money was going out as soon as it was coming in, and Tyson soon found himself broke, disgraced and addicted.

And then, miraculously, Tyson became one of the most beloved characters in pop culture. He started getting acting roles, and he did well in them. His turn as himself in “The Hangover” was wonderful. He did a one-man Broadway show, turned into a film by Spike Lee that will air on HBO. Tyson appeared on FOX Sports Live during its first week and next month will be seen on FOX Sports 1 in the documentary series “Being: Mike Tyson”.

All in all, it has looked like the manifestation of a full comeback. Not as Iron Mike, but as our charmingly screwed-up cousin.

Tyson’s candor and self-awareness have served him well in his post-boxing life, but every now and then it seems like Tyson wants to remind everybody that he’s still a deeply hurt, deeply troubled person. On top of his aforementioned troubles, he’s endured two broken marriages and the death of a 4-year-old daughter, and has been diagnosed as bi-polar.

“I’m a bad guy sometimes,” he said. “I did a lot of bad things, and I want to be forgiven. So in order for me to be forgiven, I hope they can forgive me. I wanna change my life, I wanna live a different life now. I wanna live my sober life. I don’t wanna die. I’m on the verge of dying, because I’m a vicious alcoholic.”

It is not surprising to see Tyson unload all that weight during a news conference that I’m sure was expected to be sort of silly and whimsical. This was at a casino. But Tyson always has had a tendency to drop his baggage in the middle of the lobby. His many confessions have tended to come straight out of nowhere, which is probably a big part of the reason people like him now. He does not appear to be orchestrating some kind of thing in the media.

Some people have grandparents like this, who without any context will blurt out some old secret and then just move on like nothing happened. There’s a lot of that in Tyson’s public appearances over the years..

It has endeared him to a public that once considered him a lowlife, but it sounds like Tyson is having a hard time trusting that.

Tyson described a recent conflict and how he resolved it. He was vague about the conflict, but not how he felt about it.

”I hate myself,” he said. “I’m trying to kill myself. I hate myself a lot. But I made myself proud of myself, and I don’t do that much.”

**SO, no matter how the media spins a story, I just see a Man who was a Great Boxer in his time, was touched by Addiction, and struggled like myself as an Undiagnosed Bipolar & Emotional problems for years until we were properly diagnosed, and trying to live our life
like everyone else.
I’m sure Iron Mike would tell you that yes,……he had FAME, Money, wives, children, a rough and abusive childhood like many of us endured, but nothing will fill that black hole in our HEARTS, not addiction, drugs, alcohol, gambling, living the high life, because eventually you will be left as a shell of a person who has nothing left, when you let ADDICTION run your or interfere in your LIFE! It will destroy and WIN every time….**

I wish Mike and his family all the BEST that Sober Life gives. That, and the Love of Christ in your Life can work MIRACLES!…..I’m One! God Bless Everyone!

Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon