Former New York Yankee Pitcher CC Sabathia Starts Initiative to Help Others With Sobriety Following His Own Struggles With Alcohol

Following his personal struggle with alcohol, New York Yankees alum CC Sabathia is working on an initiative to support others with sobriety.

The 41-year-old former pitcher has teamed up with myrelationshipwithalcohol.com, calling it a “easy partnership that spoke to me.”

In 2015, Sabathia entered rehab just as his team was finishing the season’s last series in Baltimore.

As of last month, he is six years sober.

“Recovery is an everyday struggle. It’s something we go through every day being alcohol dependent,” he told Page Six. “But I feel like I can help people and try to steer you in the right direction [with] this website.”

The website will provide instructional information regarding alcoholism, including an interactive questionnaire developed by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to examine personal drinking tendencies.

After signing a seven-year, $161 million contract with the Yankees in 2008, Sabathia made his MLB debut at the age of 20. He acknowledged that he used alcohol to cope with the stress of being an all-star pitcher.

“It’s definitely really hard to play a professional sport,” he explained. “There’s always those stresses, but I played the game sober and I played it while I was drinking. I was much more enjoyable while I was sober.”

He added, “[I’d] enjoy my teammates, wake up early in the morning and enjoy the city that I was traveling to, but I was drinking early in my career. I’d be drinking all night, up all night and I’d wake up in just enough time to get to the bus.”

Sabathia said that once he got out of rehab, his mindset improved tremendously.

“I never got to see all the cities that I got to play in,” he admitted. “When I came out of rehab, I made a point to enjoy every road trip and enjoy my teammates and enjoy the cities I got to travel to.”

Earlier this year, he addressed his struggles with addiction in his memoir, “Till The End.”

“When I think about my lowest point, I can name about one million things like ruining holidays, Christmas,” he recalled. “But I think my lowest point was that weekend I had in Baltimore before I went to rehab. Just three days of straight drinking … I was just in a zone where I wasn’t gonna stop.”

“That’s when I went to Joe [Torre’s] office. First I went to Chris Young and Mike Matheny, and told them what I was thinking about doing and they supported me 100 percent,” he continued. “It was the first time that I told somebody that I feel like I was alcohol dependent and I couldn’t stop myself. Their reactions to me and what I was saying made me go into Joe’s office and get help.”

The former pitcher said that he is proud to say his 21-year relationship with alcohol is “nonexistent.”

“It took me to 35 years and 21 days of drinking to understand that it is something that I can’t have in my life,” he confessed. “People around me drink all the time. Alcohol is something that’s at every celebration. It is at every occasion, it is at every sad moment.”

He added, “For me it was always an excuse to go out and drink, whether I was happy or sad … but I just got tired of feeling like crap. Waking up hungover, not remembering what I said or what I did the night before.”

Sabathia believes it is critical that those he is attempting to help are aware of his alcoholism and hold him accountable while he maintains his sobriety.

“I want everybody to know that I’m dealing with this and I have this problem. So if you see me out in the city somewhere, or somebody see me at a bar and I’m having a drink, I can be held accountable,” he explained. “You’ll find that you’re not alone and the honest thing about telling somebody that you need help is actually telling someone you need help.”

He added, “Once you take that first step there’s so many different avenues and so many different things that you can do.

“I meet people every day and they tell me they’re 10 years sober, 13 years sober, 10 days sober. I’m happy when people come up and say that, it inspires me to keep going too.”