Page 6
The Battalion
Tuesday, December 6,1988
Football star: Schizophrenia ‘cost me everything
Warpe
NEW YORK (AP) — Lionel Al
dridge, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound for
mer Green Bay Packer, was afraid to
go home. He believed his wife was a
witch.
Once part of NBC’s television
sportscasting team, Aldridge was
driven from job to job in city after
city by imaginary voices. He now
sorts mail on the 3:30 p.m. to mid
night shift in Milwaukee.
. Schizophrenia cost him a career, a
marriage and “just about every per
son I had in my life at that time.”
“I figure,” he said recently, “it cost
me everything.”
Such are the stakes in schizophre
nia.
That’s why research advances,
such as recent evidence that a single
gene may cause some cases, are
more than just nifty science.
They are another step in under
standing a devastating disease that
strikes perhaps one in every 100
people at some point in their lives.
Schizophrenia usually begins with
an apparent personality change that
may include social withdrawal, diffi
culty in communicating and leth-
argy.
Later, in its more active phase, it
can make victims see hallucinations
and hear voices.
They may feel controlled by invis
ible agents or believe their thoughts
are being broadcast to others. They
may adopt new identities.
Nobody knows what causes the
disease. Scientists have long sus
pected an inherited influence, and
the new study provided biological
evidence for a gene in a few families.
But that gene is not a factor in other
families, sui
supporting ;
suspicion of multiple factors, maybe
a longstanding
environmental and genetic.
The voices and hallucinations are
gone now for Aldridge, 47, thanks to
daily medication that keeps his ill
ness at bay.
“I’m enjoying relatively good
health now,” he said, but nothing is
guaranteed to him for the future.
Aldridge’s battle began in 1974,
after he retired from athletics and
turned to sportscasting. He had
trouble concentrating, he couldn’t
get his work done on time, and as a
result his broadcasts often ran
shorter than planned.
“I became very suspicious of peo
ple, especially the people I worked
with,” he said. “The workplace be
came very difficult, a very unhappy
plac^.”
Aldridge sought psychotherapy.
But later that year, he began to have
bouts of psychosis, with imaginary
voices and hallucinations.
While his behavior on the air ap
peared normal, his life was bizarre.
He feared that his wife was a witch.
He ran barefoot through the snow in
wt:;‘ 2 ed s therapisi
"I knew I needed help,’],,
But the medication he took f
couple years “zombied meoml
1 couldn t work.” He gave !
medication. b
.Looking back at what schbpL
n.a cost him, he said, “I'm try '
find out what good it brought
“I can’t think of any ^
where I can be intimidated be &
the worst already has hapte
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