When Life Throws You a Curveball with Michael BugaryWhen Life Throws You a Curveball with Michael Bugary
Addict II Athlete Podcast
Former Red Sox draftee Michael Bugary shares how losing baseball, escalating addiction and a rare brain tumour shattered his identity. He talks about family pain, therapy dogs, spiritual wake-up calls and using his story to help others in recovery and serious illness.
45:50•8 Jul 2025
Baseball, Brain Cancer and the “Disease of Me” with Michael Bugary
Episode Overview
- Tying self-worth to a single identity, such as sport, can leave a dangerous void when that role disappears.
- Substance use often starts long before the “hard drugs”, with early patterns around alcohol and performance enhancers.
- Taking honest responsibility—rather than seeing life as just throwing curveballs—is central to Michael’s recovery.
- Therapy dogs and service work with people facing cancer became a powerful source of healing and purpose.
- Authenticity and willingness to “air out dirty laundry” help create real connection in treatment centres, prisons and speaking events.
“"My book is called *The Disease of Me*. That means that I am and I will always be my biggest problem."”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation between coach Blu Robinson and former professional baseball prospect Michael Bugary offers a raw, honest look at what happens when identity, addiction, and serious illness collide. Michael talks about growing up with baseball as his "first addiction", the place where he got validation, attention and a powerful "I am an athlete" identity.
A scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley and being drafted by the Boston Red Sox should have been the dream. Instead, an arm injury ended his career and left a massive hole where his sense of self had been. Drugs and alcohol quickly rushed in to fill the gap.
He traces how his substance use began long before heroin and cancer, starting with alcohol in high school and progressing to Adderall in college, which felt like the magic fix for both on-field performance and off-field insecurity. Michael shares bluntly that, "my book is called *The Disease of Me*. That means that I am and I will always be my biggest problem," stressing that drugs and alcohol were symptoms of deeper issues, not the root cause.
The story gets even heavier as he describes being diagnosed with a rare medulloblastoma brain tumour, enduring surgeries, chemo and radiation, then still relapsing soon after being told he was in remission. Family pain, especially his mum finding him passed out in a car, becomes a turning point for real responsibility and change.
You’ll also hear how his therapy dog Lingo and hospital visits with children and adults with cancer helped him find purpose, presence and a softer kind of strength. Now a speaker and advocate, Michael talks about using ego carefully, choosing authenticity on stage, and seeing addiction recovery as a chance at redemption rather than a life sentence.
If you or someone you care about ties their worth to performance, this story might be the reality check—and the hope—you’ve been waiting for.
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