Forgive My Skepticism About Rey Maualuga's Rehab Vow

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

There's at least one thing sadder than the report that Rey Maualuga plans to undergo alcohol rehabilitation at the Betty Ford Center, and that's the likelihood that Maualuga will surely find himself with a beer in his hand again soon.

Betty Ford isn't for people who had a bad weekend or who want to slow things down. It's for people who've hit what recovering drinkers like to call rock bottom.

By all means, feel remorse for your recent DUI arrest and subsequent guilty plea, but please understand, big fella, that rehab is for quitters. Those who want to quit drinking. Forever.

Maualauga's behavioral shortcomings are well known, and being a rich, young, single athlete in sleepy Cincinnati -- a city that will definitely make you miss the sexy offerings of Los Angeles, where not long ago he played his college football -- suggests he will get bored and surely find trouble again.

Celebrities in our image-obsessed culture like to think a public admission of guilt and a vow to go to therapy or rehab suddenly means everything is going to get better. But such a stance requires far more of a commitment than a 23-year-old millionaire is probably prepared for. I wish Maualuga luck, but I don't think he'll stick to it.