As Royals’ Lucas Erceg nears 6th anniversary of his sobriety, he stands for hope
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lucas Erceg marks his sobriety date (6-10-20) stitched on his glove as a daily reminder.
- Emma, then his girlfriend, gave an ultimatum that prompted his change.
- Erceg discussed his recovery in an interview to offer hope and destigmatize alcoholism.
From the first time I spoke with Royals star reliever Lucas Erceg about his sobriety two years ago, what struck and moved me most was his candor ... and the reasons for it.
While part of making himself vulnerable that way is to help keep himself accountable, mostly it’s because he feels compelled to offer hope. By destigmatizing alcoholism and encouraging people contending with the disease to seek help and support.
If he could learn to stop assigning blame everywhere but in the mirror, he wants others to know they can do that, too.
Although Erceg understands every journey is its own and some are more complicated than others, he also believes the path back starts with a single step — one he signals with his sobriety date (6-10-20) stitched on his glove.
And that’s how Erceg on Wednesday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium came to be interviewed by Mirror Inc.’s Nick Casarona, the vice president of treatment operations for the Kansas behavioral health care entity, and John “The Iron Man” Cantrell — among many things, the ninth-ranked heavyweight boxer in the nation, per BoxRec.
Each of the interviewers has his own redemptive story that to some degree made for kinship with Erceg — who piqued Casarona’s curiosity when he observed his glove during a Royals broadcast.
When Casarona confirmed it represented what he thought it might, he contacted the Royals and arranged what became an hour-long session. That likely was somewhat longer than Erceg expected. But you’d never have known from his constant engagement and placid demeanor.
The initial expectation is the interview will be edited into several videos to be seen by up to 20,000 people in Mirror’s treatment centers and jail programs.
The act will change some people’s lives, Casarona told Erceg, and even save those of others.
Not so much because of Erceg’s stature but because of his relatability despite being so prominent.
“The reason I tried so hard to connect with (Erceg) was because what we see with clients we serve (is) they come from everything …” Casarona said. “I want people to see that nobody is immune from battling substance abuse disorder. But everybody has access to recovery. We just want them to have hope.”
Especially since the most anguishing and arduous steps often are acknowledging the issue and humbling oneself to reach out.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Major League Baseball player, professional boxer, vice-president of a treatment center or somebody that comes from generational drug abuse,” Casarona said. “It is so difficult to ask.”
In Erceg’s case, it was so impossible to ask that he had to be told.
A ‘terrifying, endless pitfall’
Never mind that he’d known deep inside for years that he had an issue but kept lying to himself because he couldn’t find the flip-switch.
So he proceeded along the arc that began with what he simply calls “not the best childhood” back home in Campbell, California, and his first drinks in high school.
Back when “nothing could go wrong” on the field or off. At least in his mind.
If someone told him he was on the wrong track then, his reaction in one form or another was … “away with you.” His way was the only way, even if he never thought he deserved to be as good at baseball as he was.
That morphed into self-medication as he made his way through the grind of the minor leagues, when at some points he somehow deluded himself into thinking alcohol was a form of super-serum.
In the Brewers farm system aspiring to be their third baseman of the future, he recalled speaking with Casarona and Cantrell, he and teammates would play drinking games that went something like this:
If he had eight beers the night before a game and had two hits the next day, he’d figure 12 beers the next night would correlate to three hits the next day.
Never mind that he managed those three hits in spite of the drinking … not because of it. Drinking, he reckoned, was more superpower than addiction.
By the time he took his last drink on June 9, 2020, though, here’s what he really felt within as he sat in a haze among what he called 37 empty beer or hard seltzer cans next to his PlayStation:
A “terrifying, endless pitfall, and you just think about yourself, like, just looking up, you’re falling down, and there’s no end to it …” he said. “You’re just seeing the world leave you, you know, 10 feet at a time, right?”
‘I don’t know where I would be’
Certainly, he felt his own world leaving him in the form of his then-girlfriend and now-wife, Emma.
On the verge of being consumed by the free-fall, she made an ultimatum.
She was leaving Arizona to go back home to California, she told him, and she wasn’t coming back if he was still drinking in a few weeks.
Epitomizing denial, he thought, “fine, go” and that she’d simply be back. But when it became clear she wasn’t, something seismic changed inside him as he woke up June 10:
In despair, really, Erceg recognized he was sabotaging his life, his baseball prospects and, most of all, his relationship with Emma.
That’s how he went from finding an axe and digging himself deeper, he said, to seeing a ladder and starting to climb out.
Without her confronting him then …
“I wouldn’t be here. I know that,” he said. “I don’t know where I would be. But I wouldn’t be anywhere near a baseball field. wouldn’t be anywhere near her. I wouldn’t have my beautiful daughter (Elsie Marie, born on Dec. 31) with me now.”
His eyes welling with such tears that he looked to the ceiling to try to fend them off, Erceg added, “She is my world, man.”
‘Everything had more color’
As much as the first step was the hardest, at least it came with instant rewards that Erceg can’t emphasize enough for those struggling hope: the start of atonement with Emma and a veil lifted.
“Everything had more color. My senses were more vibrant,” he said. “Everything (kind of) … went from a level three to a level nine.”
But even if there was something simple to him about the decision to commit, he understands it’s rare to be able to go cold turkey without support such as Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization in which he once told me he is a “huge believer.”
Moreover, the long haul is its own challenge — starting with some serious aftershock ahead.
Asked during the Mirror interview what came next, Erceg said, “I would love to say I remember. But the next three months were a blur, because I was withdrawing so badly.” He suffered everything from cold sweats to occasional loss of bodily functions as he grappled even to stay hydrated.
Even now, it’s like the line from the Jason Isbell song “It Gets Easier.”
“But it never gets easy,” Isbell sings.
So he still struggles, he said, with “those little demons that want to creep in there” and tell him he’s not good enough and to stop trying and seek to tempt him.
But he’s also determined to get in the face of the demon and says, “If you want to fight, we can fight.”
Like he did in 2024, for instance, when champagne accidentally splattered on his lips in the clubhouse celebration after the Royals beat Baltimore in the American League Wild Card series. Demonstrating with sound effects, Erceg essentially puckered it away as he told himself “it’s not going in.”
‘Every breath’
All because he has one answer in particular to every situation.
Being there tomorrow and next year and 10 years from now for Emma and Elsie Marie and all the friends he’s privileged to represent.
That’s what he pauses to think about every time he steps to the mound and takes a deep breath and looks around the stadium. It’s to remind himself his purpose isn’t baseball.
It’s honoring all those who love and support him by giving them his best effort.
From pitching itself to staying sober.
Even with the clarity he has, executing that is no one thing as much as it’s all things.
It comes down to, well, “every breath that I take,” he said.
Even using mundane moments like being stuck in traffic to practice patience and letting go and moving forward — so much so that now he sometimes annoys Emma by being overly positive.
Mostly, though, Erceg remembers to affirm what he already knows. What’s more important than family? Nothing.
Why would he do anything to risk all that really matters?
“When you make the decision black and white, you’ll know where to lead yourself,” he said. “And I promise (that), coming from somebody that was purposefully choosing the wrong answer, because I didn’t feel like I was good enough, or didn’t deserve any of this.
“The first time I dedicated my life to making the right decision, it brought me right where I am today. And now that I can see the last almost six years of my life fly by me … life is short, right?”
The 6-year coin
Conscious of that sixth anniversary nearing, Casarona reached into his pocket for his own six-year AA recovery coin.
As much faith and confidence as he has in Erceg, he started by saying “we don’t front our sobriety coins” even as he expressed his vision of Erceg’s June 10 game against the Rangers: to close out the game.
After Erceg marveled that Casarona would give him his personal coin, and it was handed to a Royals’ observer for safekeeping, Erceg beamed.
“I can’t wait,” he said. “Because I’m going to put it in my back pocket, I’m going to close out the game and I’m going to hold it up to the camera after the game.”
Yes, it still will be one day at a time to get there.
But this much Erceg knows and wanted to convey through an interview he called “the least I can do” … which is plenty more than he might realize.
“There’s always hope,” he said, “I promise.”