The tawdry truth can now be told

Look, if A-Rod has the stones to admit using performance-enhancing drugs, I guess it’s time for me to step up as well. There were times during the late ’60s and early ’70s when I used certain substances to enhance my performance on the dance floor. For that, A-Rod and I are on the same page: We are “very sorry and deeply regretful.” That’s a measure of how sincere we are: a guy blowing smoke would only be “very sorry” or “deeply regretful,” but not both.

Hell, as long as I’m at it, I’ll admit using performance-enhancing substances on a number of other occasions. Most involved large parties or talking to attractive girls. Like A-Rod, “I felt like I needed something, a push, without over-investigating what I was taking, to get me to the next level.” And so when friends would pass back a bottle of warm Bali Hai, I was only too happy to bogart the damned thing until someone else demanded a swig. What can I say? I was young, I was stupid. I was naive. I thought you had to be somewhat impaired to function in certain social situations.

Actually, I was right about that. To this day there’s no getting me on the dance floor without three or four beers and a half-pint of Bushmills. If I go to a party where I don’t know most of the people there, I’ll be the quiet guy lurking near the bar with a glass that’s never empty. Introduce me to a pretty girl and I might forget the glass and start drinking right out of the bottle. Fortunately, I don’t meet a lot of pretty girls these days.

And that’s the ugly truth. I don’t know how this is going to look in the record books. I hope I’m not stripped of my already austere dating record. And every joke I ever told at a party will now carry an asterisk: Was it Dave, or was it the booze talking? Whatever. Now it’s time to be a man, like A-Rod. I throw myself on the mercy of the fans.