Twenty years after his World Series moment, Scott Spiezio puts his life back together [$]

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It was April 4, 2018. And Spiezio had spent the last 13 years in a self-destructive spiral. Of all the inexplicable decisions he had made in that time, this was perhaps the most mind-boggling. He was ignoring indisputable signs of an at-risk liver.

Over the course of his decade-plus addiction, Spiezio was told numerous times that his liver enzymes were dangerously elevated. He often responded by staying clean just long enough to quell the danger, if not eliminate it. He didn’t take the threat seriously this time, either.

Spiezio saw a doctor who confirmed the suspected diagnosis. It was a disease that, if left untreated, could become extremely serious. He refused to be admitted. In fact, he continued drinking the next day. He asked his good friend and housemate, Tonia Boyer, to go get him Arby’s as she begged him to see a doctor.“I can call an ambulance,” Boyer said. “But he’s not dumb, he knows he can refuse an ambulance.”

Over the course of his addiction, Spiezio, a two-time World Series champion, got divorced twice. His net worth went down to almost nothing. He went to rehab 12 times. He was arrested five times, including once for domestic battery. His three oldest children all were adopted by their stepfather. His parents didn’t talk to him for years.

The health problems, physical and mental, also mounted. A year earlier, in 2017, Spiezio had been put on a ventilator at the hospital with a heart issue. A bad back and itchy skin accompanied his jaundice in 2018. At times he caught himself considering death to be the lesser of two evils.

Spiezio was not that far removed from his prime years as a professional athlete. His body had deteriorated under the pressure of consuming, on average, a gallon of vodka a day.