Back in the '90s, I hung around lot with Josh, the guy who did the graphic novel that's inside my memoir. (Yeah, I forgot we once had the thing in color, too.) Anyway, he used to pull this prank on me, a masterpiece of timing, only at small gatherings. On one of 10 or 12 occasions that I'd walk through the door fashionably tardy, he would make conspiratorial eye contact around the room, clear his throat, and say in an extremely serious tone:

"Donnell, I should tell you, this isn't a party. It's an intervention."

Josh got me with that one three times; I was on the brink like that back in the '90s. The minutes I spent standing, confused, doing inventory of my high was really fine entertainment for everyone. Even me.

And still, I was not even close to going to rehab. Never went. And things turned out fine. In fact, I'd say I'm farther away from rehab than ever. This is not to say that no one should go. (Brad Renfro certainly should have made better use of it.) I'm just saying, drug use isn't the end of the world. It's how we fit narcotics into our lives that counts.

We should talk more honestly about drugs.

Let's start with the winter replacement show that's made ABC/Disney miss the writers' strike just a little bit less than other media companies. (I saw Enchanted too, found it perfectly acceptable. Haven't made plans to check into the Hannah Montana thing, but that's not really the point.)

In the run-up to Wednesday's Congressional hearing on steroids, two big stories have broken. The first, and perhaps the most lascivious, concerns Brian McNamee's allegation that he injected Roger Clemens's wife, Debbie, with HGH prior to a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot. Even if this claim were somehow proved, it wouldn't necessarily hurt Clemens in any pure judicial sense, assuming things get to the justice system. How could it be admissible?

But the report is brutal in terms of public opinion. Even the Texas rubes who think the pitching icon is not guilty — the ones who might envision Andy Petite using and admitting, but his best friend being in the dark about it — would have a hard time swallowing his wife's usage.

The Clemens legal team is playing, er, hardball and seeing some strong results. Accuser McNamee, the former cop who has allegedly saved drug evidence, said at the weekend's start that Clemens attended a 1998 party at the house of Jose Canseco that led to the pitcher deciding to take performance-enhancing drugs. Another report quickly followed saying proof exists that Clemens wasn't present at the party.

You know, I do care a little about how things turn out for Roger Clemens. (I care, about as much as Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder cares about the legacy of Dan Rooney.) Just a little. But even now I feel like he's getting off easy. He still has surprising support in New York. And in Houston the papers worry about his children.

There's just a built-in support system for these guys. Back in 1988, while interning at The Boston Globe, I protested noisily through the paper's newsroom about how my cousin Jim Ed was covered. Dan Shaughnessy, the baseball beat writer, got really angry, I'm told. One thing I learned from other staffers was the pass the local media gave Clemens. Misdeeds of his went unreported while athletes they were less gay for found themselves damned by 60-point back-page character assassination.

Clemens walks around with such a sense of license, he seems to think winning is his god-given right. I can absolutely see him cheating, in any number of ways. And while the sporting press didn't first bestow this sense upon him, it sure did a lot to nurture it.

Hopefully this media support network is on the wane. Instead of the benefit of the doubt, I'd like to see the old boys — doesn't Clemens's sneering demeanor remind you simultaneously of Ty Cobb and first-term George Bush?— get this kind of treatment.