Bode Miller, Olympian Skier: Alcoholic or ENTP?
Bode Miller: Olympian Skier, Party Boy and Likely Non-Alcoholic ENTP
Sometimes, personality type and upbringing explains what may appear to be alcoholism.
Bode Miller, reportedly the most naturally gifted American skier in decades and one of America’s great hopes in the upcoming Olympics, recently made news with loose talk and foul language in a “60 Minutes”interview. He essentially claimed he once skied a World Cup event either while drunk or extremely hung over. He often peppers his speech with profanities, which is by itself a frequent early clue to addiction. According to Newsweek, he is an avid partyer and “often grumpy.”He is an extraordinary overachiever, which as we know does not preclude alcoholism and may even be driven by it.
By his late teens, Miller (again according to Newsweek) “clashed with every coach, every teacher, every official he came across.”He has a “smirking disrespect for the media.”He not only argues for the legalization of performance-enhancing drugs, but is also “a vocal critic of the drug-screening process in sport.”Without further inquiry, we could easily conclude he may have early-stage alcoholism. Yet, his reasoning could be related to the fact that the system permits the use of creatine, which is clearly performance-enhancing, yet bans Sudafed. If he sees hypocrisy in such a system, he would not be alone.
Could there be another explanation for whatever misbehaviors he may be guilty of? His seeming innate lack of respect for authority and playfulness is consistent with the Artisan personality type (“SP”in the Myers-Briggs paradigm; see http://www.Keirsey.com for insights into this Temperament). The Artisan is a natural competitor and the most common type from which sports legends develop. If non-alcoholic, the competitiveness is benign; if alcoholic, Artisans can be extremely dangerous hyper-competitors, having a need to win regardless of consequences (see the discussion of actress Bette Davis in my first book, Drunks, Drugs & Debits, along with last month’s issue of the http://www.addictionreport.com for more insights into such a need).
A crucial contrary indicator to alcoholism is that Miller does not have an apparent need to win at any price. Furthermore, if we look at examples of Miller’s analysis of skiing and inventiveness in the sport, we might conclude that not only is Miller not alcoholic, but also may be a Temperament apart from the usual supreme athlete.
According to Time Magazine, at one point in his career Miller rarely finished a race, seemingly because he was “determined to either win or crash.”While some observers might have figured he was being reckless, which is a signal clue to alcoholism, he was apparently instead changing his style using scientific analysis. Time explains that Miller was trying to find the shortest route between gates on the slalom course, which should be the quickest route down, but “needed to learn how to change directions and generate force that was different from other guys.”He had to consider “ankle torsion, where the screws are on the ski, how that affects the forces going into the ski and how the ski bends, your leverage points.”Such deep analysis is not the forte of the Artisan, but rather the Rational (“NTâ€). Crucially, he said he didn’t love racing to win. “I loved it because it allowed me to do that exploring,”referring to the physics analysis. In terms of both reasoning and goals, he thinks like a Rational.
The playfulness of a more specific NT type, the NTP, is evident from the title of his autobiography, Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun. It’s also apparent from comments he made about the period of experimentation when he wasn’t winning: “I was having the greatest time, making the mistakes, crashing.”We can hypothesize the full type when we read in Time that, after recently “tinkering with his boots, he discovered that inserting a composite”as opposed to aluminum or plastic”lift under the sole gave him a better feel on the snow and better performance.”Then, Miller did something totally inconsistent alcoholism”he shared the discovery with everyone, including his competitors. He explained that if he hadn’t, he would be “maintaining an unfair advantage over my competitors knowingly, for the purpose of beating them alone. Not for the purpose of enjoying it more or skiing better. To me that’s ethically unsound.”An innate personality type of ENTP, or Extroverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceptive, best explains both the thinking and behaviors, which alcoholism does not.
David Keirsey describes this type in his book, Please Understand Me (which, as an INTJ would say, should be on everyone’s top ten reading list). “ENTPs wish to exercise their ingenuity in the world of people and things….They deal imaginatively with social relationships as well as physical and mechanical relations….The ENTP is the most reluctant of all the types to do things in a particular manner just because that is the way things always have been done. They characteristically have an eye out for a better way, always on the lookout for new projects, new activities, new procedures.”Bode Miller, meet Thomas Edison and Tom Sawyer.
As for Miller’s disregard of authority, ENTPs (again from Keirsey’s description) “display a charming capacity to ignore the standard, the traditional, the authoritative.”The motive is not the alcoholic’s need to violate rules for the purpose of wielding power over others, but rather for “competency and the sense of power this gives.”In other words, this type seeks power over nature rather than over people, especially in its mechanistic form.
The most important clue to alcoholism in Miller is the copious use of foul language. However, he may have grown up around those who use such language (many learn to use obscenities from alcoholic parents) and may use profanity in a misguided attempt to “employ debate tactics to the disadvantage of”his opponents or in an effort to “maintain a one-up position with others.”ENTPs may even “work against the system just for the joy of being one-up.”While not inconsistent with alcoholism, a more vile manifestation of behaviors would be expected than those seen in Miller, at least by those of us on the outside.
We will know only in the fullness of time whether Bode Miller has the disease of alcoholism. He seems a bit young and fairly wild for age 28, so he may. But there is a greater likelihood of this being just a phase in his life. While often a dangerous idea”not something we would hope close observers might suggest for a budding young alcoholic with the name Joe Namath, O.J. Simpson or Darryl Strawberry”an athlete whose innate strengths are Extroversion, iNtuition, Thinking and Perception might act the way Miller does without alcoholism.
(Sources: Newsweek, January 23, 2006, “You Don’t Know Bode,”by Devin Gordon; Time, January 23, 2006, “Rebel on the Edge,”by Bill Saporito; Please Understand Me, David Keirsey.)