Bryan & ADD VS Francisco Bustamante
Before I was diagnosed with ADD I got extremly frustrated that I could not keep my concentration. I tried things you wouldn’t believe, even to the point that I wore shoes which were too small believing that being uncomfortable would help me keep my focus. Believe it or not, a lot of my tactics worked, but usually just as long as I paid attention to the tactic and that usually wasn’t very long.
Lucky charms were a personal favorite. I would find something, a rock, a ring, a necklace, just about anything and believe holding on to whatever it was would help me stay in the here and now. Talk about being desperate!
There came a point that I decided to see an eye doctor. When I was very young I wore glasses for reading, they didn’t help me keep my focus when I was a kid and later when I tried them, well, they seemed to help just as much and about as long as my lucky charms did. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people need glasses and they are helpful, but I have very good eye sight and the doctor simply prescribed me reading glasses, believing that my eyes get tired from reading.
Armed with my new reading glasses I entered a Grad Prix Billiard Tournament in St. Ingbert Germany back in the 1990’s. The glasses seemed to help a great deal. The tournament was filled with all the great players in Europe at that time— Ralf Souquet, Oliver Ortman, Steven Knight amongst so many others and Francisco Bustamante was the top player at the time.
Well, I made it to the top 8 out of 180 participants and came up against Francisco in the quarter finals. With my new glasses I felt undefeatable and kept the match close tying the match at 6-6, then took the lead and made it 7-6 my favor! With the lead and a good break I ran the balls all the way to the 7 ball. It was a long shot, I was on a rail, but knowing I had the glasses on I felt confident I could make the ball. No need to fret! I missed it by a hair and Francisco ran out the rest of the match. I lost 9-7!
Hey, it was a great tournament; I made the top 8 amongst the greatest players in Europe at the time and nearly beat Francisco to boot. What more do you need for a nickel? Certainly not those glasses! I threw them away and in the very next tournament I played in I took the prize, first place!
What is the moral of this story? Without a diagnosis it is very hard to determine what you need to do in order to improve. You can try just about everything you want and it might help for a while, but with ADD and ADHD a diagnosis is imperative to finding the correct solutions. Out of frustration with my concentration and inability to stop being distracted I eventually quit tournament and league play. It’s been about 6 years since and I don’t know if I have the energy to go back to the drawing board; however, if I do, at least this time I will know that I have ADD and can discuss this with my doctor to help me find a proper and realistic solution.
What sort of things have you tried?
~Bryan
