When you think about the city of Green Bay, you probably think about the Packers. This week, you almost definitely think about the NFL draft, which will begin at Lambeau Field on Thursday, April 24.
One thing that probably does not come to mind is sobriety.
In addition to the cheese and Bratwursin curd, Wisconsin is known for his beer. Cervecerías such as New Glarus, Central Waters brewing and even the Behemoth Miller brand are all roots in Wisconsin. And drinking is a large part of the sports culture, whether you are in Madison to see the Badgers play or hang out in Lambeau. Devils, the Milwaukee Bewers even bear the name of the industry.
That environment can make it really difficult for people who are in recovery, which is estimated at about 22.3 million Americans, enjoy sports in the way they did before choosing sobriety. And the yellow section aims to change that.
“I’m not alone.”
John Plageman, the founder of the group, had the idea when he was making plans to go to his first Phish concert after starting his recovery trip.
“It’s like perhaps five, six months of being sober, and they have not played Alpine in like five years. I am like,” I don’t miss this. There is no form. There is no form. “But I was so scared and so forty to go to this concert and a relapse after all the work I did, right?”
I knew the Grateful Dead had a group of sober fans called Wharf Rats. So he investigated a little in advance and learned about a sober group of Phish fans called Pheellowship.
“That first set was just nudating it. Table. Like a safe area,” Plageman said. “And I’m walking. I’m getting angry, they deflate me. I’m realizing, I need to go? I don’t know what can I take another set like this, right, because it was a challenge and I saw a yellow balloon just around the corner.”
Yellow balloons mean sobriety in the world of music. Plageman had found his people.
“I hit the corner, the boom. There is a table, there are people, there are about 40, 50 people who are sober and are doing this balloon, and they are just talking, who has a balloon, simply say what they care about.” And I’m fooling again, going well, once again, I’m not alone. Number two, I have support. And number three, I have a place to go. And the number four, the children of the thesis are fanscatics, as fans of phish fans, they are like, they and them and them, they and something and they are and they are and they and them. “
Tom Farley is the director of community scope of Recovery.com, and his brother, Chris Farley, was a legend of Saturday Night Live and possibly the best physical comedian in my generation. Chris suffered a substance consumption disorder and touched his life in 2006. Tom is motivated, who is also in recovery, to help others, and sees great potential in this type of sober community.
“I think that if you are in recovery yourself or if you think about being in recovery, or you have a family member, regardless of where they are, there is this feeling of isolation and be alone, and I have to solve this to myself. It was,” Farley said. “But We Feel That Way, and families Feel That Way. And This is just one of the Things That Shows Communities that now you don’t have to be alone. There’s This Amazing Community of People Out There Willing To Be There for You And Build Connection, And Am, and i am, and i am lives, and i am, and i am lives, and i am lives, and i am lives, and i am lives, and i am lives, and i am lives, and i am lives, and i am lives, and i am lives, and I am, and I am lives, and I am, and I am, and I am lives, and I am lives, and I am lives lives, and I am lives and yours, and I am lives and you, and I am lives and you, and I am lives and their
Breaking the stigma
Either recovery or mental health or both, because they are inextricated linked, there has been a stigma for a long time for help. The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in many of us to be more intrusive about our relationships with alcohol and aware of the drink, which has led more people to seek help.
“We were alone. We were isolated. Some of the difficulties of disconnection and isolation, and what we were doing to handle those horrible emotions, became appliances, but the only thing we had internet. From the pandemic,” Farley said. “And that’s why recovery.com was really created, it is really to offer all the efficiencies and ease of finding help. I mean, the Internet makes it better than anything in technology, so we are taking advantage of all that to ensure, or everything that is sure, or everything that is sure, the safe, diminished.”
And there are entry barriers for recovery in this country. It can be so superior to know where to start. And it is difficult for loved ones who may not have experience with substance use disorder and recovery to understand why they cannot help or convince someone who is fighting simply stops drinking or using.
“Everything about that statement, that is so true, but it is also that families do not know it either, and you have to solve it. You have to love it. And that only keeps you a child or in a state of isolation, you are still you. You used to see now that you have decided to see.
Normalization of sobriety in Green Bay’s culture of drinking
Plageman is a big music fan, and can be a bigger packers fan. He is a fan of the fourth generation of the Packers, and his first game of the Packers was in 1993, when Reggie White played his first game against the Eagles. He took Randall Cunningham twice, but they lost. Today, Plageman is the caretaker of seasonal tickets that his aunt Rosemary had since Lambeau Field was built. Not only did they share their love for the Packers, but she was a wonderful influence on her sobriety.
Rosemary was a friend of Jackie Nitschke, the wife of the great Ray Nitschke of the Packers, and both sober and advocating the recovery for a time when she was an acceptable social that women were recovering from a Waoman past.
“And those two women were pioneering by allowing women to get into alcoholics in the late 1970s, because it was really a group of boys,” said Plageman. “The women were rejected by the son of the reputation that could go to the community. He would never dare to do that (to these women), because Jackie and my aunt Rosemary were of predominant families, and (Rosemary) it was.”
Section was born from Plageman’s experience with the payer, the influence of his aunt Rosemary in his life and his sobriety, and his love for packers and the desire to normalize sobriety within that culture.
“The good thing about all this is that it was a fan of the packers so stales from the first moment. And he died in 2016, now with where I go with the yellow section, and we have a tent outside or Lambeau field, and we have bones SA.”
The early experience for the section to be yellow in operation was not necessarily soft.
Plageman, a social worker, presented the idea to some leaders of the community, who liked but no action was really tasks.
“Even if I got sober, I still have my character’s defects, and one of them is not a bar not for an answer and be persistent,” said Plageman.
Interestingly, he was a local priest, Father Paul, who was able to communicate with Russell Ball’s wife, the EVP/Packers Soccer Operations Director, to establish that connection.
Initially, other fans were a bit condescending, such as “Good luck to find the only Packers fan here!” But it turns out that there is much more than a fan of the arrogance of Packers. Today, the Facebook Facebook group has more than 2,000 members.
“At the beginning, I was going to place all the yellow balloons so that fans can find us, because we are in the lobby, and it is a great concurrence: to go from one area to the other is a long trip, so we started to put yellow balloons, and one of them appeared, and in the contest, and sounds or as a small bomb that goes.
Then they began to give the balloons (which are biodegradable and uncomfortable friends), and now the fourth quarter in Lambeau, when the stage no longer serves alcohol, it is the Yellow section neighborhood. When you see yellow balloons that bounce around the stands in the fourth quarter, you are seeing the yellow members of the section celebrating their recovery and letting other people in the stadium and observing from home that they are in recovery know that read is not alone.
Tom Farley loves the concept.
“He speaks of humanity. [In Green Bay] You are in the heart of that. You know you are in a football stadium, and Lambeau, for example, is right there. It is a celebration. And I know that I thought I had lost that, and people in the yellow section appreciate “we don’t have to lose this”, and we are winning it back, “Farley said.
Yellow section in the NFL 2025 draft
The yellow section is established in Green Bay this weekend for the NFL 2025 draft, and they are all welcome. The Yellow store area of the section will be between the Bellin and Kwik travel door along Lambeau in the draft. At 4 PM CT every day, they organize a meeting where people can come and talk about football and learn about the organization. You don’t have to live a sober lifestyle to hang out! They have a table and garbage can settle outside, and all they ask is that you do not bring alcohol to the store.
There are many reasons why someone could be sober. Maybe they don’t like alcohol. They may have religious objections to drink alcohol. Maybe there is a medical problem that prevents them from drinking. All those who want to enjoy the Packers with other fans who are clean and sober are welcome in the Yellow Section. The sober allies, the people who do not necessarily live a sober lifestyle but are happy to enjoy a game with other fans while they abstain alcohol and substances, they are welcome.
What Plageman and Yellow Section have already achieved is incredible, but it is not the ultimate goal. That goal is to turn Green Bay into a yellow city, where sobriety is normalized and there are options for people in recovery or who choose not to drink alcohol for whatever.
“Many times, when you say you’re sober, you have a lot of condescending, like,” oh, that’s so good that you’re sober, good for you. Oh my God, it must be difficult, proud of you. Way to follow. “And I know, I’m fine with that. With people drinking, but think of everyone in the game.
“We want to convert Green Bay, Wisconsin into the first yellow city where all and all businesses and every tourist attraction are sober and can normalize sobriety, because many people will not travel to Baying’s green alcohol,” Tageman of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation of the reputation or
Recovery can be a long and lonely path. The support of a group as a yellow section can make a difference, one game at the same time.
If you consider the recovery or thinking about changing your relationship with alcohol, it is not alone and the help is available. Recovery.com It has tons of resources to educate themselves about the disease and the options for treatment, as well as programs for hospitalized and outpatient patients, sober life and other recovery programs.
