I have a confession to make about a very serious matter. They say that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, so here goes. I’m going to admit this publicly for the first time.

My name is Jerry. And I’m … a Patriots Training Camp-oholic.

I love this time of year. LOVE it. Patton said when he looked over a battlefield, “God help me, how I love it so.” More than is healthy for me, I know.  Because I realize of course that July and August isn’t real football. Hell, this early on it’s not even fake football. It’s 80-man rosters, receivers who’ll be in the CFL next month running routes for quarterbacks who’ll be working as mall cops. It’s undrafted linemen, as anonymous as doomed, red-shirted Star Trek crew members, running around pylons trying to earn a spot on the practice squad. So largely, it’s a waste of everybody’s time.

But it’s also so much more. It’s watching Brady, Moss, Welker, Faulk, Wilfork and some of the other greatest players ever wear a Pats uniform honing their craft. It’s watching the 57 rookies they drafted this year, learning their numbers, getting familiar with the way they run and the shape of their shoulder pads and seeing how they look. Above all, it’s Bill Belichick in a visor and gym shorts, walking between the practice fields spinning a whistle around his hand while Bon Jovi cranks on the speakers, a man in his element if ever there was one.

Consider this: How many opportunities in this life do you get to watch someone who is perhaps the greatest ever in his field, working at his artistry? Mozart didn’t write operas while 5,000 people sat in bleachers sucking back Vitamin Waters. Sixteenth-century Italy didn’t have cable showing “Hard Knocks: Michelangelo Sculpting David.” Grandpa Albert didn’t scribble out formulae on the chalkboard on “Keeping Up With the Einsteins.” Genius at work is a very rare thing and it’s not often you can witness it in person. But for Patriots fans, it’s just down Route 1.

Say, Roy, is this Heaven? No, it’s Foxboro.

So sure, I go to practice when I can. But even when I can’t, I like the whole package. Pouring over the daily reports. Catching up on the blogs. Anticipating the cuts. Waiting for the ones that hurt. Keeping an eye out for someone else’s high profile veteran being waived. Reading up on 7-on-7 drills, who made a spectacular catch and who picked off Brady. And if there’s time, I’ll even read the 10,000 profiles of the kicker and punter from those sportswriters who don’t know enough about football to write anything else.

Like I said, it isn’t real football. It’s the anticipation of football. Which isn’t the same thing, but it’s pretty damned good. The start of NFL camp is opening the doors on football’s Advent Calendar, with each day bringing you a tasty morsel to tide you over til Week 1. It’s the coming attractions before football’s feature presentation. It’s the smell of bacon before you actually get to eat any. It’s the way smokers describe lighting that eye-opener cigarette in the morning and you can’t wait to take the first drag. Following NFL training camp for me is what I imagine foreplay would be like, if I’d ever actually tried it.

I’m not sure exactly when I realized I had a problem, but I think it goes back to when I was a kid. Growing up, the end of July was a tough time of year for most of my friends. We were just past the halfway point of summer. Each day brought us further away from the blissfully over school year past and that much closer to the hideous, soul-sucking year to come. My buddies Beef and Yodel back in Weymouth would be wallowing in misery about it and start marking off the passage of time like Tom Hanks in his cave in “Castaway.”

But not me. I’d be giddy. I’d head home after a day of listening to my friends pee & moan about how summer was flying by, race in to grab The Patriot Ledger and read what Ron Hobson had to say about Stanley Morgan or Mosi Tatupu. Those Steve Grogan Pats clubs of the late 70s were my gateway teams. And I was hooked.

I’d wait for the news to come on (back when people under the age of 90 still watched local news sports reports) hoping to catch camp footage from Smithfield, Rhode Island, with the same excitement I had trying to catch a glimpse of nipple on the scrambled porn channel. I’d even keep a Will McDonough Sunday notes column between my mattresses, hoping no one would find out about my secret shame.

And I succeeded. No one knew. Through my college years and into adulthood, I kept my addiction hidden. I was what the experts call a “Functioning Camp-oholic.” I mean, there were some pretty lean years in there. The Ron Meyer Era. The Dick MacPherson Days and the disastrous Rod Rust Year when I hit rock bottom. Mostly I just deluded myself during those times that I was having fun. And Training Camp was usually the highlight of the season. Going back to the coming attractions/ movie metaphor, it was like seeing the preview for “Inception,” and then the featured film would turn out to be like “The A-Team,” a bitter disappointment.

Then of course, along came Bill Parcells, and everybody joined the party. He made the Pats a real, legitimate, NFL franchise for the first time in my life. For me it was a non-stop bender of optimism, excitement and the pure entertainment of watching Tuna work. Camp was Parcells’ stage, and he worked it like Richard Pryor. Calling Terry Glenn “she,” the whole “buying the groceries” thing. He was a master and for me it was like stepping up to harder stuff. The Training Camp monkey was on my back and there was no getting rid of it.

Then came the fateful day when Big Bill gave way to Little Bill. The Hooded One came and within what seemed like days took control of my system. Soon, a thousand quotes about how camp is like building a house and you have to lay the foundation then build it up brick by brick wasn’t enough. And one was too many.

I’ll never forget the time I visited camp with my brother Jack in 2001. Glenn, disgruntled over his contract, was trying to destroy the club with dissention, faking injury and leading the Tour de Sidelines on the stationary bike. Fans were losing faith in Drew Bledsoe and a good two dozen of them came to practice in Michael Bishop jerseys of all things. The team was coming off a 5-11 season and their quarterbacks coach had died a week earlier. I asked Jack to give me some hope, some reason to believe. And he convinced me to have faith in Belichick and the no-name free agents he’d brought in. Nobodies with names like Vrabel, Andruzzi, Compton, Smith and Pleasant. Somehow it all made sense to me so I drank the Kool-Aid that day and life hasn’t been the same since.

So that’s my story. Over the next six weeks, I’ll be battling my demons and getting my fix, but think I’ll make it through OK. Because now I’ve taking the first step of admitting I’m a Patriots Training Camp-oholic. See you in Foxboro this week. Cheers.