But it’s clear from Monday’s New York Daily News’ report on Gooden, his struggles with addiction are a daily battle.
“The fight is always there,’’ said Gooden, 51. “That’s what makes every day so joyous for me right now because I remember the days when I was in houses with people I didn’t know, getting high, not knowing if I was ever going to get my life back together. And at times accepting, ‘maybe this is who I am, maybe I’m going to die like this.’
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“When I look back at everything I’ve done, even if it’s just everything I did to my body, I never thought I’d live this long."
That’s why Gooden — who was 157-85 in his 11 seasons with the Mets, a decade punctuated with on-field success and off-field turmoil — calls every sober day “joyous," tracing back to seven months he did in a Florida prison in 2006 for violating drug-related probation and five years after that, when he entered rehab in Manhattan.
And, yet, the Daily News noted, it’s “jarring to hear Gooden describe how fragile his drug-free existence is.”
“The strip club is my biggest weakness," Gooden said. “I go in there … that day I might be OK. The next day I might be OK, but eventually it’s going to catch me. Now I’ve gotten to the point where I say I’m not going to do it.
“It’s tempting. I have my moments where I get lonely. The ideal life for me would be being married, be with my kids. Unfortunately it didn’t work out.”
