Pubdate: Sun, 25 Nov 2001
Source: State, The (SC)
Copyright: 2001 The State
Contact:  http://www.thestate.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/426
Author: Dale Robertson (Houston Chronicle)

Drug Addict Always A Drug Addict

Give a cocaine-addicted mouse the choice between food, sex or blow, and the 
cute little creature doesn't think twice about what it wants most. Eating 
and procreating become non-options.

You read that Ken Caminiti has been busted for smoking crack, and you're 
both shocked and disillusioned. You wonder how a guy who once had 
everything -- money, celebrity and a beautiful, supportive family -- could 
have nothing upstairs.

Except Cammy's problem isn't stupidity. He's no more a master of his 
cravings than that poor mouse. He's a drug addict. He will always be a drug 
addict. And accepting this can be his salvation, whereas continuing to deny 
it will finish him off, completely ruining his life and perhaps even ending it.

There's another drug addict coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers who 
understands what I'm saying here, who, in fact, tutored me on the subject. 
If John Lucas knew Caminiti, he would not be surprised to hear that the 
former National League Most Valuable Player had been busted.

Although Luke has been clean and sober for years, not a day goes by that he 
doesn't realize how, with a single misstep, he could slip back into the 
awful haze, a place that led to his waking up one morning on a dirty 
sidewalk near downtown Houston wearing a urine-soaked suit and wondering 
why his shoes were missing.

Fun stuff, coke.

DALE ROBERTSON

Houston Chronicle
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