Dwight Gooden comes clean
(CBS News) "Doctor K" isn't actually a doctor. Instead, he's a former big league pitcher famed for putting many a "K" -- for strikeouts -- onto the scorecard. With Michelle Miller we'll watch him in action on his brand new field:
He was one of the most feared pitchers in all of baseball. Surgical, precise, calm under pressure. They didn't call Dwight Gooden "Doc" for nothing.
In 1984 Doc Gooden made his major league debut with the New York Mets when he was just 19 years old. With his 98-mile-per-hour fastball and formidable curve, he became an immediate success.
"So what was it like to be up on the mound in Shea Stadium in front of tens of thousands of people?" Miller asked.
"It was almost like being at a concert, and I'm the entertainer of the show, the main event of the show," said Gooden. "And I wanted to give the people what they came there for."
He was named National League Rookie of the Year, and won the Cy Young Award -- given to the best pitcher in baseball -- in his second season. He became the youngest starting pitcher ever in the All-Star Game.
Doc Gooden was a star.
But while he was in perfect control on the field, it was a different story off the mound.
"Being so young, so talented, finding fame and fortune and success so quickly, what was the most difficult for you to deal with?" asked Miller.
"I think the success came very fast, and not being able to say no," he replied.
Especially to cocaine.
"The first time I tried the cocaine, unfortunately, it was love at the first sniff," Gooden said. "My problem [has] always been not just when things are bad, I turn to drugs and alcohol, but when things are good, I turn to drugs and alcohol."
Things were very good for Gooden and the Mets when they won the World Series in 1986.
"It was like the ultimate dream for any player," he said. "It should be the happiest day of my life. And it was. But then three hours later, turned to the worst day of my life."
In his new book, "Doc: A Memoir," he writes that he retreated to a Long Island flophouse to celebrate the win with some cocaine. He partied so much that he never even made the victory parade.
"Watching that on TV with a bunch of strangers, you know, you're doin' all the drugs you can possibly do. You can't get high anymore. Now it's just totally, you know, depressed," Gooden said. "You don't know how it got to that point."
While playing baseball was his job, getting high was his vocation.
- Book excerpt: "Doc: A Memoir"
- Extended transcript: Interview with Dwight Gooden
- Watch: Web extra video - Dwight Gooden on George Steinbrenner
"Why did you need it?" Miller asked.
"I thought it made me feel like the person that I wanted to be. More vocal. I felt good inside, comfortable in my own skin."
"Comfortable in your own skin? Why were you uncomfortable?"
"I was just a shy kid," said Gooden. "Just loved baseball. All I wanted to do was play baseball. Wasn't aware of everything that goes along with that."
Gooden is the youngest of six children, with a stern mother, and a doting father who passed his love of baseball on to his son
"I remember being about six or seven, watching games with him on Saturdays," Gooden said. "And he'll have his beer and chips. I'll have my juice and cookies and what have you."
His father pushed all distractions out of Gooden's life, and allowed him to concentrate only on baseball.
"When I got about 10, I remember my dad asked me how much did I like baseball. I said, 'I like it a lot.' And he said, 'Well, how much?' I said, 'I like it where maybe I could be on TV.' He said, 'Okay.
"So from that point, he was basically going to live out his dream, where after work he'd take me to the field and do all these drills."
But his father almost missed the crowning achievement of Doc's career.
"He had been on dialysis for his kidneys for probably 12 years," Gooden said. "His health was failing him. Now his heart's failing him."
In 1996 after more than 10 seasons with the Mets, Doc joined the Yankees, where he threw his one and only no-hitter -- on the exact same night his father was having open heart surgery.
Gooden rushed to the hospital as soon as the last out was made.
"I walk in the hospital, my dad had the surgery," he recalled. "He was on life support at the time. I remember giving him the ball from the game, and the doctor said that he saw the game. After the last out, he got the one tear in his eye.
"And so he ended up passing away, never coming home. But the last game he saw me pitch was the no-hitter. So that game will always be special."
WEB EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Dwight Gooden on pitching a no-hitter as his father was in the hospital.
Also: Dwight Gooden on how he became "Doc"
But, Gooden says, a supportive family, success on the playing field, and love from his hometown fans were not enough to keep him clean.
"When the game was over, you know, you deal with the media, you go home. Now whatever is going on inside, whether it was, you know, going to get high or what have you, that's when it was tough. That's when you felt really alone."
After pitching for five major league teams, Gooden retired in 2001.
Did he ever pitch high? "I never pitched high," he said. "I read stories about guys playing high, pitching high. My problem with cocaine was the way it affected me . . . I'm very happy, very up going, very jittery. Along the way, after about three or four hours the paranoia sneaks in, where I probably thought the umpires was cops, you know? Everybody in the stands was cops. The paranoia sinks in and it's no fun any more. And so there's no possible way I could have done that."
He tried to get clean multiple times, and says he's been to rehab at least six times, but nothing stuck until 2011, when he joined the cast of "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew."
He says has been clean and sober ever since.
"Part of that was removing that mask, letting the world know I am an addict," Gooden said. "And I'm okay being an addict. And I'm going to get better."
"It still astounds me how long your addiction lasted; most people would be dead by now," said Miller.
"Yeah, I'm here for a reason, no doubt. I'm here for a reason, 'cause there's so many things I've went through in my life that, like you say, people that died from doing less, and I'm still here."
At 48 years old Gooden now lives in New Jersey, not far from three of his seven children, but very far from the roar of the crowd -- and that's just fine with Doc Gooden.
"You look around, you're in a, what, two-bedroom apartment?" said Miller.
"I have more peace here than I had when I had the 12-bedroom house, at one time," Gooden said.
"This is a far cry from a 12-bedroom house. But you have what you want?"
"I have what I want now, within myself," he said. "I feel good about who I am. And unfortunately, all the ups and downs I went through has molded me into the man that I am today. And I'm very happy for that."
For more info:
- "Doc: A Memoir" by Dwight Gooden and Ellis Henican (New Harvest)