Between the Seams: Strawberry's wife heals by helping

ORLANDO, Fla. — It was not that long ago that she was there — hurt, embarrassed and unable to understand why someone she loved could be so intent on killing himself.

For years, it was all she knew.

So her heart constricted when she heard Dwight "Doc" Gooden was sentenced to a year and a day in prison in Tampa last week for again succumbing to his nearly 20-year cocaine addiction.

"I don't wish this disease on anybody," Charisse Strawberry said.

You recognize the last name, right? It belongs to a famous New York ballplayer and, unfortunately, one of the saddest cases ever of a drug-addicted professional athlete.

You might remember her, too. Countless times a tall, stunning woman stood in front of TV cameras defending her former husband, Darryl, a Mets superstar during the mid-1980s. But it was hard to make a case for someone who used drugs on and off, was booted out of a rehab facility for sleeping with a female resident and once disappeared for four days on a bizarre drug binge.

"My life was played out on any network with a 'C' in it," Charisse said.

Darryl did his time in prison (11 months), and now 41-year-old Doc will do his. Back in the 1980s, those two young phenoms lit up New York with their unbelievable talent and easy smiles. Who would have guessed their one connection through the years would be debilitating drug use?

Darryl, 43, is an instructor with the Mets and hasn't been in trouble lately, but after seeing what happened to Doc, it's hard not to fear another drug episode is around the corner. Doc, if you remember, was reportedly doing fine, too.

Of all the places you thought Darryl's ex-wife might wind up when their marriage dissolved, this wasn't one of them.

You expected to see her weeping on Oprah's couch after she filed for divorce last October. You expected a tell-all book.

You did not expect her to be in a Tampa office working diligently to save families that were as broken as hers, but not fortunate enough to have the last names of Gooden and Strawberry.

Charisse is president of Tampa's National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, a chapter she started five years ago during the height of her drama with Darryl.

"God took my mess and turned it into my message," the 37-year-old mother of three said.

Charisse was married to Darryl for 12 years. They called it quits because, well, have you read the headlines Darryl has made for the last 12 years?

Charisse stood by Darryl through colon cancer and one ugly personal failing after another.

But during the process, she learned addiction is like a tornado — it absorbs and destroys everything in its path.

And always in the eye of the storm are the abusers' families. When Gooden was hauled off to jail in Tampa, his mother, Ella Mae, and son, Dwight Jr., stood there absorbing the blow. It happens to all families whose lives have been shaken by substance abuse.

"It's a tough disease," Charisse said. "It's powerful, baffling and cunning."

Sure, Charisse wanted to be something other than the troubled wife of a tragically washed-up baseball player.

But a calling was clearly at work. Wherever she went, mothers, brothers, sisters and aunts would stop and tell her about a son or daughter struggling with drugs.

They were families searching for answers, trying to make sense of an addict's selfishness.

"I just said, 'Hey, I've been there,' " she said. "I've watched someone I dearly love slowly try to kill themselves. You can't cause it and you can't cure it."

If people were drawn to her because of her family's problems, she decided she was going to help as many people as she could.

Healing through helping. Better that than crumbling.

Last week, a woman Charisse met two years ago at church left a phone message.

She remembered the woman going to the altar for prayer. She was addicted to crack and had lost her son. Charisse found her a treatment center.

"I don't know if you remember me," the woman said in the message, "but I wanted to let you know I'm clean. I have my son back. I have a job. I just wanted to tell you I never forgot what you did."

Charisse cried.

"If I help one person's life," Charisse said, "what I went through is all worth it."

Hopefully, the Gooden family is reading. Charisse has been where you are. She survived. It didn't happen overnight, but it did happen.

"I had to take the focus off Darryl and put the focus on myself and the kids," Charisse said.

Pain came first. But now she has a purpose.