EDITOR,

The online comments regarding my recent letter are great, but this needs to be said to the Tracy Press readers at large: Two readers responded that professional baseball player Ken Caminiti’s actions should not be emulated when I wrote that he was still a role model. My comments still stand that we can learn from his life. People can still learn from another person’s mistakes. That is why we study history, so we do not repeat mistakes and so that we learn from those who have gone before us.

Don’t emulate Caminiti’s mistakes with drug abuse. But people, young and old, can learn from his errors in judgment. Even good people can be plagued by drug problems and go to some dark places in their life when they are desperate. I haven’t been there myself, but have family and acquaintances, besides Caminiti, who have had such troubles. Some people make it back from the brink; and sadly, some don’t.

I have a cousin who has Hepatitis C because of some desperately wrong choices, but because her family followed the advice to stop enabling her by watching her children while she would go get high. She finally went through rehabilitation and has been clean for nearly nine years. It’s one day at a time and one battle at a time in recovery, but it can happen, and it transforms lives. That’s only one of the miracles I’ve seen.

Recovery from drugs and alcohol happens, and it is amazing. Just as Narcotics Anonymous teaches, the program works if you work the program.

Like Caminiti, some people don’t always have the strength to keep fighting the good fight.

Deborah Littleton, Tracy