|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Fighting death Maradona serious about kicking cocaine
Posted: Thursday March 23, 2000 03:02 PM
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Diego Maradona said his fight against cocaine addiction is a fight against death. "I am taking the treatment seriously and I am doing better," the 39-year-old Argentine star told Chile's state television. "I can analyze myself and decide between death and life, and I choose life," he added in the interview in Havana, Cuba. "I feel well, ready to fight for my life, although it is not easy." Local newspapers reported that Maradona was paid up to $40,000 for the interview, but the television station would not comment. Maradona arrived in Cuba on Jan. 18 to undergo treatment for a heart condition and the cocaine addiction that caused it. He was interviewed at a medical-oriented hotel for foreigners on the outskirts of the Cuban capital. He praised Cuban President Fidel Castro, who visited him at the hotel. "The living history came to see me," Maradona said. "I have no words to thank him. Cuba has opened me the door to a spectacular kind of medicine." Maradona said he has lost 10 kilograms (22 pounds) since he started treatment. "I am feeling much better after arriving here almost dead," he said. "Now I have control of the ball." He denied that the crisis that forced his emergency hospitalization in Uruguay before going to Cuba was caused by an overdose. "I am not saying that I did not use cocaine, but what happened is that I combined several medicines," he said. He said he first started using cocaine at age 23, while playing for the FC Barcelona of Spain. "Nobody pushed me to do that. It was my personal mistake," Maradona said. "Drugs are the world's worse scourge." He repeatedly said fighting addition is difficult and admitted that what he called his current progress "will not last until Maradona decides but until God decides."
| ||||||||||||||||
