First Job in Recovery


Excerpt from Chapter 9

“The first job back will feel incredible. ” Such were the words of wisdom from Carter, a resident in recovery whom I met briefly near the end of my stay at the treatment center. A neurologist hooked on fentanyl and alcohol, he was a habitual relapser. After rehab he’d be standing trial for grand larceny and assault with a deadly weapon (quite literally, he shot a man while robbing his castle). For some strange reason, I found him mesmerizing, routinely listening intently to what he had to say. So when he suggested that my first job out of treatment practicing medicine would feel glorious, I put stock in it.

Naturally, I would be thrilled to go back to medicine. It was just four weeks earlier, in my first few days of recovery, that I had convinced myself that my doctoring days were over, that there was no going back. I recalled sitting in the community room of Penuel, scribbling calculations of my net worth on a napkin to determine how long I could stretch our family savings.  I envisioned a nonmedical job—hopefully. My wife, who had long ago chosen to be a stay-at-home mom, would find some work, and we would be OK. A silver lining of my alcohol-induced apocalyptic paranoia was an ongoing compulsion to sock away as much money as possible and retire all debt. In my crazy worry over impending world economic collapse, I had paid off our mortgage two months prior. We wouldn’t be wealthy, but we could stay in our home and send our kids to college. As far as my professional life, I was convinced I was all washed up.

As the weeks passed...

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