COVID on the Rocks



Excerpt from the book’s Preface:

I wrote these pages while I learned how to live an alcohol- and chemical-free life. Strangely enough, ditching the vodka (my drug of choice) was the “easy” part. It was maturing in sobriety that required massive effort. With the ever-present help from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, sponsors, therapists, family, and friends, I was able to successfully navigate between my own personal Scylla and Charybdis to this moment. Sirens’ songs were resisted, and my cyclops was smote. Alas, even while I wrestled with the challenges described in these pages, a new mammoth one presented itself: I found myself facing, as a rehabilitated emergency physician, the biggest pandemic our planet has seen in over a century.

Within these chapters, you may recognize phases of growth, drawing parallels to the challenges that every baby, toddler, child, and teen goes through in “leveling up” to the next change of life. There could have been no other way; there were no shortcuts. My doors of perception have been flung open, and as I step through, I do so carefully, methodically, and fully aware, all the while holding your hand. I feel truly humbled and grateful . . . one day at a time.

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