Excerpt from the preface of Ballad of a Sober Man: An ER Doctor’s Journey of Recovery: Successfully getting sober is much like successfully getting wealthy—it’s slow and methodical, and it requires patience. It is a blessing that alcoholics and addicts never have to do it alone. My recovery required a letting go of my ego-driven independence and trumped-up sense of self-importance; I col- lapsed, figuratively, off my pedestal and into the arms of a car- ing crowd, allowing myself to be held up by the glorious mosh pit of my sober network. I had to, as Tyler Durden exclaimed in the movie Fight Club , “Just. Let. Go.” I had been provided with the gift of desperation. As par- adoxical as that sounds, I have found it to hold true. Only through extreme emotional and physical conditions have I been able to overcome my disease, get stronger, and start to evolve. I needed to learn to feel and process previously incon- ceivable and intolerable amounts of anguish and pain to spur my spiritual de...

Of the many mystical creatures JK Rowling created throughout the  Harry Potter series, it is the Thestral- a skeletal winged horse-like creature which impressed me the most. In The Order of the Phoenix  Thestrals carried Harry and his friends on their backs from Hogwarts to The Ministry of Magic in London. They possessed many magical qualities, but for me, the most profound was their complete invisibility to most people. Invisibility to most people....but for anyone who had personally witnessed death and accepted its reality, Thestrals could be seen quite clearly. Here, Rowling made a vital distinction. To have the ability to actually see a Thestral, in all its terrifying beauty,  her characters needed to not only be present during the death of another, but internalize and process death's reality as a natural process of life. Harry could see Thestrals, as could Luna Lovegood.  Both had experienced death up close and accepted its reality. Over 25 years in emerg...

The following is the back-cover synopsis of my upcoming book: Ballad of a Sober Man: An ER Doctor’s Journey of Recovery: A  successful  emergency  physician  full of narcissism and ego  wakes up in  detox ,  his life having burned to the ground .   Dr. J.D. Remy — physician , father, husband, and medical missionary — wakes up  one morning to find himself in rehab for alcoholism.  His destructive behavior has resulted in t he los s   of  his   marriage , children, career — and almost — his life.  F aced with the challenge s  of starting over  from scratch, Dr. Remy must  accep t   that  he is an alcoholic  and  summon the courage to  tame the  demons  which landed him in such dire circumstances . Over time, he makes new connections in  sobriety  and rekindles friendships from  his former   life.  With the aid of  old friends and  his...

Excerpt from Chapter Two, Ballad of a Sober Man:   The inside of the building looked less like an academic center  and more like some stately manor home past its prime . Tony led me through a maze of narrow ,  carpeted corridors with uneven , creaky  floorboards and around corners until we arrived what appeared to me like a makeshift nurses’   station, as if the  l ord of the  m anor had  retrofitted  it  in the  tight  confines  of   a hallway between parlors . A burly, serious-looking man in navy - blue scrubs, perhaps sixty years old, with a solid gray Afro, stood behind the desk, staring. I froze. “ Relax ,”  said the  night man ,  “ we are programmed to receive. ” On the opposite wall  was a giant whiteboard , stretching ceiling to floor.  Black electrical tape  created columns and rows, forming  a giant  table   filled with  random symbols in combinations of red,...

I've hit that stage in my life. Yesterday, as I was pulling into to the supermarket parking lot  to pick up some toilet paper (now back in supply!), a pickup truck passed by me, the words  Class of '21, in giant lettering,  scrawled across its back windshield.  Class of '21...wow, I'm getting old. I'm pretty sure my high school yearbooks are proudly displayed in somebody's vintage book collection; the '79 Chrysler LeBaron I once drove is sporting antique license plates (if it exists at all); and my master recording of Dark Side of the Moon could exact a tidy sum from some online vinyl collector.  But perhaps the greatest attestation of my age and place in modern history is not some dusty collectable or embellished memory- it is the fact that I have a daughter who is Class of 2021. I remember another member of the "Class of '21". When I was a college student in the eighties, he served as registrar and my unofficial premed advisor.  I thought he...

Patience has never been one of my strong suits. I have a tendency to want what I want, when I want it....NOW. "All things in good time" has never been a mantra of mine. Maybe that's why I became an ER doc.  But I will admit am getting (slightly) more proficient at this waiting thing. Miraculously, I was able to write 500 words a day for the better part of a year, then  go back and revise, edit, and revamp for another six months, and finally submit my work for a time-consuming review...without my head exploding. This is a testament to my "one day at a time" recovery program. However, when my book's production company recently told me to push back the book's release date by a whole month, into October...well, somehow I'm having a problem with this. Maybe it's because my book's journey is in the homestretch; perhaps I am just strongly Jonesing to get my story "out there." The closer I get to the finish line with this release, the antsi...

Excerpt from the preface of Ballad of a Sober Man Recovery from the nightmare of active alcoholism and drug abuse is very much a rebirth. We emerge kicking, screaming, and terrified into a cold environment, far too glaring and harsh for our oversensitive central nervous systems. We slowly learn how to adjust our senses without the protective, but faulty, shield of euphoria-pro ducing  chemicals. Having regularly used alcohol to suppress the emotions I never permitted myself to process and develop, I was forced, in sobriety, to adapt ;   I had to learn   the skills and coping mechanisms needed to handle life situations in a healthy, adult manner. During my drinking years I was certainly capable of dressing myself, showing up, passing exams, attending events, and generally acting civil in my social and professional life; in reality, any decent actor could have managed that. Meanwhile I was, in all respects, emotionally  stunted ,  my development as a human being f...