- I really didn't start to drink or use drugs at all until medical school.
- I was dying and I had no other place to go. I crawled into a hospital on my belly, helpless, hopeless and too chicken to kill myself, but feeling there was no way to go on doing what I was doing. I didn't think I could survive without my medication and drugs. In a blackout trying to get off of all of the stuff, I almost killed myself in an auto accident.
- The statistics are that 10% of the general population are alcoholics or addicts, but it is felt, and some of the statistics bear this out, there is a higher proportion in the medical professions. At least 10% and probably closer to 15 to 18% of physicians are addicts. It's staggering to think that one out of six doctors has a problem.
- Actually, "Goodbye, Columbus" came along right in that summer between graduating from college and beginning medical school. I suddenly found myself as a first-year medical student who was scared to death whether I was going to make the grade as a doctor-in-training. I also had this fantasmagorical summer of being pampered and treated as this movie star. That following summer, the movie broke and it really got a lot of good play, good reviews and my character certainly stuck out. I started to get acting offers and I had to make a decision whether to go back to a second year of medical school.
- So I came into work in the treatment field 8 1/2 years ago and I really have built a reputation as a real specialist and expert in the area of chemical dependency. (From a 1991 interview with The Los Angeles Times).As I got more years of sobriety and there was less of the stigma in the world to accept me back as a doctor, I was able to be much more open with my own recovery.That is why I work with physicians and other professionals. I know what they are going through. You can't figure your own addiction in your intellectual head. A high IQ can be a detriment to recovery. You can be too smart to recover, but you can't be too dumb.
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