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All along that way I knew there wasn’t something quite right with the Good Doctor. He was sleeping with patients, he had an unlicensed “nurse,” he lied to my parents for me, he called me his best friend, he gave me his cell phone and pager to answer midnight calls from desperate addicts, he preached sobriety while drinking alcohol. The list could go on ad infinitum. I could tell story after story indicting him on many counts of not just malpractice, but cruelty as well. But at some point, I packed my bag, took my ball, and went home. I just wasn’t going to take it anymore. I wanted him out of my life and I excised him like a bad mole.

The story with the Good Doctor picks up several years after this point. I hadn’t seen him in a long time. Frankly, if there was a better addiction doctor in the entire state of Florida I would have rather found him/her, but there wasn’t. I rarely found myself with a need to go to him, but there were a few times when there was no other option. When I had kidney stones and the ensuing surgery, for one. Either way, it had been a good five years before I had my next real encounter with this man.

While I was pregnant with my oldest child, I had an epiphany about alcohol/drugs and relapse. I was naive enough to believe that I would never use again. That anyone who dared pick up after having a child, didn’t deserve that child and was clearly scum. Thirteen treatment centers and this is the best I had come up with. Forget about the Disease Concept, or about 12-step recovery. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but this false belief only led to more research on my part. When my older son was three, that research turned into a full blown relapse.

I think I had been missing for about two days before my family decided they needed some outside help. Of course, not knowing who else to turn to, they called the Good Doctor in their mistaken belief that only a licensed professional would be of any real service. That call began a two week cat and mouse chase with the Doctor calling the shots. He lured me in with a big piece of cheese and the promise of some serious detox drugs.

He visited me every day in detox. He brought me thong bathing suits and size 24 jeans and told me to try them on. One day he pulled out three mini cereal boxes from his bag: Cocoa Puffs, Honey Smacks, and Fruit Loops. “This is the only coke you’re getting, this is the only smack you’re getting because you’re fruit loops. Now I hope you always remember who gave it to you.” He told me that my family had held a mock funeral for me and my son thought I was dead. He told me that no one cared anymore. He wouldn’t let my parents come see me. He wouldn’t let my child come for a visit. He let me waste away.

I was forced into a local treatment center. My parents didn’t know what else to do, as the Doctor told them this was where I needed to be. And the Doctor told me that he wanted to keep a close eye on me. I knew that he controlled my treatment, that the employees as the center did everything he told them to do. They withheld my food money, they took away my bed sheets, they didn’t allow me to sit in a real chair, etc. etc. The list of oddities they were told to perform for the sake of my getting better is endless. None of it ever really made sense. The real kicker was when the Doctor told the treatment center to kick my ass out on the street. He never told my parents. I had no money and by this point, I was so sick that I was hallucinating.

I was found by the police the next day. When my mother had learned that I was put out on the street, in a crappy part of Miami, she flipped. She filed a missing person’s report and if it wasn’t for that, I’m not sure I would be alive. I don’t remember everything that happened that night. I was, after all, hallucinating and having a full-on break down, but the things that happened that night have never left me. I was in strange hotel rooms. I had no shoes on. I was wearing someone else’s clothes. I was picked up by a group of Hispanic males. I was beaten and raped. I was shot at. I nearly died. And I know that it could be said that none of this would have happened if I hadn’t relapsed that last time, and, believe me, I know, but I can’t help but think that the Doctor wanted something bad to happen to me. He kept telling me that I hadn’t suffered enough yet. He was the one responsible for my well-being. My family had trusted him to keep me safe and help me get well.

I was picked up that morning because the manager of an apartment complex saw me wandering outside of the building. I remember being there because that’s where those men, those foul-mouthed, nasty men, had kicked me out of the car. While it was still moving. I also remember in my confused thinking that if I could just remember my mother’s house number I would be safe. Please remember, I had been off drugs and in treatment for a month and a half. The stress of my situation, that the Doctor had created, forced me into some kind of break with reality. I can only remember bits and pieces from that night. I wish I could remember even less. I was so cold. It was September in Miami. It was anything but cold. I was so thin, so weak. I was so hungry. I just wanted a pillow. Someplace safe to put my head and I was surrounded by scary faces and concrete.

My mom was racing down to Miami in her car when she got the call. The police had found me. I was covered in urine and my own blood. And like a bad dream that just won’t quit, the police took me back to the Doctor’s Office. I don’t remember wanting to go to the hospital. My mom told me she demanded that the Doctor take me there, but he wouldn’t. He just laughed and drove me back to the treatment center. He told my mom to go back home and that he would take care of me. She didn’t yet know all that I had been through. It was another two weeks of hell before I was checked into the hospital. Two weeks of nightmarish hallucinations before I was hooked up to IVs, my blood drawn and checked, sanity restored. I was never able to have a rape kit done. I’d love to put those fuckers in jail. It’s too late now.

In the hospital, as reality started to weigh in on me, I called my mom and she answered the for the first time. She claimed she just knew, knew, that something was really wrong. “Mom, you need to get me out of here. Please. Help me. I can’t stay here. It’s like torture.” I knew I needed to be in treatment. I wasn’t arguing that point. I just needed to be as far away from that Doctor as possible. My mom found COPAC and got me a plane ticket to Jackson, Mississippi. That place healed me. It was tough, caring, loving, hard, and beautiful. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done. Most of all, they believed me. They knew I wasn’t lying about the Doctor. Sometimes it seems like a story too bizarre and too extreme to believe. He kept calling my therapists there. It’s not as though he just disappeared, never to be heard from again. Of course, he didn’t.

But the next time I saw him our situations were completely reversed. . .

He used to carry handfuls of white, oblong pills in his pocket. This scared me because when he sat down they would fall out, leaving the story of where he’d been and what he’d been doing scattered around like crazy, white, mood-altering sprinkles all over the carpet. At least I always knew where he’d been. Whenever we were out with my family, in a doctor’s office, in the living room with a visitor, or even at some random appointment, I would have to pinch him, kick him under the table, address him in a voice dripping with the unsaid “Dude, you better wake the eff up right now or I will tan your hide” to keep him from falling asleep in his soup in the middle of a sentence. He wasn’t allowed to drive. Ever. He fell asleep. At the wheel. Thank God it was in our development, on our street no less, but still. People saw him. They complained to the security guard. Frankly, I don’t blame them. It was horrifying to watch, let alone to be the one who was responsible all the time. Passing out while standing up with the baby in his arms was an occurrence to numerous to count. Thankfully, Baby One only fell on the floor once before I realized I couldn’t leave him alone with the Baby, like, ever. I’ve lived that way for the past two years with him. Constantly monitoring him, being on Red Alert for something, anything, to go wrong. It’s not surprising that the last few weeks without Him were much easier than I had thought they would be.

But now he’s home and he’s a different person altogether. He has kept his word. He has attended a meeting of recovery every day since his arrival. He hasn’t drifted off while telling me something. He hasn’t denied my reality– No, baby, what you’re seeing isn’t real. It’s not there. It’s like this. . . The reality has been no less than fantastic. He hasn’t let me down. I’m impressed, but I’ve always known he’s had it in him. The man I met and fell in love with was this man, not the high, dead one. He works hard. He keeps promises. He is consistent. He is the father to his children.

However, I’m not inside his head. I can’t read his thoughts. Sometimes the internal change we feel takes much longer to see on the outside. And while there is many new and wonderful things to see and feel, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. It will fall, it has to. Is that its shadow I see, falling across the lawn? I’ve realized, over the course of the last few days, that what “they” say is true: the addict’s family gets sick right along with him. Damn those experts for knowing their shit. I guess I need to practice some of that compassionate detachment that “they” are always saying such good things about. Whenever I get a whiff of a behavior that might be something he would have done a few months ago, I feel a rage so overpowering that I need a tranq dart in my neck. Being in this position is just so strange to me. I’ve been on the flip side of this very same coin many a time, but I’ve never been so close to another who has fallen and gotten back up again. I guess I now know how my family has felt for all these years.

I look forward to what may come with my eyes and heart open. The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.

“What’s up, you nasty junkie?” I rarely allowed anyone to speak to me with such candor about what I really was, let alone a man with a white, lab coat framing his physique. His long, black curls were tied back into a ponytail. He wasn’t an attractive man to look at, but he carried with him a kind of charisma that was electric. I knew immediately he had something I wanted and, no, it wasn’t just a prescription pad. He was a recovering addict himself. He was a doctor. He had risen up out of this self-inflicted depravity to become what I had always wanted to be– a doctor. And with this sense of responsibility and maturity, he was still cool. He wasn’t using drugs. That alone had to amount to something. I didn’t know it at the time, but his moral compass was highly fucked.

His office was lined with floor to ceiling windows, allowing the bright, Miami sunshine to flood the room with warmth. It made me wince, as my last shot had been to scratch the residual powder out of the plasticine baggy and I was easily beginning to get sick. His words weren’t particularly kind or generous. He didn’t exactly bring the happy, but he was right. I wasn’t bi-polar, ADD, depressed, or borderline. I was an addict. There was no pill I could take that would fix me, Ibogaine included. What I needed was a jump-start into the recovery process– a few months, without cravings, to work a 12-step program and have a spiritual awakening. Ibogaine could help me with this. Ibogaine could work. But it’s not a magic bullet. I must do the hard work. I was ready. I was willing. I would give this a try with my whole heart.

I probably first knew something wasn’t exactly right with this doctor when I stepped into his office. Situated on the second floor of an already thriving practice he was not a part of, he had the staff of one: a thin, pixie-like girl who chattered incessantly, acted the part of the office coordinator and nurse. Only she held no degrees for either. I was pretty sure drawing blood, taking blood pressure, and hooking me up to heart monitors was a job best left to the professionals, but when I questioned her I was told not to ask. Hey, my ethics were pretty questionable at the time. Who was I to judge anyone?

It was also in the way he spoke to me, only marking that in my file which seemed to be of the utmost importance. His careless, almost relaxed manner wasn’t loosening me up– it was freaking me out and making me nervous. He seemed to disregard most of what I was saying. Listen, I understand this. To a point. I know the old joke: When a junkie’s lips are moving, he’s lying. But I was here at the doctor’s! Revealing my deepest secrets. Baring my soul. Of course, I didn’t need his acceptance, but it was immediately set-up so that I would feel like I needed it. I craved the acceptance of anyone who would throw it my way. I was hardly discriminatory. I wish I’d known that his was the last I would need.

He quickly figured out that I needed to be in detox. Like five minutes ago. He offered the luxury of a very nice facility nearby where he would personally oversee my medical detox. He quickly described the place as being like a hotel with a four star restaurant and it was. It was like no place I’d ever been to. I was treated as a real human being, one with feelings and thoughts and opinions. I was respected.

He visited me every day after he closed his office. He often brought with him snacks or toys or clothes. In retrospect, I realize that this was slightly bizarre. He would enter the facility in his cheerful, breezy way and head right for my file. With barely a glance at the previous night’s notes, he and I would head into my room to sit on my bed and talk. For an hour, sometimes longer, he would regale me with stories of Ibogaine and the people who administered it, prior patients and their “horrible” stories, and bits and pieces of his own life. He was a fantastic storyteller, infusing his words with bright, colorful adjectives, keeping me on the edge of my seat in anticipation. He often told me that I would be somebody. That I had enormous amounts of potential. I wasn’t quite ready to believe him, but I believed that he believed.

The experiences I had on Ibogaine are too vast and detailed to recount here. It would definitely have to be a story unto itself for another time. For now, I had planned on focusing on my relationship with the Doctor. It’s long and complicated, often boring at times, but one that due to recent events, is begging for me to tell it. Suffice it to say, I had a 180 degree transformation on Ibogaine– a total spiritual experience, only completed by the appearance of God. To say it was amazing, would somehow not be enough.

Shortly after returning from St. Kitts, I had amassed enough consecutive days of “clean time” and I began working for the Good Doctor. This fit perfectly with my Plan for Life, as I had recently taken a break from my medical school studies. I wanted to be a doctor and he basically let me run the office and intake patients. At night, I kept the cell phone and pager and answered middle of the night phone calls from desperate addicts. I checked patients in, took their blood pressure, administered B-12 shots, and drew vials of blood. I fancied myself quite the professional woman. The doctor and I became closer. I thought of him as a sort of pseudo father-figure and he often told me I was his best friend. Meanwhile, he struck up a sexual relationship with MY best friend and his ex-patient.

I think everyone has a voice in the back of their head. I believe it’s the conscience, but it’s also been referred to as the gut instinct or hunch. Rarely does it lie, often it is the only voice of reason. During this time, my conscience spoke to me on a regular basis. It told me that this situation was inordinately fucked. A good doctor doesn’t screw his patients, ex or not. A good doctor doesn’t befriend his patients. A good doctor doesn’t hire his patients as employees. But I didn’t like what my conscience was telling me, so I ignored it.

A good time later, he had convinced my parents that I must go retake Ibogaine or I would surely relapse again. This did not fit with my belief system that Ibogaine is not a magic bullet. That in order to stay sober, I needed to attend 12-step meetings, work the steps, and get a sponsor. Ibogaine was great, but it wasn’t it. It didn’t matter. I had to go back. This time, while lying in my bed, essentially tripping my very face off, the good doctor kissed me. On the lips. I can’t begin to describe how violating this felt. I was incapacitated in a hospital bed. He had no right. Once I returned home to the States, I began to pull away from him. I knew that something was not quite right and I couldn’t justify hanging around someone with morals as low as his. The relationship he was in with my best friend had soured and he treated her like crap. He had disregarded her as a person, had imposed his will on her, and forced her into situations she wasn’t entirely comfortable with. But it wasn’t just that that made me begin to cut ties with him. I had met and had started dating my now-husband while I was working for this man. This doctor, this supposed healer, would tell me lies about my then-boyfriend, now-husband. He was gay. He didn’t like me. He was not good enough for me. On and on went the lies. I never once believed him and now he was just making me angry.

Shortly after the good doctor started dating a porn star, I decided I’d had enough of this circus and decided to quit, cut all ties with him, and get out while I still could. I had no idea that he would continue to pop up in my life, trying to ruin what I had now built. The last time I had seen this man, he nearly killed me. I highly doubt he was trying to. Imagine the lawsuit! But his incompetence, his flagrant disrespect for the Hippocratic Oath, and his drug use all combined to result in some of the worst things that have ever happened to me. Ever. And I’ve been through hell.

To be continued. . .

Many, many years ago, during the depths of my addiction, I met a doctor who would change the face of medicine for me (many times over, in fact). It was the first time I really wanted to get clean. I wanted something different, a better life, and I knew it had to be without drugs. I had just been discharged from another treatment center, overdosed and ended up in the hospital, ran away to Chicago and was living in a Crack Motel selling my soul for just one more hit. Lovely way to start a story, hmm? My mother, headed to a conference on Plants that Heal, called me up to beg me not to die until she returned home. A fairly simple request for anyone other than me at that time. So many mornings I would wake up, crack open my eyes, and think, “Crap. Another day in hell.”

While at the conference, which was dealing with plants that might be beneficial in healing various diseases and illnesses like Cancer and Hepatitis C, my sweet, strong mother asked a question that would forever alter the path of my life. She raised her hand, not expecting anyone to have an answer, “Do you think there are any plants that might help cure addiction?” Much to her surprise, there came an answer. Clouded in mystery, a man simply told her that he knew someone who knew someone who knew a professor at the University of Miami who was studying just that. He told my mother he would call her when he returned home. In two weeks. An interminable amount of time when your daughter is 2000 miles away in a motel room dying.

Back at home, my mother sat at her desk, her head in her hands and wept. She felt she had reached the end of what she was able to handle. She could do nothing more to save me than offer her hand, which I patently refused. The phone rang and it was that man! He was finally calling with the number and explicit instructions that when she called, she must speak in code. My mother soon found a vast well of hope that would give her the strength to try helping me one more time. She was immediately put on with the doctor studying the effects of Ibogaine on addiction. Officially, Ibogaine is a sacrament taken by the Bwiti tribe in equatorial West Africa on High Holy Days. It is also a very strong hallucinogen which produces a dream-like state in which the user is able to see visions. These visions can be from times in his/her life or they can be a sort of spiritual experience. Whatever it is, it has a much higher success rate than the more traditional treatment modalities.

My mother and this kind, amazing, smart doctor devised a way to entice me to Miami to get me on a plane to St. Kitts. It is illegal here in the United States and has the potential to be quite dangerous for the wrong person. In order to be accepted into their treatment protocol, a patient must undergo a set of rigorous tests. Needless to say, I wasn’t immediately taken with the idea. I had tried everything and nothing had worked. I had given up. I had resigned myself to a life of pure hell and a fairly early death. I was not scared of death; I pretty much welcomed it. But all that quickly changed after I had talked with a few Iboganauts, as they’re called, who had taken Ibogaine and could tell me just how amazing and other-worldly it really was. I heard from them things like:

• I have a peace about me which I never had.
• It started in my solar plexus, this warmth, that just resonated in every cell of my being.
• I have seen God and my life is good. No, not just good, but spectacular.
• I now have a reason to live. A reason for being.
• I feel steady, sure of myself. I don’t want to use again.

These were things I had always wanted, always searched for, but could never get. These were things I wanted for my life. I simply had to try. I was going to make this my last shot and I was going to put everything into it. I left that Crack Motel on a sunny, warm, Chicago day and boarded a plane for home. I picked up my every last belonging and dumped it into the dumpster out back. I left a note for the person I had been living with:

Went to go find myself. Not sure if I’ll ever be back here. Good Luck with all this.

The next day I would meet the doctor, the man, whose life would become so inextricably linked to mine that no matter how hard I try to forget him, he just won’t disappear. An abuser so vicious he would be permanently filed in my brain under Worst Nightmare Ever. And all this from a man licensed as a care-giver.

To be continued. . .