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• THE END OF MY ADDICTION BOOK DRIVER

And my social life was wonderfully stimulating-more so than I could imagine having anywhere else. My patient roster included wealthy and celebrated people along with Harlem church ladies on Medicare or Medicaid and the indigent, and I liked that mix.

If not profitable, my practice was at least busy and my work enormously rewarding. citizenship, and it pleased me to be a citizen of a country with so many shared ideals with my country of origin. My cost-blind practice style might function better in France's universal health care system than in the United States, I thought, and I wondered if I should relocate back to Paris, where I was from. What I really needed was a small business adviser, not a big corporate dealmaker.Īs I left Jeff's apartment, my mind whirled with conflicting thoughts. Although he was eager to help, there was a mismatch between his expertise and my problems. My conversation with Jeff Steiner had been frustrating for us both. "Run the video of what happens when you drink" was something I'd been hearing in Alcoholics Anonymous, where I was still very much a newcomer. Lying there, I ran the video of the evening in my mind. Matt was not the kind of person to talk about it that was some comfort. I cringed at the thought of my appearance in the ER being discussed around the hospital, then pushed the thought out of my mind. He was plainly even more embarrassed to treat me in my drunken state than I was to need treatment. He did and then left me to lie quietly for a few hours so I could sober up enough to walk home safely. So as not to be left with a scar, I asked him to use Steri-Strips instead. When I came to, one of my ex-students, Matt, now a resident, was standing over me preparing to stitch the wound in my forehead. Inside the emergency room, I passed out again. Thirteen and a half years later, I was a clinical associate professor of medicine at Cornell and an associate attending physician at New York Hospital, in addition to running my private practice. But at least I know the place is well run and will fix me up right." I had been associated with New York Hospital and its partner institution, Cornell University Medical College,* ever since I arrived from France in the fall of 1983 to do research and clinical fellowships in cardiology. Staggering into the emergency room, I thought, "They will see I'm drunk. And almost three years later, in March 1997, there it remained-hovering a little over the break-even point. The standard expectation is that it will take a new medical practice two years to break even. But my mounting concerns about my practice finances had changed that. He'd known me only to have a few drinks at large parties, here and there, over the years. Much later I learned that Jeff was not aware that I had been drinking heavily. I asked for and drank a glass of Scotch, then made a show of declining a refill. "Why doesn't he offer me an alcoholic drink as well at this hour?" I thought.

I'd been introduced to Jeff in the late 1980s by a mutual friend, another physician.Īlthough I'd intended not to drink that evening, I felt insulted when Jeff's butler offered me a choice of teas. I had visited my friend Jeff Steiner, the CEO of Fairchild Corporation, to ask his advice on running my cardiology practice, which I'd started two and a half years before. Had the cab braked suddenly so that I hit my head, or had I been injured in some other way before I hailed it? I knew I'd been drinking, but not where or how much.Īs the cab pulled up in front of the hospital emergency room entrance, a memory of the evening began to come together. He seemed oblivious to my condition, and I wondered what had happened.

THE END OF MY ADDICTION BOOK DRIVER

I asked the driver to take me to the emergency room at New York Hospital, at 68th Street and York Avenue. My apartment was not too far away, on East 63rd Street between York and First Avenues, but I needed medical attention. The few people on the street were buttoned up against the late winter chill, but it was warm in the cab. The church on the corner reminded me it was Sunday, and I looked at my watch. I looked out the window and in the glow of the streetlights saw the cab was on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, waiting for the light to change at 76th Street. I CAME TO MY SENSES and took stock of where I was: in a cab, with blood streaming down my face and spattering my trench coat.