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Transition

Posted on February 19, 2023, tagged as news

After somewhat in excess of fifty years, I am finally giving up the clinical practice of medicine. I closed my private practice in 2019, but have continued as the Medical Director of the Berman Center, an Intensive Out-Patient and Partial Hospitalization Program in Atlanta where we treat both addictive and mental health disorders. My last day at the Berman Center will be February 28, 2023. As I look back, I have immense gratitude for the opportunity to share in the struggles of what must be thousands of people, some of whom have told me that I made a difference in their lives. On February 24 I am receiving a Lifetime Service Award from the Caron Foundation in Atlanta. It seems to me that the two main and obviously related criteria for such an award are that one must work for a very long time, and not die before the Awards Breakfast. However, the concept of retirement does not apply, because I have a new career as an author. Although I did publish Autobiography of a Georgia Cat in 2004, I then gave up writing, finding that it took up too much of my time. My plan was to resume writing after retirement from clinical practice. Closing my office gave me the needed time to resume writing, this time not a novel but a non-fiction book in my field of addiction. I am pleased to announce that my book, The Twelve Step Pathway: A Heroic Journey of Recovery, will be published by Rowman & Littlefield this fall. As time goes on I will post further information. The book is the first in-depth treatment of the convergence of the Twelve Steps with the Heroic Journey, and I hope it will find a receptive audience. As always, my goal in life has been to help others, and I believe many people will find this book a useful user’s manual to have in their recovery tool kit.