I’ve spent over 50 years walking alongside individuals and families in the recovery process—as a physician, a listener, and a lifelong student of human transformation.
My path began in Chicago, where I completed my undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Illinois. After further training in Madison, Wisconsin, I practiced family medicine but found myself increasingly drawn to the field of addiction. By the early 1980s, before addiction medicine was formally recognized, I made the leap full-time. Since then, I’ve served as medical director at treatment centers in both Wisconsin and Georgia, and for over two decades, maintained a private addiction medicine practice. In 2023, I retired as the Medical Director at The Berman Center in Atlanta.
Throughout my career, I’ve been fascinated not just by clinical recovery, but by the deeper emotional and spiritual journey it asks of each person. That fascination led me to write The Twelve Step Pathway: A Heroic Journey of Recovery, which reframes the 12 Steps through the lens of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. I’ve found this narrative approach helps clients, and those who serve them, see addiction recovery not as failure or disease alone, but as a powerful, redemptive process of becoming.
In addition to The Twelve Step Pathway, I’ve written Seeking a Higher Power: A Guide to the Second Step, and an earlier work of fiction, Autobiography of a Georgia Cat. Retirement has given me the time to write more, speak more, and listen more deeply to the stories of people doing this work.
I believe recovery is a sacred story, and that we grow by sharing ours. I welcome conversation, collaboration, and the chance to help others frame their healing not just as a process, but as a purpose.
Let’s talk.
