People don't understand.
People don't understand addiction, and in particular, opioid addiction is the most misunderstood.
All I was doing was prescribing in a manner that was outside the norm.
But nothing I was doing was against any regulation or rule, certainly not against any law.
And yet I have been treated with no hint of the compassion that I was given before when I was a real criminal.
You're listening to love and radio.
I'm Nick van der Kolk.
Today's episode, the boys will work it out, part two.
I went to medical school through the National Health Corps scholarship, and then I had to pay back by spending four years practicing in an underserved area.
So I went off to northwest Missouri.
I remember my residency as some of the happiest years of my life.
It was thrilling learning to be a doctor, learning how to do what I had wanted to do during that time.
Also, I was having a lot of trouble with drinking.
I was mostly in the gay bars.
Then I was dating a drag queen.
We both wore the same size in lingerie, so we were a perfect couple.
I was drinking either scotch or white wine, and if it was scotch, I would drink a fifth in a night.
If it was wine, I would drink one of those four liter boxes in a night.
I was also self prescribing diet pills.
It was an amphetamine like drug.