A combination of life experiences led Steven Eickelberg to become a physician and an addiction psychiatrist. He knew he wanted to be a doctor by the time he reached junior high, he says: He enjoyed science, his mother was a nurse, and a family friend — a “kind, generous, and warm” small-town doctor — influenced Eickelberg deeply.
But one factor was pivotal: In 1987, Eickelberg, by then practicing primary care and occupational medicine in Oregon, entered treatment for his own opioid and alcohol addiction. It wasn’t the stresses of the profession that sparked the problem, he says: “It was my own natural propensity to addiction — something in my brain.”
Experts were just starting to recognize addiction’s neurobiological roots when Eickelberg made his recovery and took a year off to re-evaluate his life. Today, scientific awareness has transformed the field, and as medical director of the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, he’s working hard to help doctors understand both the physiology and the psychology of the disease and the process of recovery.
[For more of this story, written by Cynthia Rubin, go to http://www.palmspringslife.com...MD-Top-Doctors-2015/]
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