FREE “Prescription for Redemption: A Doctor Recovers from Opiate Addiction” presentation at New Bedford Whaling Museum, November 15

The harrowing and moving sotry of how Dr. Peterson Grinspoon overcame his addiction to become a more compassionate doctor and even came to counsel other physicians struggling with addiction.FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC: Tuesday, November 15 at 6:30 pm at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, join us for a free special presentation, Prescription for Redemption: A Doctor Recovers from Opiate Addiction. By any measure, Dr. Peter Grinspoon was a success: a Harvard-educated M.D. with a thriving practice; two great kids and an accomplished wife; a pillar of his community. However, beneath that picture-perfect façade, he was an addict secretly consuming dangerous amounts of prescription medication every day. And when two detectives showed up at his office after a suspicious pharmacist busted him for filling a prescription in the name of his eighteen-year-old nanny, the façade crumbled.

Listen to his experience on both sides of doctor rehab which has taught him that an oversight system that defaults to sanctions and punishment keeps addicted doctors from getting treatment, which is the worst-case scenario for them and their patients. Fortunately, society has begun to shift from viewing addiction as a moral failing that deserves punishment to understanding it as a disease that can be successfully treated. That’s no less true for physicians than for everyone else. His book, FREE REFILLS, A DOCTOR CONFRONTS HIS ADDICTION, is brutally honest but shows there is hope to overcome addiction with humility, empathy, and patience.

PETER GRINSPOON, M.D., currently practices as a primary care physician at an inner-city clinic in Boston and is on staff at Massachusetts General Hospital. He teaches medicine at Harvard Medical School. He spent two years as an Associate Director for the Physician Health Service, part of the Massachusetts Medical Society, working with physicians who suffer from substance use disorders.

Dr. Grinspoon graduated with honors in philosophy from Swarthmore College. Before medical school, he spent five years as a Campaign Director at Greenpeace, working on the nuclear free seas campaign. He attended medical school at Boston University School of Medicine. His internship and residency were in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Today he is proudly nine years clean. He lives in Newton, MA with his wife Liz Grinspoon, and his blended family.

Sponsors: Physicians to Prevent Opioid Abuse, Nurses to Prevent Opioid Abuse, Young People in Recovery-Dartmouth, New Bedford Wellness Initiative, Hawthorn Medical Associates, LLC and Southcoast Health.

Also, LA Time Op-ED by Dr. Grinspoon:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-grinspoon-addicted-doctors-20160605-snap-story.html
Website: www.petergrinspoon.com