FACE OF AN ADDICT

[Music] the regimen i adopt shall be for the benefit of my patience according to my ability and judgment and not for their hurt or for any wrong i will give no deadly drug to any though it be asked of me nor will i counsel such the office of dr james carter stone but this call will not be answered a patient probably someone who wants the doctor to see him but tonight there are a number of things the doctor prefers not to see i am robert wake i want to talk to you about narcotic addiction not the street addict as he is known to the police not the invalid who might become addicted through the continuous use of drugs in the relief of pain but the professionals in the field of medicine doctors nurses pharmacists dentists trained intelligent people who become addicts chiefly through their failure to understand the danger too many canadian doctors have a history of addiction it is a sad loss to canadian medicine and to these men and their families it is a deep and personal tragedy each of these men would have sworn that it could not happen to him but it did and to many it ruined the life and career of the victim a career that might have been a far happier and a different story a story that started out in all probability like that of young jim stone [Music] i guess you're not quite sure how you feel that first day in a new practice scared lucky determined too not a student or an intern anymore but a doctor somebody needed and relied on james carter stone md in a way i was lucky at some with old doc kelso a friend of the family i was walking into a practice he had taken years to build up not that my marks at medical school didn't help they did but a full partner and a growing suburban practice like this well it was a break one that would give dr kelso some of the rest we've been trying to get for years and one that would get me off to a healthy start it wasn't going to be easy in 12 months i was going to have to try to achieve what he had been working at for 20 years prove i knew my job make them really confident in my abilities do what he seemed to do almost without trying [Music] doctor's ready for you mrs when you graduate from medical school you finished a period of intensive study of diseases you're keen to treat and cure people of these diseases but you don't realize is that a lot of these people don't need your treatment they're not suffering from any of those wonderful diseases you studied they just want to talk and talk and talk [Music] you've probably spent two to five years in a hospital and people in the hospital are usually genuinely sick consequently when someone phones and says it's an emergency you think it is and you dash head long into it [Music] half the time it's too much to eat or a common cold well indigestion i don't feel too bad about jim genuine emergencies are rare patient in emergency really has to be blue whether from obstruction of the airway heart failure or unconsciousness due to an accident trouble is the patient's family don't know what a real emergency is you know it took me nearly five years to hit a balance between all that i wanted to do and what seemed to be sensibly possible so uh take it easy hey doctor we need you [Music] it's not that easy to relax when you're handling a busy practice i wasn't just trying to measure up to dr kelso standards and my own there were other doctors in the area he simply stayed on top of the game or else [Music] still that dude i just thought i'd finish up mr latimer and he's working the cargo report look jim uh alice and i are going into town tonight why don't you come along i'm all right bob now let me take a rain check on that eh okay [Music] don't overdo it will you good night bob [Music] relax don't overdo it good advice but who can afford to take it you're working perhaps a 70-hour week and when you're not working you're studying try to keep up with the new developments part of it's your own drive you wanna make good but it's not what you'd call conducive to social life [Music] i did get out the very next evening for the usual reasons a four-year-old with an earache a night watchman who had fallen and cut his hand mrs callahan false labor pains well she'd be okay until morning you tell yourself not to over identify with your patients but there are patients like mrs callahan the first pregnancy you see what it means to husband and wife and gradually it begins to mean something to you it really matters and when they lose the baby somehow you feel you're at fault you're not in a breech case you may decide to ask for help but it's not mandatory so you go ahead it's just damn bad luck [Music] [Applause] that day mrs callaghan lost her baby i had 14 other people to see house calls that invariably seemed on the other side of town office calls and telephone calls when it was all over a report on those x-rays of mrs winters [Music] three o'clock in spite of two pentabarbitals i was tense and awake as usual the day's events were pounding in my head i couldn't afford these recurring headaches i had to get some sleep i had to relax [Music] shall be for the benefit of my patience according to my ability and judgment and not for their hurt or for any wrong for the benefit of my patients patients that needed me it's just a temporary measure after all under a physician's supervision [Music] mine [Music] so [Music] [Music] uh [Music] this weekend i'd get a real rest well i just don't think i can do it fred this is cartwright's weekend yes i know but i'm feeling pretty rough myself i know you've been putting in long hours taken to the general no i'll make it somehow you think you can just shut the door on responsibilities but you can't i was out in my feet but there were people counting on me i had to shake that drowsiness and look after them in a couple of days i could rearrange things slacking off a bit right now for the next 48 hours i had to keep going somehow [Music] i did keep going a week later in spite of dr kelso's more frequent absences it was business as usual at the office i had found a way to beat the daily grind uh remember mr kowalski these are narcotics you know drugs perfectly safe if you use them exactly as i've marked down they will stop the pain but you must use them carefully just as i've written here otherwise they're dangerous you understand i i think so i guess there was no real contradiction between my warning to kowalski in my own actions one vital fact made all the difference by training and knowledge i knew what i was doing this way i was handling the job coping accomplishing work i couldn't have begun to do otherwise as for the patients mrs jerkins is here dr stone i'll be tied up about five minutes mr slogan would you ask her to wait please very well doctor maybe it was a bit offside but my patients needed me the important thing was to keep control i was careful i gave myself no more than a stabilizing dose just enough so that i could cope the dosages were small and i took them only when necessary [Music] doctor will you see mrs jergens now dr stone uh miss logan i'm afraid i'll have to cancel the rest of this afternoon's appointments especially ask mrs to come this afternoon doctor and she has a babysitter yes i forgot i'll make her the last mrs jenkins the doctor will see you now oh uh come in mrs jergens i'll just get this out of the way how when must have been when i but damn it i didn't feel a thing a doctor treating other people's pain can't even feel pain himself [Applause] [Music] all right then i was hooked but there was no one i could talk to no way to turn i was riding a tiger alone [Music] as a doctor you're authorized but you have to be careful you issue prescriptions with false names you take them to out of the way drug stores did you say you're in a hurry to deliver it yourself you've got to have the stuff because if you don't you hear me doctor something wrong uh no that's this is fine mr kowalski uh keep it up uh see me next week the patients got stupider every day they couldn't seem to understand the simplest things and miss logan was on their side always plaguing me with details when all i wanted was for her to get out of there [Music] my jim you've been handling things more than i have recently what's this what's what health and welfare they're wondering about the rise in our narcotics all right i'll be writing to them all the time i told you about mrs arnold yes i know i know so they have written twice and since you haven't replied you know the government yeah well i'll get an answer off tonight that's fine fine you know i can't quite figure let's have a look at the file i'll check those over above tonight that's all right just wondering look i'm pretty busy right now bob i'd prefer to do this tonight you're doing too much night work i can wrap this up in 20 minutes i didn't have 20 minutes i needed that shot five minutes ago i was going into withdrawal symptoms [Music] but bob i'll do that oh no it's all right i hope you were busy strange what's the matter jim jim what's up you've been doing too much lately [Music] jim all right all right all right [Music] james carter stone md a doctor who once had a future a doctor who is so sure it could not happen to him that he forgot there is no such thing as a stabilizing dose invariably those who start to take drugs failed to appreciate sufficiently the vital factors of tolerance physical dependence and habituation they simply do not stop to think that with repeated administration more and more of the drug is required to obtain the original effect they forget that their altered physiological condition will demand continuous use of the drug in order to prevent the characteristic illness known as the abstinence syndrome they forget that the substitution of the drug for other types of adaptive behavior means that more and more they will become physically dependent upon the drug this was jim stone's tragedy even without the arrival of dr kelso stone would have been caught in the routine and continuing cross-checks on narcotics supplies by the department of national health and welfare now instead of helping his patients as he had wished he left them without the support they needed he was guilty of breaking the law and he was a sick man in this case the law did not prosecute to the full extent and at the request of his family and dr kelso psychiatric and other treatment was made available all of this at considerable expense but there is no royal road to recovery from addiction it is a rocky painful path and it took one full year out of gemstones working life i'd learned my lesson i had to sell the car that was okay if i lost money at least i could profit from experience i knew my limitations now from here on i had it all figured out [Music] hello there anyone in dr stone oh mrs callahan yes well i've been away i see congratulations well i'm sure everything will be all right this time dr kelso well it's good of you to say that mrs callahan yes well i would recommend very well mrs callahan i'll be right over all right you have to expect those things just because she lost one baby doesn't mean she'll lose this one i can succeed she'll see she'll have reason to believe in me all i have to do is relax take it easy i can prove myself all i need is a small stabilizer just keep me steady just to keep me going [Music] that's right gemstone didn't make it some a small minority managed to fight their way back but gemstone went down why the full story isn't known maybe it will never be known but one thing is certain for gemstone the improper use of narcotics spell destruction the tragedy of his story is compounded by the realization that narcotics are among the most useful of modern medical devices properly used they are highly beneficial indeed they are indispensable to the practice of medicine but there is only one answer to narcotic addiction don't start [Music] you