Living Jonathan's Life: A Doctor's Descent into Darkness and Addiction

Description

A true story of identical twin brothers, each fighting similar physical and emotional battles. One would lose his life; the other would nearly self-destruct. The day I watched my identical twin brother die before my eyes, I experienced a loss that was devastating and without comparison. With his passing, I lost much more than a best friend, a confidante, and a brother; I lost a human mirror, a reflection into which I had always been able to look and from which I could gain strength. When Jonathan died, that once-radiant mirror turned black as stone. I could no longer see myself as I did before, let alone see myself living without him. His disease had claimed me, too. Wracked with guilt that he, an aspiring medical student, couldn't save his brother and plagued with nagging questions about the twin he thought he knew, Scott Davis, M.D., turned to what he knew could cure all: a pill. And then another, and another, until even they couldn't numb the pain--the same kind of pains in the same places that his brother, Jonathan, experienced as he was dying. The phantom pains baffled medical experts, who tried surgery and morphine to no avail. When Dr. Davis began writing prescriptions for himself, it was only a matter of time before he was discovered and his world came crashing down. Ironically, it was his brother's words--in a stack of hidden poems stashed away--that showed Scott the way back to the life he knew and the brother he hadn't. Living Jonathan's Life is a riveting, heartfelt tapestry of brotherly love and bonds, of family ties and self-renewal, that will strike a chord with anyone who has loved and lost.

Scott M. Davis, M.D., is an internist and addiction medicine specialist. A graduate of Boston University School of Medicine, Dr. Davis has served as the only full-time Addiction Medicine Physician in the world renowned Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage. Dr. Davis is widely regarded as a leading expert in the field of addiction medicine, garnering requests from numerous professional organizations including the California Board of Registered Nursing, American Society for Addiction Medicine (ASAM), and the U.S. Government's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). At the Betty Ford Center, he developed a protocol for opiate detoxification, which has become recognized as the national model of treatment for opiate addiction. He has been published in The Journal of Addictive Diseases, The American Journal of Cardiology, and Men's Health magazines.