From Harvard to Hell...and Back: A Doctor¿s Journey through Addiction to Recovery

by Sylvester Sviokla, Kerry Zukus

Overview

A Harvard-educated doctor loses everything, but gains his life. Now he bring the message of recovery to other addicts.

Dr. Sylvester "Skip" Sviokla lived life as a successful, driven, athletic, and brilliant graduate of Harvard Medical School, reveling in wealth and glamour as a "celebrity doctor" until addiction brought his life crashing down. This real-life "Dr. House" had it all (he thought) until addiction took everything. Miraculously, recovery gave him back his family, his self-respect, and much more.

The media is filled with celebrity addiction stories, so people will be drawn to the author’s experience as a “doctor to the stars.” Having attended the most famous university and medical school in the world, Dr. Sviokla’s story will also be relevant to a larger audience, including medical professionals and those seeking answers about addiction.

Sylvester "Skip" Sviokla III, MD, is a 1967 graduate of Harvard College (where he was a two-year starter on the football team, culminating in his receiving one vote for the 1966 Heisman Trophy and an offer to try out for the Chicago Bears) and a 1972 graduate of Harvard Medical School. He was owner and medical director of Skip Sviokla Entertainment Medicine, Inc. and of Medical Weight Management, Inc., in Massachusetts.

Kerry Zukus is an alumnus of Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied composition and arranging while appearing as an actor in theaters all over New England.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781937612290
Publisher:	Central Recovery Press, LLC
Publication date:	07/16/2013
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dr. Sylvester "Skip" Sviokla III is a 1967 graduate of Harvard College (where he was a two-year starter on the football team, culminating in his receiving one vote for the 1966 Heisman Trophy and an offer to try out for the Chicago Bears) and a 1972 graduate of Harvard Medical School. He was owner and medical director of Skip Sviokla Entertainment Medicine, Inc. and of Medical Weight Management, Inc., in Massachusetts. Additionally, he has served as an emergency room director, a chief of occupational medicine, and a vice-president of outpatient services in a number of hospitals.

In more recent years, since his struggle with substance abuse and the loss and eventual reinstatement of his medical license, he has received certification from the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Addiction Medicine. He is a staff orientation speaker for Rhode Island Hospital, where he talks to incoming physicians about the perils of substance abuse and addiction in the medical community. He is the medical director of several methadone clinics in Rhode Island and co-owns a substance abuse clinic dedicated to helping others get well and reclaim their lives.

He is the proud husband of Maurine and the father of daughters Katherine, twin daughters Nicole and Amanda, and son Chip (aka Sylvester Sviokla IV). He is also the gratified grandpa to seven wonderful grandchildren who love him dearly and have never seen him impaired.


Kerry Zukus' debut novel, The Fourth House (2007), was a Featured Selection of the Book of the Month Club, the Doubleday Book Club, and the Literary Guild, divisions of Random House/Doubleday Entertainment, where it sold out its first two printings. The Fourth House was named a finalist for the prestigious James Jones Award, given annually to the best first novel by an American author.

Kerry is an alumnus of Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied composition and arranging while appearing as an actor in theaters all over New England. He is also the co-author of Paul Rusesabagina: Hollywood's Make-Believe Hero, with Édouard Kayihura, a memoir and critical deconstruction of the heralded Hollywood movie Hotel Rwanda.

He lives in Little Silver, New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Foreword Jon E. Grant vii

A Letter from My Daughter xi

Chapter 1 Pills on the Floor 1

Chapter 2 Golden Boy 19

Chapter 3 The Summer of Love 35

Chapter 4 The Deepest Cut 53

Chapter 5 Doctor to the Stars 67

Chapter 6 Losses and Gains 79

Chapter 7 Idle Hands, Bulging with Cash 89

Chapter 8 Down in the Gutter, Up on the Roof 97

Chapter 9 Mr. Skip 119

Chapter 10 On the Road to Rhode Island 129

Chapter 11 The Rebirth of Dr. Skip 145

Epilogue 157

Editorial Reviews

This book is riveting and insightful, capturing the reader in the devastation of Dr. Sviokla's addiction and the inspiration of his recovery. —David C. Lewis, MD, Founder, Brown UniversityCenter for Alcohol and Addiction Studies

From the Publisher