Confessions of a Vancouver Doctor

The Path to Freedom

Tenth Church’s current sermon series has truly provided me with food for thought in my role as a doctor working for a Vancouver hospital.

My work guarantees me exposure to patients of addiction. We often admit them into the hospital to treat diseases that are a consequence of their lifestyles—poor coping skills and difficult socioeconomic circumstances. Withdrawal symptoms often make my patients aggressive and agitated and I often order more narcotics for them so that they can rest from their withdrawal (and stop bothering the nurses on the wards).

Methadone is the gold standard treatment for withdrawal from heroin and other related narcotic drugs. So, as a tool to help bridge with these patients, I recently attended a Methadone course.

I learned that the most common addictive drug with the worst consequence is by far alcohol. And studies have found that neither drug control tactics nor prevention methods have been able to decrease drug addiction. The only intervention that has shown benefit is treatment of the addiction with rehabilitation. So even though methadone decreases mortality from drug addiction, patients still need rehabilitation in other aspects of life in order to reach a full lifestyle change.

Guess which program was the single most effective tool in improving patient's quality of life? Indeed, the 12-Step Alcoholics Anonymous program—the very program off of which Tenth Church is basing its current sermon series!

In the Methadone workshop, I learned that Steps 5 and 9 are the two pinnacle stages that make the largest difference for patients:

Step 5—We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

Step 9—We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

In God's perfect timing, Jade Holownia recently preached about Step 5: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.

And as I reflect on the 12-Step program, Step 9 reminds me of Matthew 5: 23-24, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

So as I sat through the methadone course, I was humbled by the enthusiasm of the speakers—all addiction medicine specialists. They agreed that addiction is one of the most rewarding fields as they witness the transformation of their patients. The statement that moved me the most was, "I love this job because these people, our patients, are people that nobody else wants to work with. Yet I get to see them change into inspiring people."

I felt ashamed that I had previously avoided working with patients of addiction. I had thought of them as needy, unreliable, and often non-compliant. Yet the methadone course, together with Jade's sermon made me realize that I myself am also needy, unreliable, and often non-compliant to God's Will for me.

How could I think of myself different from these patients I encounter? Jesus died on the cross for them and for me. I pray that I too will see my life long rehabilitation under God's amazing grace.

Katherine Chow is a Respiratory Medicine Doctor in Vancouver and Chilliwack. She is also a member of Tenth Church.