COM Outlook Winter 2019

10 | DR. KIRAN C. PATEL COLLEGE OF OSTEOPATHIC MEDICINE much riskier behaviors on the weekends, including ingesting cocaine, LSD, and MDMA (commonly known as ecstasy or “Molly”). Not surprisingly, Chapman’s academic prowess soon diminished. “I earned a 66 on my first anatomy exam and failed psychiatry in the second year. I almost got kicked out of school,” he said. “I based my rotations on if they drug tested or not.” Trapped in a cycle of drug abuse—and in danger of squandering everything he had worked so hard to attain, Chapman said he did the bare minimum to get by. After graduating from the KPCOM in 2006, he set his sights on a military career with the United States Air Force (USAF). “I knew they drug tested in the military, so I decided to stop doing drugs, although I continued to drink heavily,” he said. As a member of the Air Force Reserve, Chapman spent three years doing his family practice residency at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida. Disaster struck midway through, however, when his father unexpectedly passed away, sending him spiral- ing into an orgy of opioid use. “Despite being a poor role model, my father was my best friend. I was deva- stated when he died,” said Chapman. “I made a con- scious decision to start using my Drug Enforcement Administration license to obtain narcotics to numb the pain. Suddenly, opioids became my whole world. I quickly got hooked, and by the time I entered the USAF for active duty in 2009, I was barely functioning.” Chapman’s USAF appointment as medical director at the Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana should have been an exciting professional milestone. Instead, his life was unraveling before his eyes as he pilfered pills and forged prescrip- tions to feed his now raging opioid addiction. “When 40 Percocet tablets didn’t get me high anymore, I started injecting Opana®, Dilaudid®, Demerol®, and morphine. “My life was spiraling out of control,” Chapman said. “I was hospitalized three times for cellulitis, and I almost lost my left leg. I was even shooting up crushed pills I snuck into the hospital,” he disclosed with brutal frankness. “I was a worthless husband, father, and airman for the USAF.” Crippled by the agonizing withdrawal symptoms that accompanied his futile efforts to go cold turkey, his addiction raged unchecked. “I was simply too ashamed to ask for help,” he admitted. The High Price of Getting High Chapman’s risky behavior and impaired decision- making eventually caught up with him. In 2013, it set off a confluence of events that resulted in a military investigation. “I was removed from patient care and forbidden from prescribing anything to anyone,” Chap- man said. “Suddenly, my opioid supply was eliminated.” To satisfy his intense cravings, Chapman resorted to buying pills on the street. As he continued his perilous descent toward rock bottom, he concocted a strategy to end his life. “I became suicidal and wrote goodbye letters,” he admitted. “While writing the final letter to my daughter, I was touched by a spirit- ual presence that forced me to step back and examine exactly what I was doing. This ‘moment of clarity’ allowed me to finally ask for help.” In February 2014, Chapman entered a rehab facil- ity for a four-month stay. By the time he left in June, however, the sobering repercussions of his prolonged criminal activities loomed large. “When I got out of rehab, I was court-martialed and pled guilty to various drug-related charges,” he acknowledged. What followed was a demoralizing 212-day stay in a Charleston, South Carolina, military prison that tested the limits of Chapman’s sanity. “Prison was the best, and worst, thing that has ever happened to me. Being stripped of my status, my profession, and my family literally broke me as a human being,” he said. “I had to have everything taken from me to appreciate how blessed I already was. Halfway through my sentence, my depression, along with my obsession to use, finally From left in early 2010: K Rose (daughter), Stefanie (wife), J Foster, Jr. (son), and J Foster Chapman, Sr.