Unlike Dr. Angeluzzi, Dr. Junig was caught before his addiction ruined any lives except his own.
Dr. Junig was already a star when he arrived
at the University of Rochester medical school in 1982.
Knowing that he's being watched, Dr. Junig figures, can only help him keep an eye on himself.
After he was caught stealing drugs in 2001,
Dr. Junig realized he could never trust himself around narcotics again.
At least this wasn't his day off, Dr. Junig told himself as he slumped miserably on the toilet.
Of course, Dr. Junig knew that if anyone discovered his secret, they wouldn't care how much he was suffering.
Dr. Junig went home and locked himself in his bedroom, as
waves of nausea and fever doubled him up in pain.
Once Dr. Junig realized he was hooked, he secretly
checked himself into a nighttime outpatient rehab program, and within 13 weeks, he was detoxed.
On a typical day, Dr. Junig would arrive at the hospital and get enough fentanyl for his first
patient and, surreptitiously, a little extra for himself.
Little wonder, then, that in a matter of months, Dr. Junig found himself spiraling from a little codeine by mouth to a
needleful of narcotics in his arm.
But when his son needed a codeine pain reliever after injuring his neck during a family vacation,
Dr. Junig decided he could handle a little taste
and dipped into the medicine.
Likewise, Dr. Junig found his own mental
and physical health quickly deteriorating after he started mainlining narcotics, and it was all he could do to keep the hollow smile on his face.