Jacob FuchsDirector of Pharmacy at CSC, St. Luke's Health System · Director of Pharmacy

Addiction, Divorce, and My Pharmacy Reality #shorts

11 Sept 2026 · 2 min

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1:42

In this candid monologue, a pharmacist who is also an addict and alcoholic shares his personal journey of addiction, relapse, and its devastating impact on his marriage. He reveals that after 172 days of sobriety he received divorce mediation papers, underscoring that sobriety does not erase the consequences of past substance use. He explains that his relapse began with a prescription from a doctor, but he takes full responsibility, noting a lifelong brain pattern he calls an "emergency exit"—the instinct to escape pain through drugs or alcohol, learned at age 15 and persisting despite professional success, a loving family, and a thriving business. He reflects on how addiction can destroy relationships even when love is profound, and he commits to not taking that escape route again, marking day 173 as a continued step in his recovery. The speaker also highlights the paradox of the pharmacy profession, where the prescriber can be the addict, and recovery does not guarantee the restoration of what was lost.

Chapters

Today, I got my divorce mediation papers. I'm 172 days sober. Turns out the consequences of addiction don't care that you got sober. I'm a pharmacist. I'm also an addict and an alcoholic. And the relapse that helped destroy my marriage started with a prescription from a doctor. Before the comment section turns into a malpractice deposition, I don't blame the doctor. I blame me. But I also now know something about my brain that I didn't understand before. When I was 15, my brain learned that when life hurts, there's an emergency exit. Drugs, alcohol, escape. Then I grew up. I built a business. I became a pharmacist. I got married to a woman I love, had a daughter that I love more than anything on this planet. And somehow that fucking emergency exit was still there. When my business started falling apart, I started feeling like a failure. I used it again. I thought becoming a dad would make that part of my brain disappear. It didn't. And that's one of the ugliest things about addiction. You can love your family more than anything in the world and still do something that destroys You lose your family. Not because they weren't enough, but because addiction doesn't give a shit what you have to lose. So today I'm hurting, like a lot. But for the first time in my life, I'm not taking the emergency exit. No drugs, no alcohol, no escape. Just me, 172 days sober, sitting with a stack of papers showing me exactly what my addiction cost. That's the pharma problem. Sometimes the drugs prescribed Sometimes the addict is the pharmacist, and sometimes getting better doesn't mean you get back what you broke. Tomorrow is day 173. I plan on being here for it.