The Candyman

Josh wasn’t the first kid I’d seen living on the edge of addiction and substance abuse disguised as benign psych meds. He was a young man from a frum home in Lakewood who had clearly taken a few detours in life and didn’t seem to be particularly interested in getting back on the straight and narrow at the current time.

It was hard to tell at first glance, though. He still pretty much looked the part of an American yeshivah guy in Israel, although I certainly couldn’t vouch for how much time he actually spent — if any — in the beis medrash.

Just because there weren’t any visible tattoos or track marks on his arms didn’t mean he didn’t have his share of war stories. Josh was a tough kid, and to him, I was just another doctor who could get him his next fix.

“Yeah, I take a bit of Xanax and Adderall a few times a day,” he told me right off the bat, which was the first red flag.