Introduction to Out of the Ghetto

Would you allow anyone you know, or should I say think you know, to walk through the corridors of your mind unabated, having the ability to peek into every dark corner they may find? It is always an honor when I am asked to participate in another soul’s awakening, one who found the courage to seek the truth of who they are without the masks or pretenses.

As I sat down to write these memoirs, fear became the controlling force of my thoughts. My concern comes not from who I am today but from the person I was in the past. It seemed like I was forever playing a leading role in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, moving from one nightmare to the next. Today, only a handful of people know what you are about to discover in these writings.

I have worked diligently to bury this story deep within the inner confines of my mind, leaving all my friends, neighbors, coworkers, as well as my wife and children without a clue about my previous existence. My fear has always been the same: If they ever discover the darkness within my past, they will never see me in the same light again.

These writings will come as a complete surprise to many of my esteemed colleagues in the medical community. In this small, interconnected society, the physicians I worked with trusted me not only with their careers but with their patients' health and well-being.                                                                   

 In 1982, by some miracle, I completed my studies at one of the most prestigious medical centers in New York City. For three decades, I have worked in a profession where I have excelled and provided my family with a lifestyle, I never dreamed possible. It is a far cry from my senior year of high school when my classmates voted me "The most likely to be dead by the time he's thirty." 

Why Out of the Ghetto? As you continue to read, the "why" will speak for itself. The reader should be aware this book is not about any geographical change but about a dramatic shift in consciousness, from an inner-ghetto mentality to a new way of being. It is my hope you will not only read Out of the Ghetto but experience it for yourself.