"I don't care who you are, what you done, or who you done it to. If you're here, so am I."

"Ain't no shame in holding on to grief. As long as you make room for other things too."

It's been one of my professional ambitions to be Bubbles' doctor. I mean, not Bubbles himself. He's a fictional character from The Wire. (Sort of.) But people like Bubbles.

And I'd sort of forgotten about that until I was talking today about 12-step. For a lot of my patients on buprenorphine, the 12-step movement is a mixed blessing. There's wisdom there, but also judgment. But some folks find a way to put the two together. They find the help of a medication, and they find the wisdom of a community.

I can't tell you how many times I say, "One day at a time" as part of a sentence, and I really really mean it. Every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.

And there are none of my patients where I see them and I go, dude, that guy's just like Bubbles. They are each their own person. But I do see Bubbles now, and say, that guy's a lot like my patients.