Dr. Scott Teitelbaum remembers the words clearly. A member of Connecticut’s state medical board told him directly: it didn’t matter how good of a pediatrician he was. They weren’t going to wait until a child got hurt to revoke his license.
The year was 1996, and Teitelbaum’s world collapsed. His medical license was gone. Soon, his family would be too. The successful pediatrician from Staten Island, who had built a practice in Connecticut and raised a family, had lost everything to addiction.
Today, nearly three decades later, Teitelbaum stands as the director of the UF Health Florida Recovery Center in Gainesville. On August 22, he celebrated 29 years of sobriety. His work treating others struggling with addiction carries the weight of personal experience, and that perspective shapes every aspect of how he approaches patient care.
The Descent
Teitelbaum’s story began like many others. He started smoking marijuana at 18 as a freshman at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. What began as experimentation gradually expanded to include gambling, cocaine, and alcohol. The addictions followed him through medical school at the University of Rochester in New York and into his professional life.
“Initially, the drug that took me down was cocaine, but looking back, cannabis and alcohol, I had an unhealthy attachment,” Teitelbaum said.
Growing up in a loving, middle-class family with a father who owned a furniture store and a mother who worked as a schoolteacher, Teitelbaum had every advantage. Yet addiction doesn’t discriminate based on background or circumstance.
Despite his substance abuse, Teitelbaum functioned at a high level. He never received patient complaints. People liked him. But beneath the surface, something fundamental was wrong.
“I functioned at a high level when using and never had any patient complaints. People liked me, but I was violating their trust,” he reflected.
Rock Bottom and Realization
In the early 1990s, Teitelbaum’s family confronted him about his substance abuse. He entered treatment, but the consequences of his addiction had already set irreversible events in motion. When Connecticut revoked his medical license in 1996, the decision represented more than a professional setback. Though his license was eventually reinstated, the damage extended far beyond his career. He lost his family, his profession, and other vital relationships.
The experience taught Teitelbaum a painful but essential truth about addiction and recovery.
“Anyone who suffers from addiction usually has to hit rock bottom before recognizing they are not living the life they truly want to live,” he said. “No matter what the substance is, at the end of the day, people use any substance to change the way they feel in that moment.”
A New Mission
Now serving as vice chair of UF’s Department of Psychiatry and chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine, Teitelbaum brings his lived experience to his work every day. The Florida Recovery Center, which first opened near Williston Road in 1998 under Dr. Mark Gold’s leadership, has become his life’s work.
In July 2024, UF Health celebrated the opening of a new, expanded campus off Northwest 39th Avenue. The five-acre facility represents a major expansion in capacity and capability. Patient beds increased from 80 to 124, with both single and double-occupancy rooms available. The 47,600-square-foot campus includes residential, therapeutic, and recreational spaces designed to support comprehensive recovery.
The amenities reflect a modern understanding of holistic treatment: a swimming pool, gym, outdoor recreation area, and pickleball court. An additional 18,700-square-foot administrative building houses offices providing addiction evaluations, group and individual therapy, lectures, and outpatient care.
Treating the Trusted
Teitelbaum specializes in evaluating and treating what he calls “safety sensitive professionals.” Doctors, judges, police officers, teachers, and pharmacists come to the center from around the country. These are people whose addictions carry particular weight because of the trust society places in their roles.
He understands their situations intimately. Like him, they functioned at high levels while struggling privately. Like him, they violated the trust others placed in them. And like him, they need specialized care that acknowledges both their professional responsibilities and their human vulnerabilities.
The Florida Recovery Center stands as the only academic treatment center of its kind in the country, blending cutting-edge research with compassionate care informed by real-world understanding.
The Complexity of Treatment
When Teitelbaum treats patients struggling with opioids, marijuana, cocaine, or other substances, he knows the challenges extend far beyond simply stopping drug use. Alcoholism remains the number one addiction the center treats and stands as the top killer among all addictions.
“Everybody’s got a story, we all have a story of where we came from and of how we became who we are,” Teitelbaum explained. “We treat a lot of people that share in common that their lives have been drastically influenced in a negative way by their use of substances, but they often will have co-occurring issues like trauma, depression, anxiety and medical issues.”
This comprehensive understanding drives the center’s approach. Addiction rarely exists in isolation. Trauma, mental health conditions, and medical problems often intertwine with substance abuse, creating complex cases that require multifaceted treatment.
From Personal Pain to Purpose
The journey from revoked medical license to recovery center director represents more than personal redemption for Teitelbaum. His story illustrates a fundamental truth about addiction treatment: sometimes the most effective healers are those who have walked the same difficult path as their patients.
Teitelbaum doesn’t just understand addiction academically. He knows the rationalization, the shame, the moment when you realize your life has become unrecognizable. He knows what it takes to rebuild from nothing, to regain trust, to construct a new life from the ruins of the old one.
That knowledge informs every interaction with patients, every treatment decision, every moment of care at the Florida Recovery Center. When Teitelbaum tells patients that recovery is possible, they can see the living proof standing before them.
A Place of Hope
Teitelbaum describes the Florida Recovery Center as “a great place of encouragement and love” that he hopes will continue for generations to come. The new campus represents not just expanded capacity but an expanded vision of what recovery can look like.
For the doctors, judges, teachers, police officers, and countless others who walk through its doors, the center offers more than treatment. It offers understanding from someone who has been where they are. It offers evidence that life after addiction is possible, that careers can be rebuilt, that trust can be regained, that the person you want to be still exists beneath the grip of substance abuse.
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