Poised to open a new treatment center on Southwest 13th Street, the Florida Recovery Center's medical director has gone down the same road as his patients.

Flaming out from marijuana and cocaine addiction, Dr. Scott Teitelbaum lost his license to practice as a pediatrician in the state of Connecticut, along with his marriage and family. He was fresh out of rehabilitation and working for a lawn maintenance company in the mid-1990s when a new calling suddenly became apparent: advancing the science, treatment and recovery of addiction.

"I lost a lot - addiction took more from my life than anything else, ever," said Teitelbaum, an associate professor and vice chair of the University of Florida psychiatry department. "My recovery blessed me in ways I never imagined."

Now the president of the Florida Society of Addiction Medicine, he also is the chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine at UF and has served as a consultant to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, among other roles.

At the new facility scheduled to open in July 2012 at the former Residence Inn near the intersection of 13th Street and Williston Road, Teitelbaum said he seeks to combine the wisdom of his recovery, which made him a disciple of the spiritually-based 12-step movement, with the power of the cut-and-dried facts of his medical training about how the brain works and genetic predispositions. They are two approaches that have sometimes been at odds with one another - but it's a dichotomy that Teitelbaum said he believes doesn't need to exist.

"Science shows us that addiction is the hijacking of the brain, but recovery is the healing of one's heart," he said.

He said he believes there are genetic predispositions to addiction, but that psychiatry traditionally has been too fast to focus on the biological aspect of the disease in recovery and approach treatment using a pill.

Medicine can help treat addiction, he said, but the disease also challenges the patient to heal him or herself.

Teitelbaum helped make a rotation in addiction part of UF's training for aspiring doctors at the College of Medicine, which makes it unusual among most medical schools.

The Florida Recovery Center also has become known for its specialized treatment for health care professionals with addiction issues, attracting them from 40 different states. It's anticipated that half of the 100 to 120 beds in the Florida Recovery Center's new facility for recovery from drug addiction and eating disorders will be used by medical professionals seeking treatment.

But it wasn't always like this for Teitelbaum.

After he got out of rehabilitation in the mid-1990s, he was still wounded from the agony of seeing his three children in the rear-view mirror as he left his family's home.

He took a job with Big M Landscaping in Hattiesburg, Miss.

One of the doctors he had been raking pine straw for in Hattiesburg also had treated him in recovery - and gave him a new direction.

"He felt safe (from the addiction) in this town, and we got to be friends," Dr. John McRae said. "He's a good guy."

McRae introduced Teitelbaum to other addiction experts, who then awarded him a scholarship to the Southern Coast Conference in Addiction, where he met Dr. Mark Gold, who is the chair of the UF psychiatry department. Gold took him on as a fellow in addiction medicine.

"When he was accepted into our program, we did not have the extensive UF experience with addiction medicine training or recovering physicians," Gold wrote in an email. "However, the College of Medicine and Shands understood that recovery was possible and, in fact, highly likely for physicians in (a) structured long-term program."

The first program Gold said he expects on the new campus will be a Caduceus House, where doctors will be learning to live without alcohol, drugs or tobacco as they update their skills.

Teitelbaum said he sees the new facility as a great milestone in addiction science, treatment and recovery.

But the greatest reward of his recovery already has been realized, he said. The children his addiction once forced him to leave behind are joining him, his second wife and their baby daughter in his Alachua home for the holiday season.