John E Emmel, MD, attended both undergraduate and medical school at Brown University in Providence, RI. He completed his Family Medicine Residency at the Medical University of South Carolina. He became interested in addiction during his residency and has been Medical Director of Charleston Center since 1980. He is board-certified in Family Medicine and Addiction Medicine. He has extensive experience in MAT, withdrawal management, and the use of ASAM Criteria. He has served as the Medical Director at Waypoint Recovery Center since it opened. He also serves as Medical Director for the Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services (DAODAS) of SC. He holds a clinical faculty position at the Medical University of South Carolina in the departments of both Family Medicine and Psychiatry. Dr. Emmel also works in geriatrics and holds board certifications in Geriatrics, and Hospice and Palliative Medicine. As a clinician and educator, Dr. Emmel approaches addiction as a biobehavioral disease requiring the same multimodal approaches as all chronic diseases do to optimize outcomes.