Committed to Better Treatment for Addicts

By Emma Thorne

Dr. Petros Levounis is a busy man. He’s the director of the Addiction Institute of New York, overseeing 220 staffers in the state’s largest addiction program. He’s the associate chairperson of the psychiatry department at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Morningside Heights. He teaches at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. He sees patients in his private psychiatry practice. And in between all of these commitments, he’s found the time to pen several books—including Sober Siblings: How to Help Your Alcoholic Brother or Sister—and Not Lose Yourself—and speak at lectures and on TV shows.

But for Levounis, 49, all of these duties have a common thread: education. “Addiction medicine is one of these areas where there’s a lot of need for education,” he said. “It’s probably the area of medicine with the largest gap between what we know and the care that we provide for our patients.”

The biggest problem, he said, is young doctors’ lack of exposure to addicted patients, coupled with a widespread stigma against mental illness. Levounis is hoping to change that with a new fellowship in addiction medicine that he’s creating at Columbia. The course of study will train doctors from all specialties—not just psychiatry—to deal with addiction.

Levounis’ project has already won praise; it’s one of just 10 such programs accredited by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, which also picked it as a model fellowship for other medical schools.

“We’re very excited to share what we do in the institute with all kinds of doctors,” Levounis said.

The doctor is also working on a large-scale study of the impact of exercise on addiction. He’s had a room at the Addiction Institute outfitted with treadmills and other gym equipment and recently began running trials there. Many medical professionals have long believed in the relationship between addiction and exercise, Levounis said, but to date they’ve had little hard evidence to go on. Levounis hopes his study will provide the proof they need.

When he’s not researching and teaching, Levounis enjoys going to the movies with his actor husband, Lukas Hassel. They also travel frequently, both for Levounis’ work engagements and to visit family in their home countries (Levounis is originally from Greece and Hassel is from Denmark). He’ll also admit to watching the occasional episode of Celebrity Rehab—though only out of professional interest.

For all of his work, Levounis has one ultimate goal in mind: changing the public perception of addiction. “I hope, to be honest, that we’ll have the same kind of openness we have with depression,” he said. “Depression came out of the closet in the last 20 years. I hope in 10 years we’ll have the same understanding of alcoholism and drug use.”