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Dr. Joseph A. Pursch Addiction Medicine & Psychiatry

Joseph A. Pursch, M.D., Addiction Medicine and Psychiatry, has been involved in the treatment and rehabilitation of individuals addicted to alcohol and drugs.

As director of the Alcohol Rehabilitation Service at the Naval Regional Medical Center in Long Beach, California from 1973 to 1980, Dr. Pursch treated Betty Ford, Billy Carter and astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Since 1980, he has treated numerous other public figures, celebrities and professional athletes. He supervised the drug testing program for players, linesmen, and other officials at Wimbledon, the U.S. Open Championships and other Grand Slam tournaments in his position as Program Manager for the Men's International Professional Tennis Council until 1989. His clients include airlines, Federal agencies, professional sports and major U.S. Corporations.

Dr. Pursch has served as an expert witness in legal cases, has conducted seminars, lectures worldwide and has appeared on network television programs, including "60 Minutes," "The Today Show," "Good Morning America," "PrimeTime Live" and "The Phil Donohue Show." He has been featured in twelve educational films which have become standard tools in the treatment of chemical dependency and he has written numerous articles and papers in the scientific and lay press. His weekly column on alcohol and other addictions is syndicated by The Los Angeles Times Syndicate since 1981 and appears in papers across the country and in Central America. He book, Dear Doc, is available in bookstores.

Dr. Pursch is a graduate of the University of Indiana School of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the Aerospace Medical Association and the American College of Physicians.

His numerous awards and special appointments include:

The Distinguished Service Medal from the President of the United States in 1980.
Airline Medical Director's Annual Award
Aerospace Medical Association Raymond F. Longacre Award
Appointment to President Carter's commission on Alcoholism in 1980.
Appointment to President Reagan's Blue Ribbon Commission on Drunk Driving in 1982.

Current affiliations include:

Consultant to the Federal Aviation Administration
Consultant to the U.S. Navy Surgeon General on Addictions and Alcoholism
Associate Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Texas, Austin
Visiting Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of the Uniformed Services
University of Health Services, Bethesda, Maryland
Board of Trustees, National Commission Against Drunk Driving

Dr. Pursch's military career began in 1960 as a Navy Flight Surgeon aboard the USS Forrestal. He was personal physician to the Secretary of the Navy, Paul Nitze, during the Kennedy/Johnson Administration. He went on to become Assistant Chief of Psychiatry at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, Pensacola Florida from 1966 to 1968. A tour in Washington, D.C. followed from 1968 to 1970 where he was Chief Neuropsychiatry Outpatient Clinic at the Naval Dispensary, and medical director of the Chief of Naval Operations Drug Abuse Team. In 1970 he established the U.S. Navy's first overseas alcohol/drug rehabilitation program at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Naples, Italy.

Following his retirement from the Navy in 1980, Dr. Pursch joined Comprehensive Care Corporation as Corporate Medical Director for a period of six years. From 1987 to 1989 he was psychiatric consultant to South Coast Medical Center's Chemical Dependency Service in Laguna Beach, CA. From 1989 to 1991, he served as the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Program Consultant for Community Psychiatric Center Hospital based in Laguna Hills, California, and as Medical Director of the Addiction Institute, Costa Mesa, California until November 1993.

At the present time Dr. Pursch is in private practice in Laguna Beach, California and is Psychiatric Consultant to Sober Living by the Sea.