“It’s about giving back. There’s a saying we have in the field, ‘I can’t keep it … unless you give it away.'”

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For years, as a proud member in the United States Navy and Marine Corps, Dr. Lynn Hankes served his country as a flight surgeon, including time in Vietnam. Once he was done with the military, however, he went down a dark road, bottle in hand.

A decade passed, as a private practitioner in the Midwest, a patient list and success but at the cost of a burgeoning destructive personal habit. So, he made a change. He ditched the alcohol, and picked up another addiction: helping others who were stricken with the same mental and physical affliction. He even left behind his expertise and medical certifications in urology to do it. He went with what he knew. In a way, you can say he went with his heart.

Hankes has been committed to this lofty cause — the people, as well as the science that dominates his days — ever since.

Churches. Hospitals. He’s on boards and consults on a regular basis. He volunteers his time with the Salvation Army, and at numerous other clinics and facilities committed to rehabilitate the patients and teach them to avoid the temptation at the core of substance abuse.

Hankes even went down to the Caribbean and assisted in Haiti, after the devastation both Mother Nature and poverty together wreaked on many of the long-suffering people who call the small island nation home.

“I’m very blessed with a lot of things. Helping others and being around enthusiastic and other empowering people making a difference, ignites a spark inside and motivates me to do more.”

“Our world needs unity. So many are struggling in silence. Just to let them know they’re not alone and that you care. There are so many people who feel isolated and abandoned. To have someone care for them in any way possible mean’s a lot to them and the giver.”

Dr. Hankes is a Clinical Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. From 1966 to 1968, he was stationed at Chu Lai Air Base in Vietnam.

He was a resident at the New Jersey College of Medicine after the war, from 1968 to 1972, before starting his own private practice in Aurora, Illinois in 1972.

Here’s an interview with the former military doctor, conducted by Michele Wright, for a local CBS affiliate out of West Palm Beach, Florida (full version in the link of the tweet):

To contact the Salvation Army of Palm Beach or Lighthouse Detox, both organizations that benefit from Hankes’ work, click the highlighted links.