“I am going to find out all about you. It is only right that you should know about me too. I am from Kentucky. I was born in Owensboro, in 1950. I grew up on the farm. My father was a professional magician, then a salesman, then a small businessman, and gentleman farmer. My mother was a registered nurse. My mother’s family was of a Native American, Priscilla Wagon, of the Tennessee Cherokee tribe, and John Hines, a soldier in the American Revolutionary War who took a land grant of what is now Logan/Bultler County in Kentucky. My given Cherokee name is iRMᵯT ho ̴, or eluwe yona which is in English, Quiet Bear.

I always wanted to be a doctor. I attended Centre College and graduated from the University of Kentucky with a major in Nuclear Chemistry. I worked as a lowly research technician for N.A.S.A. doing neutron activation analysis of the moon rocks brought back to Earth from the manned landing on the Moon. I attended medical school here in Lexington, receiving my medical degree in 1975. I decided to train in the specialty of Psychiatry. I was Chief Resident of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky, College of Medicine. I then went on to finish my formal medical training with one year of Child Psychiatry Fellowship. I established my private practice here in Lexington. I published several articles in medical journals of interesting case reports and original research. I am, presently, or have been, a member, of the AMA, the American Psychiatric Association, the Kentucky Medical Association, the Lexington Medical Society, the Southern Medical Association, and the American Academy of Clinical Psychiatry. I served as founder and first Service Director of the Adult Psychiatry Unit at Charter Ridge Hospital. I have served as the President of the medical staff at Charter Ridge Hospital (now called The Ridge) and as the Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry of both Good Samaritan Hospital and St. Joseph Hospital. I founded the Salpêtrière Journal Club in Lexington. I am a board-certified psychiatrist, certified by the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry. I have conducted FDA approval trials of new and experimental medications. I am an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry, volunteer staff, at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and a clinical instructor at The University of the Cumberlands. I teach physician assistants and residents in Family Medicine.

Back in the 1980’s I began to sub-specialize in Anxiety Disorders. I found my medical knowledge and mild manner to be well-suited to helping persons with these problems. I made an effort to learn everything available about anxiety. I became concerned that so many people across the country at that time had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. Some were receiving no treatment. Others were receiving ineffective or wrong treatment. To help these people I founded a national, non-profit medical health education organization, the National Anxiety Foundation. Its scientific advisory board included(s) internationally recognized experts in the field of Anxiety Disorders such as: David Sheehan MD, formerly of Harvard, author of the Anxiety Disease, Chief of Psychiatric Research at USF; Stephen Stahl MD Ph.D., University of California, San Diego; and Judith Rapoport MD, author of The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing, NIMH & National Institute of Health. The establishment of the National Anxiety Foundation was something I am proud of and I continue to be involved with it. Their website receives 30,000 hits per month. At the same time, I started a free anxiety support group in Lexington which operated many years, helping hundreds to heal. I was on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Clinical Psychiatry. I have been on the Editorial Board of the medical Journal, The Annals of Clinical Psychiatry. In 2009 I developed a DNA test to guide medical treatment in addictive disease.

Over 39 years ago, I conceived that carbon dioxide in indoors and vehicles triggered panic attacks. I was able to prove my theory and published the research in a major medical journal. I then managed to invent, with my collaborator, Dr. Lawrence, patented and sold the rights to an investor in Switzerland for a novel, and first of its kind in the world medical device to alleviate anxiety. It is manufactured across the Atlantic and sold in the United Kingdom, Europe and Russia. Its headquarters is in Malta. I accomplished this with my lunch money and working nights and weekends over many years. Early on, my “laboratory” was my Appaloosa horse, Ruger’s, horse trailer (Steve Jobs had nothing on me with his “Apple” garage) where within Ruger happily exhaled all the free carbon dioxide I needed for my experiments. It is nostalgic to me that in America, a little guy like me can still make a discovery and make a big difference in the world.

Several years ago, I added alcohol treatment to that list of conditions I like to treat. I learned personally from Dr. David Sinclair of Finland, the inventor of Narcan, how to use his remarkable TSM (The Sinclair Method or µ-opiod receptor blockade pharmacologic extinction) for treating alcohol use disorder (alcoholism), weight reduction, pornography addiction, adolescent cutting behavior and heroin addiction.

Decades ago, I married a terrific lady, my Sarah Esther Wood, who had her master’s degree in library science, was an elementary school teacher and later was a director of Christian education. I have one daughter who is an extraordinarily talented architect who first worked in Berlin Germany, then for Chicago’s Perkins & Will, Inc, which is the largest architectural company in the world and now for NOMI Architects here in Lexington. My hobbies are horse trail riding, gardening, humor, and gravitation physics. I make my own Bavarian link sausages. I do my own yard work. I like dogs more than I do most people. I’m a Christian, in progress. I’m proud to be an American and a Kentuckian. My favorite president was Theodore Roosevelt. My favorite quotes are: “Never, never, never give up” – Winston Churchill. “You don't have a soul. You are a soul. Your soul has a body.” -- C. S. Lewis. Ne vendez pas le peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tue! (“Don’t sell the bear rug before you’ve killed the bear.”) – unknown French Canadian trapper. I have recently cut back 10% on my patient load. If I ever do retire I want to cross the United Sates on horseback alone, maybe in 2022.

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Stephen M. Cox M.D., P.S.C.