TORONTO -- Darryl Gebien has been given a second chance.

"I'm not the same person I was five years ago, that was the depths of the addiction. I've come a long way," he says.

Gebien had it all - a wife, three kids and a job as a physician in the emergency room at Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) in Barrie.

But it all came crashing down when he became addicted to opioids.

He was eventually caught forging medical prescriptions to feed his addiction.

Gebien was arrested in 2015 and pleaded guilty in 2016 to forging prescriptions and drug trafficking.

In April 2017, the disgraced doctor was sentenced to two years behind bars.

He served eight months at a medium-security federal prison in Kingston, and has been working on piecing his life back together ever since.

A nurse and two other workers at RVH lost their jobs because of his actions, and the 49-year-old says two of the three have now forgiven him.

And this week, the former ER doc received word the College of Physicians and Surgeons has agreed to let him practise medicine again, something he wasn't sure would ever happen.

Gebien will be required to pay the $20,000 cost of the two-day hearing with the college and will have to abide by certain conditions once he is back practicing medicine.

He isn't allowed to prescribe any narcotics until further notice, and he must enroll in a program that will test him to make sure he isn't using any drugs of any kind.

"The College of Physicians, I think, is setting an example for other regulatory bodies and colleges to treat addiction as a mental illness and not just as a decision as a moral failure," Gebien says.

He says he's hoping to show anyone with an addiction, and more importantly, his children, that people can make mistakes and rebound in a positive way.

"Just to see somebody who's fallen, getting themselves up, dust themselves off, and get back no matter how painful, how embarrassing it was, how shameful it was... we all struggle at one time."

"For my kids, as well, they need to see that daddy made a mistake. He made some bad decisions, but he's doing his best to return."

Gebien will be able to practice medicine after his licence suspension ends in 14-months.