Tales of Addiction

• Author: Jeena Cho
• Pages: 26-27

Tales of Addiction

What ever y attorney should know about alcohol and subst ance abuse

By Jeena Cho

According to a 2016 study in the Journal of Ad diction

Medici ne, 20.6 percent of lawyer s screened positive

for hazardous, harm ful and potentially alcohol-depen-

dent drinking. Men had a higher propor tion of positive

screens, as did younger par ticipants and those working

in the legal fi eld for a shorter duration. Attorneys a ge 30

or younger were more likely to have a higher likelihood of

harmful d rinking than their older peers.

Attorneys in the fi rst 10 years of t heir practice experi-

enced the highest rates of problematic use (28.9 percent),

followed by attorneys pract icing for 11 to 20 years (20.6

percent), continuing to decrease slightly from 21 years or

more.

Lawyers oft en are warned about the dangers of exces-

sive alcohol use. But according to Bree Bucha nan, direc-

tor of the Texas Lawyers’ Assi stance Program, “We have

been trained through t he culture of our profession that

alcohol use is the way to celebrate w ins as well as mourn

losses. Alcohol is the legal profes sion’s sanctioned way to

deal with feelings .”

STORIES OF RECOVERY

One California at torney currently in outpatient treat-

ment shared that when she was at Sta nford University

as an undergrad , “Being hungover was a fact of life.

Everyone was doing it.”

She didn’t realize she had an i ssue because excessive

alcohol use was social ly normal. When she started

law school at Georgetown Universit y, she began using

Ritalin, t hen Adderall. It was a shortcut: The drugs

made it easier for her to keep up with her schoolwork.

After law school, she continued to us e Adderall as an

associate. She thought the dr ug was the key to her suc-

cess. “Partners loved me bec ause I was able to work late

into the hours and crank out good work . I associated

Adderall to producing good work product,” she says.

Eventually, the drug use caught up wit h her. She

started m issing deadlines, and people around her

noticed. However, she felt the partners at her fi rm were

also hesitant about showing empathy or concer n. “As

long as the billable hour is king, it’s not in their interest

to ask too many quest ions.”

When she fi nally checked in to a residential t reatment

program for three week s, she felt relieved. “It was the

fi rst real time o I had since I star ted practicing law,” she

says. Surrendering her smar tphone and being away from

work helped her gain perspective on her life, a nd she

began to address not on ly her substance abuse issues but

also bipolar depression and anx iety.

Through her recovery, one of the most important les -

sons she learned was she was i ncredibly critical and

demanding of herself. “It was so hard for me to be nic e

to myself,” she says. The journey to healing al so meant

taking time for self-c are and learning to be kind toward

herself.

A lawyer from Texas didn’t address h is issues with

alcohol abuse for 15 years. Even though the alcohol use

interfered with sleep, per sonal and professional relation-

ships and his health, he rationa lized it was OK because

he didn’t drink during the day. “I was alw ays able to wait

until the end of the day to drin k,” he says.

When he fi nally sought help, he realized alcohol wa s a

way he coped with procras tination at work. It was a way

to help him deal with the menta l distress the procrasti-

nation created.

“The more I procrastinat ed, the more I drank. Alcohol

brought relief, and it made every thing OK. Alcohol was a

constant in my life,” he says.

He would become defensive when people told him,

“You smell like alcohol.” But he knew it was true. “I was

able to smell alcohol from my pores. I had to keep a

3-foot bu er zone from people. It was embarrassing. The

comments weighed on me,” he says.

Even though he res ponded with defensivene ss, he

thinks those com ments from his colleagues and others

planted the seed that he should seek help. He realiz ed in

recovery he never gave himself a bre ak. “I wasn’t practic-

ing self-care; I took ca re of it by taking drugs,” he says.

He thinks if he had ta ken regular mental breaks and

practiced mindf ulness, it would’ve helped.

C TIMES THREE

Sarah Weinstein, a former law yer who’s now a psycho-

therapist based in Berkeley, Californi a, says, “Though

denial is an issue for some, it is ac tually a myth that

the majority of those with s ubstance use disorders are

in d enial .”

When she works with clients who may have an

addiction problem, she asks the clients t o consider

the three C s: control, compulsion and con sequences.

• Control refers to t he out-of-control use and typically

more use than is intended. For example, do you

regularly set out to have “jus t one drink” at your

fi rm’s happy hour but often fi nd yourself imbibing

many more?

• Compulsion refers to spendi ng a lot of time, energy

and mental space obtai ning, using and recovering

from use. Consider whether your week ly calendar is

full of events in which a lcohol will be in plentiful

supply and/or whether you f requently sociali ze with

people who engage in heavy dri nking or substance

use. This is especia lly important for those who tend

to compare their drin king to others as a means to

normalizing their u se.

On Well-Being

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE JC LAW GROUP

Practice

26 || ABA JOURNAL OCTOBER 2018