Gambling
Addicted Lawyers Can Overcome Barriers to Recovery
- (Reprinted from the Hazelden Foundation's website, Copyright 2004, Hazelden Foundation)
Robert started drinking at age 18 and was an alcoholic by the time he entered law school. "I managed to get my degree and go to work for a Wall Street firm.
After that I changed jobs every two years or less. I just couldn't hang on to one. Nobody ever mentioned drinking to me. But I'm sure that with every job I lost, drinking was the main reason."
Images of hard-headed, hard-drinking lawyers abound in popular culture. These images make a point: The professional status granted by a law degree offers no immunity from addiction. The same can be said for people in other prominent professions, such as physicians, pilots and politicians. In fact, the rate of addiction for attorneys may exceed that for the general population.
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Lawyers in Recovery: Personal Stories
- Getting On with It: Recovery Success Stories by Donald Muccigrosso and Donna L. Spilis
If you or someone you know can identify with any of the situations related in the following stories, be assured that help is available.
Learning the Truth Too Late-Jim, California
To almost any outside observer in 1980, I was sitting on top of the world. Maybe not a very big world, but one that a lot of us know. I was 28 years old, a very successful solo practitioner with a practice growing beyond my wildest dreams, and a "hometown boy" to boot. Single, living in a beautiful new home, and driving a 450 SL Mercedes, I had money in the bank, clients knocking on my door, and all the external trappings of a successful young professional. On the inside, however, things were different. I felt lonely in a crowd much of the time. I felt like the roll was being called somewhere I was supposed to be, but I was in the wrong place trying to maintain control of a world I did not create. I wished I could let someone know how I felt, but what would that person think? I concluded that I was just missing something...something I would find and add to my life to be complete.
Now it is more than ten years later; a beautiful day outside threatens to distract me from putting words to my story, my life. But a man who helped to save my life says I might help others by doing so. "Pass it on," he reminds me. The roll is being called again here and now. The problem with "before and after" pictures is that they do not communicate the intense experiences in between, the essence of life. My own "after" photo would show a little less hair and a few more lines and wrinkles. It would not show the pain accompanying the loss of what I had, including my license to practice law. It would not show my struggle for self-respect once I was stripped, in a very public and humiliating way, of those external trappings I mentioned. For that matter, neither would it show the joy and childlike happiness coming with freedom from addiction, nor the soul-deep assurance that I no longer have to drink or use any mood- or mind-altering chemical to feel OK about myself and the world. I am the only one who can tell this story from the inside out.
It has now been more than five years since I got sober, 60-plus months since I hesitantly stepped into a treatment center for drug and alcohol dependence. I was not pleased to be there. By December 1984, my life was a shambles-personally, professionally, financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and in any other way one might gauge oneself. I was morally bankrupt. I was financially bankrupt. I had no future. My future was behind me. I was also more frightened than I had ever been in my life because I knew if I was to continue to draw breath, it would have to be sober breath. I was pretty sure that was impossible.
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What You Need to Know About Gambling
by Meloney Crawford Chadwick
"... compulsive gamblers frequently lose all sense of money as having real value. It becomes like play money. One counselor reports, “They’ll talk about bets, and simply say, I was down 500, but have to be forced to say the word, dollars."
Romanticized images of gambling pervade our culture. There’s James Bond, engaging in high espionage at the baccarat table, there are celebrities playing high-stakes poker in glamorous tournaments, and a fictionalized version of the operations in a Vegas casino is fodder for a prime-time soap opera. While gambling may be a spectator sport for some and an occasional indulgence for others, what we rarely see is a realistic portrayal of the wrecked lives of compulsive gamblers.
A generation ago, legalized gambling was rare, limitedto the casinos in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, some racetracks, and a few state lotteries. Today, gambling opportunities are as close as the local convenience store or your laptop computer. It’s not even necessary to seek out online gambling sites. Spend some time browsing the Internet, and offers of free cash pop up uninvited on the screen, enticing users to gambling operations based in offshore locations.
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