Society puts the burden of coming to grips with homicide on lawyers and the justice system. It is a lawyer’s job to prosecute the accused, try the case, and defend the accused. Yet, more people in America die of suicide than from homicide. Unlike the elaborate justice system, with its guaranteed right of appeal for […]
Archive for December, 2014
A Recovery Story: My Life Is Ahead Of Me
Posted byThe Stories of fellow alcoholics are the fresh minted coins of survival. You pass yours to the next person in the hope he or she will see a gleam of their own life and find the reassurance of recovery. This is the story of a PALS member offered anonymously in that tradition. As I approach […]
Old Ideas and Stories
Posted byMore and more I see that getting help, being healthier, having greater joy begins with giving up an old idea. Some old ideas: That I can seek to regain the pleasure drinking once brought and not have problems with my health, my family, and being depressed. That because alcohol has been the solution most of […]
A Recovery Story: Overcoming Barriers of Culture and Fear
Posted byDenial is a big part of addiction. The step from denial into recovery is a huge one, and for women lawyers it is very large indeed. As a young associate in a private firm, I faced a terrible fear. That fear was about addiction. I had gone straight from college into law school and from […]
Re-attachment via Detachment
Posted byIt was good to hear that many of you enjoyed the article on time. (Campbell Law Observer, Vol.l9, No.7, September, 1998). Your comments suggested I should try to dig a little deeper into several questions. What is the psychological understanding of disjuncture felt by time experienced as going t0o fast? What similarities, if any, does […]
Recognizing Denial
Posted byWe all struggle with denial. Denial is part of being human. It affects everything we do, the way we think, what we believe, and how we perceive our world. Denial is our ego’s way of dealing with realities that are painful or unpleasant. Denial shades our memories, prejudices our perception and manipulates our future. We […]
Relationship Intensity Syndrome
Posted byOne of the great tragedies of alcoholism is the effect it has on so many others, particularly children. Children growing up in an alcoholic family are apt to suffer from an alcohol induced relationship intensity syndrome. Growing up in alcoholism, the child often develops an exaggerated need for emotional support in a primary relationship. The […]
Seeking the High Ground
Posted by“Man is nourished by that which is beyond the personal. He dies from preferring their opposites.” These are the concluding two sentences of Jacques Lusseyran’s book Against the Pollution of the I, which I discussed in this column last month. Today, I would like to explore what this means in legal education and how Lusseyran’s sentiment […]
Service, Character, and Recovery
Posted byIn a healthy individual there are at least three stages one goes through in which service work is important to develop the personality. The first stage is the idealistic stage. It is important that young adults go through this stage. For the development of a healthy value system young people need to feel sufficiently strong […]
Sexual Addiction
Posted by“Getting involved sexually with a man at work was like picking up a drink for me. I descended into a fog. When I was sexually acting out, I was oblivious to how my behavior was affecting other people and me. It made me susceptible to all the negativity in the office. I threw away my […]