In the last issue of the Journal, this column explored the silent revolution that has occurred in the past few decades regarding the contexts in which diseases arise. We used malaria as an example of one of the many diseases that now rarely occurs in this country and we contrasted malaria with the diseases that […]
Suicide recently received national attention of the President of the United States, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Surgeon General, the Center for Disease Control and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMSHA). The amplified concern related to the increased prevalence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors resulted in the aforementioned […]
The headline on the May 7, 2002, edition of The Charlotte Observer was: “Depression Study: Placebos Work, Too.” The story went on to say that after millions of prescriptions for Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft and tens of billons of dollars spent on these prescriptions that treat depression, the jury was finally in. Anti-depressant medications work; and so […]
The unhappiness paradox is one lawyers share, as much or more, than any other group in our culture. The richer we have grown as a society, the more dissatisfied we have become. The 1950’s were the happiest decade of the century. Since then the divorce rate has doubled, the teen suicide rate has tripled, recorded […]
One out of five Americans experiences mental illness each year; however, the majority of those who need treatment do not get it. This is the conclusion of the first-ever US Surgeon General’s report on mental health which was released by Surgeon General David Satcher in December 1999. That there are so many of our nation’s […]
I didn’t consider alcohol as a remedy for my unhappiness and depression in high school. I was introverted, although active in school activities, but I never felt like I belonged in social situations. While my classmates were having fun outside the classroom, I was at home reading a book. I discovered alcohol when I was […]
I am forty-six years old and have been a lawyer since 1976. I practice in a Piedmont city. I concentrate in civil litigation. Martindale Hubbell has give me an “av” rating, which I consider to be almost meaningless but which I mention because it may help you identify with my type, whatever that is. I […]
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. […]
One of the turning points in my thirty-five years of sobriety occurred in 1972 when I chose to lament on the shoulders of my good friend, S. Pretlowe Winborune. Mr. Winbourne is a friend of mine and a friend of attorneys everywhere. I had been working diligently with five attorneys and two of them were […]
I am a lawyer. I am also an alcoholic. I drank in college, but the alcoholic drinking started in the military and persisted through law school and the next 22 years. I was a quiet drinker. I did not hang out in bars; I drank either in the office at night or at home. I […]
Standing at the doorway of the courtroom, I reflected on how I had come to be here as a civil court judge. My reverie took me back to another time when I stood at the door of a different room, where a meeting of recovering alcoholics was in progress. I recalled wondering how I had […]
Tatum O’Neal. Britney Spears. Lindsay Lohan. Your dear sweet Aunt Mamie. Why do so many substance abusers keep getting sucked back into their addictions–just when you think they’ve bounced back for good? According to psychologists at the University of Wisconsin, it’s because these folks never deal with the original core substance responsible for their substance […]