In the years between 1984 and 1993, the Mecklenburg County Bar Association in Charlotte, NC lost eight members to suicide. Put in the context of my arrival as the bar’s first executive director in 1984, this translates to eight suicides in nine years. Seven men and one woman took their lives in that span of […]
Archive for the ‘Personal Stories’ Category
A Recovery Story: Before and After
Posted byI 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 […]
A Recovery Story: Nothing to Lose, Life to Gain
Posted byI 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 […]
Recovery Success Stories
Posted byJim, 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. […]
A Recovery Story: The Measure of Success
Posted byOne 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 […]
A Recovery Story: Three Strikes and I Won
Posted byI 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 […]
My Journey from Alcoholism to Sobriety, Recovery, and the Bench
Posted byStanding 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 […]
The Dangers of Anger
Posted byTatum 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 […]
The General’s Story
Posted byThe LAP received a call on the afternoon of July 24, 2007, from the daughter of an aging attorney. She said that she needed assistance to help her 90-year-old father close his law practice. Though I did not speak with the woman, my initial impression was that she was seeking to have someone from the […]
Surrender: A Recovery Story
Posted byI was not one of those who was confused as to why my world was falling apart around me. I knew. All too well. It was my addiction and alcoholism. I remember exactly where I was when I looked myself in the rear-view mirror of my truck and admitted I was an addict and an […]