By Robynn Moraites and Harold Hong, MD Consider this article a public service announcement based on the emergence of an alarming trend we’re seeing at the Lawyer Assistance Program: an increase in cases of drug-induced delusion and psychosis, not only in lawyers, but in children of lawyers. This article explains why. One case is too […]
NCLAP publishes a quarterly e-newsletter, Sidebar. LAP volunteers regularly submit articles for Sidebar around recovery themes or slogans. LAP volunteers understand, as few others can, the sense of loneliness and isolation that are so devastatingly integral to depression and drinking problems. “You Are Not Alone” is a popular theme because it offers so much hope. […]
I’m 10 years old and just won enough money performing in a group at a talent show to buy the toy I’d had my eye on for months. This is how the story of my first regret begins. The show, put on by my religious community, was aimed at raising money for a capital project. […]
At the start, it was a starburst of luminous warmth. It was fun, it was freeing, it was sophisticated. It was summer beers, sunset champagne toasts, French martinis and obscure Italian wines. I started drinking because it made me relaxed and connected and in love. I felt closer to people around me, to myself, to […]
After working at the NC Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) for the past 5 years, I can say with confidence that most of what we see clinically is lawyers’ and judges’ responses to the serious difficulties of life and a career in law. Not that there isn’t true psychopathology, because there certainly is. But it is […]
This story is continued from the last edition of the State Bar Journal. Finally, the time came for Brian to leave the treatment center. The day we picked him up, my wife and I met with Brian and his counselor for a discharge conference. I have a vivid memory of two points from that meeting […]
My son is an addict. His addiction has had a profound impact on my life. Addiction—which includes alcoholism—is a disease, and it wreaks havoc on family members as well as the addict. Naturally, we seek and yearn first for the addict’s sobriety, and we want to do whatever we can to “fix” the addict. However, […]
The Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) has been receiving an increasing number of calls from lawyers who are struggling with their tween, teen, or young adult children’s substance abuse problems. The LAP provides assistance in these circumstances and regularly guides lawyers from the intervention process through treatment and aftercare. The LAP can recommend effective treatment centers […]
Personal stories can be either the easiest to tell, or the hardest. Easiest, because we know our own stories so well; hardest, because they often reveal things about ourselves or those close to us that we might prefer not to disclose. This story is both. I was 30 and divorced when I fell in love […]
Years ago when I lived in another state and before I enrolled in law school I began dating a man who lived downstairs from me in my quadraplex. He was a very successful computer engineer. One day he was unexpectedly fired from his job. He downplayed the incident and obtained another job of equal stature […]
The LAP recently conducted an interview with a managing partner of a firm who years ago orchestrated an intervention with a leading lawyer in the firm. This example illustrates how a law firm can proactively address an issue of impairment. The following is taken from that interview and told from the point of view of […]
Most lawyers, regardless of practice area, are accustomed to solving others’ problems and providing solutions. Lawyers are helpers by nature. While many of us may try to project a certain image, and despite whatever lawyer-joke-du-jour may be fashionable, most lawyers have big hearts and want to help people. It only makes sense that when a […]