How do we understand the gap between the level of alcoholism that exists among North Carolina lawyers and the fact that most of the time most of us look like we’re functioning pretty well? The recent survey that Professor Darcy Siebert completed of North Carolina lawyers reported that 25% of the lawyers in the state drink five times or more per week. Over 52% (52.3%) drink until high at least one or more times each month. In other words, half the Bar self reports that they are drinking excessively at least once a month.
The North Carolina survey reflects data that has appeared in earlier studies. The International Journal of Law and Psychiatry reported that problem drinking develops in 18% of lawyers who practice for two to 20 years and in 25% of lawyers who practice 20 years or longer. Other studies report the number of lawyers with alcohol abuse disorders is above the national average of about 9%. Some of the studies indicate that figure is significantly above 9%.
There appears to be a gap between this data and the fact that most days— at the courthouse and in our interaction with each other—we as members of the Bar seem to be functioning pretty well. What is actually going on?
We can understand this apparent discrepancy in two ways.
First, like a computer, much of how we think as lawyers is binary. Something is either white or black; yes, we identify with something or no, we don’t. For most of us the image that we have of people who suffer from alcoholism is one from the media or seeing homeless people with brown bags in their hands under bridges. Or we have an idea that an alcoholic drinks to drown his sorrows and misfortune in life. These images are pictures of severe late-stage alcoholism when people have lost almost everything. These ideas or images are what we emotionally identify as what alcoholism looks like. We therefore have this picture in mind of what we think an alcoholic looks like, while we simultaneously observe that almost none of us in the Bar looks like that or behaves like that.
The truth is, however, that most people who suffer from alcoholism, particularly lawyers and other professionals, are high-functioning alcoholics. While we do not look at all like the seemingly hopeless street alcoholic, we suffer much of the same emotional and spiritual emptiness that comes with being trapped in the grip of alcoholism. Yet we remain high-functioning in our work life. In fact, keeping up the appearance of proper functioning in our work life becomes paramount because without it we would have to face the emotional reality of the effect alcoholism is having on our lives. In addition, there is always the fear of losing the ability to purchase the alcohol—or other drugs—needed to satisfy the obsession that is characteristic of the disease.
Because of her own personal difficulty in coming to grips with her alcoholism while she was able to maintain a respectable job, home life, and friends, Sarah Allen Benton recently wrote a book entitled Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic. Her book reveals the story of many high-functioning alcoholics, many of whom could be lawyers. These are stories not of obvious tragedy, but of tremendous silent suffering. She estimates, based on surveys and professional experience, that at least half of all alcoholics are the high-functioning type. These individuals often work for years while abusing alcohol and sometimes putting their lives and the lives of their clients at huge risk.
Individuals who are in positions of power, and who are not closely supervised in their work, are often able to appear to continue to function well for years without immediate job consequences from excessive drinking or drug use. In fact, the use and abuse of alcohol or other drugs tends to be viewed as simply a reward for hard work. In his memoir, A Drinking Life, Peter Hamill, a writer, said, “If I was able to function, to get the work done, there was no reason to worry about drinking. It was part of living, one of the rewards.”
Because one of the diagnostic criteria for determining when alcoholism exists includes identification of problems created by the excessive use of alcohol, many high functioning alcoholic lawyers escape being identified as having the illness. Lawyers who often have garnered significant accomplishments in the profession as well as a stellar reputation among their peers find their accomplishments and standing in the legal community both a justification for drinking and a way to avoid seeing themselves as alcoholics. Ms. Benton said, “My success was the mask that disguised the underlying demon that fed my denial.”
Often, the high-functioning alcoholic lawyer will occasionally have a glimmer of insight that something is not quite right before any external consequences have begun to occur. This insight suggests the need to seek medical assistance to determine if there is an alcohol problem. However, this glimmer of insight is usually overridden by the feeling most lawyers have—that we would be perceived as weak to reach out and ask for help. This perception of weakness is not so much about admission of weakness to others, as it is a sign of some weakness we do not want to admit to ourselves. If a lawyer does yield to family pressure to reach out and get medical input about his or her drinking, the high-functioning alcoholic lawyer who is not yet ready to admit to him or herself that there is a problem will usually get an internist or psychiatrist who he or she can co-opt into minimizing the effect of the drinking. Sadly, this reinforcement from the healthcare provider (who has probably unknowingly been manipulated) actually affirms the lawyer’s denial.
Like all alcoholics, as the illness progresses, the high-functioning alcoholic tends more and more to hide his or her excessive consumption of alcohol by drinking alone. Often the pattern of drinking includes drinking alone before or after a social event, but not during the event itself. And like other alcoholics, high-functioning alcoholics often can abstain from alcohol for days or weeks at a time without experiencing significant withdrawal symptoms. This is another way the illusion is created that there is no need to get help. Although external consequences like loss of a job or family or arrest for alcohol-related offenses has not yet occurred, like other alcoholics who may have suffered some of those consequences, the high-functioning alcoholic’s life nevertheless becomes increasingly narrowed as the illness progresses. The focus of each day turns on when he or she can drink, making sure that alcohol will be available at some point. Another clue, often, is if a lawyer begins experiencing blackouts, which are periods of not remembering what occurred during a period of drinking.
Gradually, the high-functioning alcoholic’s life becomes more and more compartmentalized; he or she separates the drinking life and the seemingly successful work life. This strategy works until some kind of crisis occurs: either a dramatic, physical medical problem caused by the alcoholism or some other calamity, such as an alcohol-related arrest or disappearing without communication to colleagues and missing a crucial court date or client meeting, when it becomes clear to everyone that the problem is indeed alcohol. Unfortunately, by that time, very often many of the best years of the person’s life have passed. The good news is that there is effective medical treatment for alcoholism and other addictive drug illnesses. One need not continue to suffer in silence for many years, trying to hold up appearances and keep it all together.
As Ms. Benton’s book suggests, there is no need to suffer year after year in a small prison of success. We can take to heart what the statistics for our profession mean and take advantage of the opportunity (there for all of us who might have concerns about our drinking or drug habits) to reach out and get good confidential assistance from the Lawyer Assistance Program for a referral to an addiction’s specialist in evaluating if we have a high-functioning alcoholic problem.
– By Don Carroll and Robynn Moraites