Every fifth attorney in the United States is experiencing problems with alcohol, many use drugs-study

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A successful lawyer from Silicon Valley turned out to be a drug addict, he used drugs while performing his duties, and he managed to hide his addiction. After Peter’s death, his wife investigated and found out about her husband’s illness.

Her story about the last years of his life as a lawyer, as well as how everything was revealed, was published by The New York Times.

In July, 2015, something was wrong with my ex-husband, Peter. Throughout the previous 18 months, his behavior was fickle and strange. He was angry and threatened, repented and apologized. His voice and text messages were incoherent, senseless monologues, in which he jumped from a story about the difficulties at work to repair the car and his handheld mouse Snowball.

I thought that perhaps all of this was the effects of stress due to advocacy or bipolar disorder. He worked more than 60 hours a week for 20 years. Since entering the law school and throughout his career, he has been a lawyer, gaining a place in the intellectual property department Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a well-known law firm of Silicon Valley.

Peter was not able to be reached for two days. So I went to see him. Despite the divorce, by the time we were familiar almost 30 years and were a family.

I parked in his yard, unlocked the door with my key, and walked into a loft-like living room with bamboo floors bathed in sunlight. I called him - silence.

The rack is littered with candy wrappers. Peter worked so much that he didn’t cook anything on his own, eating mainly fast food, snacks, coffee, ibuprofen and antacids. I headed toward the bedroom, shouting his name.

The door was open. Crumpled and bloody napkins were scattered on the sheet. Then I turned the corner and saw him lying on the floor between the bathroom and the bedroom. His head rested on a crushed cardboard box.

Because of the shock, I did not see half-filled syringes, a spoon, a lighter and crushed pills lying on the sink. I didn’t see a bag of white powder, a cord, or another lighter next to the bed. The police report reported the discovery of several open safes in the bedroom, from which transparent orange jars dropped out from under the pills.

Peter, one of the most successful people I knew, died from a systemic bacterial infection common among injecting drug users.

Of all the shocking details of this story, the most troubling to me is that, judging by his mobile, the last call he made was at work. Peter, suffering from vomiting and constantly losing consciousness, somehow managed to make a conference call.

The story of his fall

All this was completely beyond explanation. Not only was Peter one of the smartest people in my life: before becoming a lawyer, he was a chemist and most likely knew how drugs would affect his nervous system.

Trying to understand how this happened and how we all could have missed it, I decided to recreate the events of Peter’s last year (the name is not mentioned in order to protect the privacy of his children and relatives).

I studied his correspondence with drug dealers and correlated it with the history of withdrawing cash on his card. I needed to discover signals that I had not previously realized. Those meaningless conversations. That crazy daily routine. Those evenings when he told our children that he would leave to buy soda, only to disappear.

People are complex creatures, both physically and emotionally, so there is no simple explanation for what led Peter to addiction. However, as the story of his struggle was revealed before my eyes, the deeply hidden problem of the increase in drug use among American lawyers became increasingly apparent.

Firstly, I found out that the problem of drug addiction among lawyers is practically not investigated. Nor are there any materials that fully cover the use of drugs among lawyers in comparison with the population in general, or office workers in particular.

One of the most comprehensive studies on the problem of drug addiction among lawyers was published only seven months after Peter's death. it researchHeld in 2016 by the Heslden Betty Ford Foundation in conjunction with the American Bar Association, it provides an analysis of surveys and surveys conducted among 12 825 licensed and practicing lawyers from 19 states.

In general, the survey results showed that 21% of respondents had problems with alcohol while 28% suffered from moderate or severe depression, and 19% suffered from anxiety. Only 3 419 lawyers responded to questions about drug use, which, according to Patrick Krill, the main author of the study and lawyer, is already indicative: “It remains only to speculate about what prompted 75% of lawyers to skip the section on drugs, as if and was not. "

According to Mr. Krill, they were afraid to answer.

Among those lawyers who answered the questions, 5,6% took cocaine, crack and stimulants, 5,6% took opiates, 10,2% took marijuana and hash, and about 16% took sedatives. 85% of all lawyers surveyed drank alcohol in the previous year. (For comparison, alcohol is consumed by about 65% of the general population).

Almost 21% of lawyers who admitted to using drugs in the previous year reported “not too strong” concerns about their addiction. Three percent had a "high" level of anxiety.

According to Mr. Krill, a licensed consultant in the field of alcohol and drug use and the founder of a consulting company Krill Strategies, which collaborates with law firms on drug abuse and mental health, the results of the study can be understood in two ways: “The first option, compared with alcohol, is a significantly smaller percentage of lawyers interviewed using drugs. But we believe that this is not the case. ”

“Drinking alcohol is legal,” says Mr. Krill, not to mention that it is socially acceptable. “So, admitting to alcohol abuse does not directly jeopardize your legal career.”

In contrast, drug use is illegal.

“I believe the extent of drug use and abuse is significantly underestimated,” Krill said.

According to the last research The Commission on Assistance to Lawyers at the American Association of Representatives of this Profession, alcohol abuse has become the most serious problem for lawyers and other legal experts. Slightly lower levels of abuse of prescription drugs.

Brian Kuban, an alcohol and drug addiction attorney and author of The Dependent Attorney: A Story of Bars, Drunkenness, Cocaine and Deliverance, appeared regularly at work while intoxicated and took a couple doses of cocaine to work.

“I snorted coke in the bathroom in the morning to get rid of my hangover,” he admits. “Cocaine helped me focus.”

According to Dr. Daniel Angres, an associate professor of psychiatry at Feinberg Medical College, occupational stress also plays an important role.

“Law firms have a culture of secrecy,” he reports. — There is a desire not to embarrass employees, and as long as the latter fulfill their duties, their dependence is easier to ignore. “Plus, many people don’t understand that addiction is a disease.”

This overall stress has been exacerbated by the economic recession caused by the 2008 financial crisis of the year. The number of jobs has decreased. The pressure due to refusals to leave has become increasingly noticeable.

At Peter's memorial service in 2015, which took place in his favorite place with a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean, a junior employee from his company spoke about their friendship and joint campaigns to concerts, bursting into tears at the end. Many of the lawyers who attended the ceremony were immersed in their smartphones, which were busy reading and writing emails. Their friend and colleague died, but they could not stop working to listen to the commemoration speech.

Peter was constantly nervous too. He was obsessed with competition, fees, the needs of his clients and the fear of losing them. He liked the intellectual challenges that his work implied, but he hated the aggressive nature of the profession, as it was contrary to his nature.

Long before entering the law school, when he was a little over 20, he wore long tail hair and was fond of science, philosophy and music. One of his idols was astronomer Karl Sagan. Another is Jimi Hendrix. He let me read books like Siddhartha and Letters to the Young Poet, and in college and even being a lawyer, I played bass in rock bands.

When he was a graduate student at the Faculty of Chemistry, we spent the entire weekend lying on the floor, listening to records and discussing our memories caused by a song.

After graduation, Peter worked in two small pharmacological companies, but the work turned out to be boring and underpaid. As he grew up in a poor family, he did not want to worry again about paying bills. Therefore, he decided to use his experience in chemistry and become a patent lawyer.

The first salary after graduating from law school was five times the amount that he earned as a chemist. However, this did not simplify our lives. Although we had enough money, Peter’s work schedule did not allow him to enjoy the fruits of his labors.

One day, at the beginning of his career, Peter’s boss called him up for Christmas from the funicular in Aspen, Colorado, to make sure that the written statement of the case would be ready by evening. Peter completed the assignment, abandoning dinner. “I can’t do this all the time,” my husband complained, “I won’t be able to continue the next 20 years like this.”

Reward for hostility

According to some data, lawyers are more often representatives of other professions suffering from depression. Study done in 1990 year, showed that they are prone to depression almost 4 times more often; Heseldin's research found that 28% lawyers suffer from depression.

Peter struggled with his own kind of melancholy, something attractive was in his tragic poetic image - there are still devils in the still waters. He repeated that he had never truly felt happy. There were moments when he was “not unhappy,” but still emotionally depressed.

He did not jump for joy when something big happened. I didn’t hit tears when something sad happened. I saw him crying only when he first saw our children.

However, for almost 10 years, working in various law firms, Peter in his office did not expose photos of me or children. When I asked why, because other employees had such photos, Peter answered that he didn’t want his colleagues to think that he was “distracted by his family.”

The character and abilities of Peter were just the ultimate dream for a lawyer. His training was equal to the scientist, he approached the problems thoughtfully, logically. He was smart, ambitious, and, most importantly, hardworking - perhaps because his decision to go to law school was worth such a high material and moral cost that he could justify it only if he were the best of the best.

And he became. In college, Peter was the editor of Legal Herald, the first in the group. And at the prom spoke with a speech.

He could also be so keen on something that bordered on insanity. I remember how he became obsessed with Bach concerts for the harpsichord and replenished his collection with everything he could find. He read, listened to lectures and even found on YouTube video about the mathematical interpretation of one of the concerts, which he made us all watch.

Such enthusiasm for something excellent was suitable for deep immersion in new types of drugs, medical equipment and technologies, with which he often and quickly had to get acquainted.

The effect of law

As some studies show, law school students are even healthier before the start of their studies than the population average, both physically and mentally.

In addition, according to psychologists, law students usually start their studies with an already developed sense of self-esteem and established values. But the formal structure of law schools can change them.

Instead of fighting for their own selves, students begin to focus on external values, such as status, comparative value, and competition.

Scientists often study law students because students define a profession. Will Miller, a lawyer and former drug addict, said that law school forced students to get rid of emotions when making decisions.

After students start their studies, they experience depression, a significant deterioration in mood and physical symptoms, with a corresponding decrease in life satisfaction, according to psychologists.

Students also lose some of their idealism. During the first year of law school students' motivation to study law and mastering a profession shifted from positive socially-oriented values ​​to external ones based on remuneration.

"It's impossible"

During the last two years of Peter’s life each time we were together - whether it was an evening meeting of graduates, cross-country arrival of a son or graduation of our daughter - people asked me if everything was all right with him. They wondered if he had cancer or an eating disorder, a metabolic disorder, or even AIDS. But they never asked about drugs.

Drugs did not occur to me. Even on the day when I found his body among syringes and called the emergency services.

On that day, in the house of Peter, ambulance workers immediately told me that this was probably an overdose. I repeated: "This is impossible." In the end, he was an employee of a law firm. He had the formation of the Ivy League.

“How could this be? - I asked one of them. “He was so smart.”

With a tablet on her lap, she nodded to me knowingly. “We often see this now,” she said, referring to rich, experienced men and women who start with painkillers and end with amphetamine or heroin.

When I cleaned Peter's house after his death, I found receipts from medical companies that delivered bandages and harnesses to his office address. However, I do not think that drug addiction came to mind at least someone with whom he worked.

Law firms are often reluctant to discuss drug abuse with their lawyers. According to Terry Harrell, a lawyer and consultant to the Drug Abuse Commission for Lawyers, this is not malicious. The management of the law firm, she said, does not know what signs indicate dependence. And when this happens to one of the employees, they are so busy that "they just don’t see it."

When asked by the president of the American Bar Association, Linda Klein how her organization intends to help combat mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse, she stated that the Association’s rules for professional development and education for its staff “state that lawyers are advised to go through every three years an educational program on mental disorders or drug and alcohol abuse. ” She also added that "periodically recommending lawyers to take these programs, the Association hopes to reduce the number of such problems."

Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that one course every three years would have kept Peter — anyone — from dependence. According to experts and people who have overcome addiction, significant changes should occur at the level of a law firm, but this is difficult to achieve due to the inherent culture of private life, coupled with a love for paid hours.

Remembering unsung signs

The last two years I spent in hell, struggling to cope with the problems that had piled on me: the complicated affair about inheritance, the suffering of my children. I firmly believe that the professional ethics of a law firm - especially when it comes to a large company - should change, focusing on the employee, pay more attention to signs indicating that some of the employees have problems.

Reflecting on the past, I see signs that I have not noticed.

Four years ago, our son broke his wrist while playing soccer. He was discharged Vicodin, and Peter crushed the first-aid kit, trying to get to the remnants of the medicine.

“I accept it when my back hurts,” he explained.

Or a festive concert, where our son's group was supposed to perform: Peter appeared late, he was shaking noticeably; he was so haggard that it seemed to me that his head had become too heavy for his shoulders. After the speech, I went with him to the car, and he complained about the dissatisfaction of the company's managers, as if he too often works from home.

“I’m much more productive this way, but they need my physical presence, you know,” he explained. “They think I don’t work if I’m not in the office.” They were right.

And finally, at the beginning of 2015, the son told me that Peter received a package with Amazonin which there were heaps of syringes, bandages, cotton pads and disinfectants. Peter explained that he was just filling up the first-aid kit.

My son is very puzzled. But by that time, his father’s behavior had become so strange that against this background the case with the premise seemed almost ordinary.

Many years ago, when Peter was still a relative newcomer to the firm, he often joked that a combination of anti-depressants, painkillers and stimulants would be the ideal drug for him. When I cleaned his house, I found all the necessary ingredients: vicodin, tramadol, adderol, cocaine, xanax, methamphetamine and a kaleidoscope of pills that I could not recognize.

However, even when the addiction began to threaten his life, Peter continued to work. In the notebooks where he noted the time of taking and the dosage of the drug, he also left illegible notes about customer calls and meetings, lists of documents that he should prepare, and deadline dates.

A lawyer in the field of intellectual property is an incredibly hard work from an intellectual point of view, and Peter, a real pro, has done an excellent job with her for many years. Perhaps the arrogance caused by the profession, when your advice costs 600 dollars per hour, made him believe that he didn’t need to ask for help, that he could handle everything himself. Just another item on his long to-do list.

And in fact: when I cleaned his house, I found at the bottom of the drawer drawer a list of Peter's New Year promises, written by him in December 2014. “Run three marathons, spend more time with the kids,” the list read.

And the word “quit” written in red marker.

Text translation prepared edition Zen.

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