Editor’s note: TLAP offers confidential assistance for lawyers, law students, and judges with substance use or mental health issues. Call or text TLAP at 1-800-343-8527 (TLAP) or find more information at tlaphelps.org.
Growing up, I had always done well in school. Good grades were an easy ticket to praise and affection at home, and I was happy to have found an easy way to receive both. However, there was another side of me that wanted to have fun, regardless of whether that resulted in any positive benefit. From a young age, I learned that a “little white lie” confidently told could keep me out of trouble and allow me to maintain the appearance of a good student, no matter what fun trouble I got myself into. This, of course, was completely unsustainable. A continued succession of new schools and personal misery might have been enough to encourage new behavior in most people, but it was not enough for me. I have a peculiar mental twist that always tells me, “This time, it’ll be different. This time I’ll get it right.”
I got drunk for the first time at the age of 12 and was regularly smoking marijuana by the time I received a high school diploma after the unexpected trip to summer school when I had already been accepted to college. Undergrad was a kaleidoscope of new experiences, full of intellectual stimulation, balanced on a razor’s edge with constant inebriation and consumption of nearly any drug that came my way. The party was in full swing. I had no idea what I would do with myself in the future, but I was having fun now. I worked hard and partied hard, and if I was working less and partying more by the time graduation came around, what was the harm?
I was arrested for my first DUI three weeks before my 21st birthday. The help of a good attorney kept me out of serious trouble. The next years included a series of arrests or near arrests, always with a slap on the wrist thanks to connections within the law enforcement community and prosecutor’s office. By the time I made it to law school, I had a decent scholarship and a budding dependence on alcohol, cocaine, and other stimulants, prescribed or illicit. To my addicted mind, I was where I was, without consequences, thanks to my own incredible intellect. I never saw the heartache and strain that my behavior had caused to my family nor the privilege that my status afforded to me.
I managed to graduate from law school and even pass the bar on the first try. Character and fitness gave me some nervous thoughts, but I had never been arrested for anything more serious than a DUI and my record had been expunged where necessary and plead down to misdemeanors if there was no other option. I was unleashed on the world as an attorney, and if the liquor bottle, powders, and pills received more of my attention than the FRP or relevant code sections, my natural intellect would see me through as it always had in the past, or so I told myself.
It was not meant to be. I had been lying to myself for so long, I could no longer differentiate the true from the false. I got jobs, left jobs, got new jobs, lost jobs, and came closer to malpractice than I would like to admit. With the help of my wife, I found recovery through rehab and Alcoholics Anonymous, where I learned how to tell the truth to myself and others, beginning with my name and the fact that I am an alcoholic and addict. The recovery process was simple but not easy. I had to place my own sobriety as the first priority, and that sobriety was contingent on, among other things, honesty.
When I applied for reciprocity to the State Bar of Texas after a family move, I had to fully disclose the truth of my actions, not only to comply with the requirements of admission but also to preserve my own fledgling integrity and recovery. Friends from AA were willing to provide written testimonials as to my sobriety and dedication to a program of recovery, and the bar responded in kind. With two years of sobriety, I was waived in, and a new life stretched before me. In the decade since, I have experienced victory and defeat, success and failure, both personally and professionally, but I have maintained my sobriety through it all, thanks to willingness, open-mindedness, and above all, honesty.