“The addicted lawyer’s work and family can be seriously affected. The addicted person can feel helpless, frustrated, ashamed, guilty, and hopeless and be unwilling, perhaps unable, to address the health issues squarely. Also, most lawyers spend their time dealing with other people’s problems and they often do not want to seek help because after all ‘they are the helper.’ It is a natural part of the disease to deny having it and lawyers are brilliant rationalizers and excuse makers.” 

This quote is from the website of the Lawyers Assistance Program of British Columbia (LAPBC) which provides, “peer support and referral services to help people deal with personal problems–including alcohol and drug dependence, stress and anxiety, depression and other issues. These are all treatable illnesses not moral issues.”

Lawyers who come to the LAPBC often have issues around work, family and health, says Derek LaCroix, QC, Executive Director of the LAPBC. He says sometimes lawyers come to the LAP with these issues and, “we discover that they have problems with alcohol and drugs.”

“Stigma is the biggest reason lawyers don’t get help, fear of being found out, fear of it impacting their work or reputation.”

“They push themselves beyond where a lot of other people would because they can, because they have the skills and intelligence to keep going and just make their lives smaller. They’ve stopped doing certain things and pretty soon, by the time they come to me, their life has become pretty small.”

“They’re just hanging on.”

LaCroix says the addicted or alcoholic lawyer is just managing work, keeping family placated, maybe working out, “in order to keep physically okay. But their community, all the things that used to make their life richer, are gone. They’re just hanging on: they look good but it’s not the same.

“A lot of people think an alcoholic is somebody who is drinking on skid row, who is drinking a bottle of wine and falling down or a drug addict who is shooting up, or a person with a mood disorder who has to be in a straight-jacket and can’t function. And truthfully, that’s not even close to any of my clients.

“I would say virtually everybody I help still has a job and their career. They still have their families. Things look better from the outside. They haven’t lost as much. But, in some respects that makes it worse because they’ve got the stuff, but they feel disconnected from that and everything.”

Once they seek help, the success rate for lawyers in generally high.

“Lawyers are very resistant and very smart, and they’re used to batting things aside. They’re also used to diligently working. That’s one of the reasons I like to give homework, they’ll do the homework. Once they’ve decided that they have a problem and they’re willing to follow the instructions, they’re very good at following through.

“The homework is specific to the individual. It can include things like keeping track of all drinks, keeping track of moods, keeping track of negative thoughts, doing a Step (of the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous).”

What are the popular drugs?

“Wine, marijuana, snorting cocaine, crystal meth, Ritalin and various amphetamines are very popular. Uppers for a person with ADD or ADHD, or on that spectrum, can help them focus. There are an unbelievable number of people who use antidepressants.”

Is there disciplinary action for alcoholic or addicted lawyers?

There is no official disciplinary action or monitoring program for lawyers: “When they come in here (LAPBC) everything’s completely voluntary. Sometimes there are situations in which the law society does mandate people and they follow whatever the addiction specialist recommends. Sometimes, that’s residential treatment. It’s not that common. It happens, though.”

Derek’s Story

“I was 22 when I first started. I knew before then that I had a problem because I would get drunk and be an idiot. I didn’t drink all the time though. And then when I was in second year law school I got arrested. Now that went away, it was a misunderstanding, but still it was as a result of me being drunk in public. And I started getting help then but I didn’t take it that seriously because I could function pretty well in the world. And it would just be episodic, and I would just do stupid things and carry on.”

Atypical lawyer: “I couldn’t work anymore.”

“Then a whole series of things started happening and the frequency of the episodes became more, and they became longer until finally at the end, the last year or six or eight months, I was drinking every day. There was a period when I used a lot of cocaine because I could drink more without blacking out. So, I couldn’t work anymore, and I just ran out of money.”

“It wasn’t just moving away from crappiness.”

“I really liked being a lawyer. I wanted to be a lawyer. I thought of myself as a lawyer. And I wasn’t really able to work anywhere. So that really was what did it for me. It wasn’t just moving away from crappiness it was moving towards what I knew I could have. So, there was a familiarity with success or with things I could move towards that weren’t involving alcohol and drugs.”

LaCroix got clean and sober in 1987 when he was 37 years old. “I just set out to do whatever I needed to recover.” This included joining an AA home group, getting a sponsor and starting a, “personal development program. Once I stopped drinking and using and stuff I had to deal with the psychological and emotional issues. I kind of knew what my purpose was and what my values were, but I was pretty fuzzy. So, I had to get clarity around who I wanted to be and how to control or how to deal with all the emotions I have. Because I had used alcohol, drugs, sex, partying, sports, work–used all of those to cover up any feelings I had.

“I wanted to get back to performing at a good level as a lawyer. I knew I wanted to rebuild my practice in another law firm.”

Helping Others

When he was first clean and sober Derek found that helping others in AA helped himself but that expanded to many other non-profit organizations. He is currently on several non-profit boards of societies dealing with addictions, education and spirituality such as Be the Change Earth Alliance, Turning Point Recovery Centre and Multifaith Action Society.

LaCroix is often called upon to present seminars and workshops throughout the province. They include: Developing Resilience; Strategies for Creating a Healthy Practice; Time Management; Overcoming Procrastination; Managing Stress; and Meditation.

The LAPBC started in 1990. LaCroix says, “Its focus then was mainly alcohol and drug abuse but today it is a comprehensive program and addictions are only somewhere around 15 to 20 percent of what we do.”