Alcohol and drugs.
Can anything be more devastating to a family or a person than those 2?
Last week I was at a hearing just killing time until my client’s case was called.
A criminal case which eventually got resolved.
I saw an attorney, call him Tony, there at the hearing I had not seen in 2 years or so.
We got to talking and he mentioned why I had not seen him in.
Tony is 45 years old.
Tony is an alcoholic and a drug abuser.
That’s why I had not seen him in all that time.
Tony hit rock bottom with the alcohol and drugs.
Tony told me it got so bad that he was thrown in jail by a Judge he knew for 20 years on his birthday.
That’s how bad the alcohol and drugs had him.
Tony said it wasn’t a SUDDEN thing.
He started drinking more and more alcohol and taking drugs to deal with the pressures of being a lawyer.
First Tony needed to drink as soon as he got home because of the pressures of the day.
Then he would top that off with drugs to get a real buzz.
That’s what should worry ALL of us.
Alcohol just doesn’t come into your life suddenly.
It is a very GRADUAL thing. You start drinking more and more to get that buzzed feeling.
I asked Tony when he hit rock bottom.
His answer shocked me.
His wife left him and took their three children.
His marriage over and he did not care.
He started to hook up with a 25-year-old babe.
The 25-year-old was also into alcohol and drugs the same vicious way Tony was.
Soft drugs at first and then graduated to hard drugs.
Where it all hit rock bottom for Tony was when he was in a hotel room with the 25-year-old.
She wanted to try heroin and did it in the hotel room.
She overdosed on heroin.
Tony said he woke up the next morning next to a dead body.
And that’s when Tony said he knew he hit rock bottom.
Like every job or profession being a lawyer has a lot of stress to it. But that’s just making excuses.
The biggest issue though is what you do to deal with that pressure? Not just talking about lawyers here.
Is it something positive like running or jogging or trying yoga?
Or is it something dark and absolutely deadly like drinking too much or taking drugs?
Either way, I guess we all have to deal with the pressures of our life.
HOW you deal with that pressure is the key.
Just ask Tony a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser.
Thanks for reading.
Bernie the attorney.