Whether it is because they are members of a stressful, high-stakes profession or because personalities with a penchant for addictive disorders are drawn to the law, studies have shown that lawyers have twice the addiction rate of the general population and are three times as likely to be depressed.The article goes on to allege that law school is a breeding ground for addiction, mostly by custom, and that 20-40% of law students are depressed.
As if that weren't enough, lawyers are also notoriously reluctant to seek help for these problems...."Lawyers are uniquely treatment resistant," said Dr. Link Christin, adjunct professor of law at William Mitchell College of Law in Minnesota...
This had me thinking about the nature of AA and the nature of law schools. Having never been to an AA meeting, I can't give any personal knowledge, but my understanding is that the whole point is that you solve a problem by finding there are others like you who face analogous situations and admitting that group help is necessary. Thus, an individual problem is countered with the power of numbers via group support.
It seems to me that law school, in many ways, is the opposite. When one comes as a law school, they come on individual achievement. Up to that point in time, most law students have excelled in the academic sense, at least relative to their peers. In law school, they meet dozens and dozens of people who are exactly like them and often went to law school for the exact same reason. The same sense of uniqueness and exceptionalism that gave rise to thoughts of succeeding in law (and investing tens of thousands in an education) is destroyed by the introduction of two hundred carbon copies. The identical members of the group cause a breakdown of the belief of uniqueness, of success, of achievement.
Thus, a sort-of cognitive dissonance develops. The young lawyer has been trained to believe he or she is exceptional. The empirical evidence suggests otherwise, even for the top 10% graduates. I'm not going to play armchair psychiatrist and say this leads to addictions, but it can't help, and it certainly can't help in treating addiction.
It seems to me that the root problem here is that you have people who on some latent level believe they're some sort of superhumans. While the article speaks of innovative therapy programs targeted solely at lawyers and law school awareness programs, my gut feeling is that the problem needs to be addressed significantly earlier, possibly as far back as high school.
If putting people on a pedestal and calling them exceptional for what are frankly non-exceptional things causes psychological problems that make one resistant to addiction therapy, maybe we should stop putting kids on pedestals for non-exceptional things.
I'm particularly happy I went through all my addiction issues and got clean and sober BEFORE I decided to go to law school. Hopefully I can avoid this pitfall.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you might consider reversing the cause 7effect correlation...perhaps there's something about law that provides an irresistible attraction for junkies and drunks?
The article talks about that possibility, but honestly, I don't really see it. I could see a lot of other careers drawing addictive personalities for a variety of reasons (chef, doctor, dentist, investment banker), but what is it about practicing law that would draw people at a higher risk than the general population? I suppose it's possible intelligent, driven people in general are more prone to addiction, but that wouldn't be anything unique about the legal field. Maybe I'm just missing something. Who knows?
ReplyDeletelaw - a field of endeavour that, like doing your taxes in an acid bath, has the rare capacity to leave you deathly bored and highly stressed at the once. every move must be thought out as much to shield your arse from your clients as to serve them. life is reduced to units, and spent fully expecting some fresh hell to arise - a forgotten deadline, missed tax liability, overlooked clause.
ReplyDeleteIt's a relentlessly negative gig - who wouldn't want to be stoned?
Oh Man! A topic that is very near and dear!
ReplyDeleteI went to AA meetings and was totally dry for 11 years. I make a new years resolution every year and do pretty well until half way through the year.
But I do better as I get older. The old body just doesn't bounce back like it used to after a big night.
But all other stresses and problems that lawyers may have aside, and speaking only on the issue of student loan debt: In my opinion, non-dischargeable debt defies any 12 step program or any possibe answer that any kind of psychotherapy can provide.
Only a political or legislative solution can solve the problem.
Until then, in my opinion, debt slaves will drink and abuse other substances.
I remember once being in a Saturday, midnight meeting in the AA and a Vietnam Vet talked about how he shot up a village of civilians in Vietnam, and how he was all messed up psychologically.
Or the story about the Commercial airplane pilot that landed a 747 full of people drunk, and then walked into the terminal and called the AA.
Or the crying middle aged woman that fell off the wagon by downing bottles of Vanilla extract while cooking christmas dinner.
Or the guy who woke up after an 11 day blackout in a diner in NJ with no shoes and didn't know where he was all that time, or how the hell he got there.
The guy who had the DT's and told stories about little crustaceans and sea monkey people.
And on and on--Stuff like that finally started to freak me out, so I stopped going to the AA meetings.
If you go on youtube you will see some interesting and also funny stuff actually. There are some pro anti-AA people and some anti-AA.