Sidebar

The judge said he hoped to see me on the other side of the bar in 5 years. I thought to myself: There’s no reason it should take me five years to pass the bar. After all, I had already been sober for about a year, and it had been almost 2 years since my third DUI. It’s an unfortunate story, but definitely not unique. I had graduated law school, but then bar study met my best friend, King Alcohol. Before I could ever see with clarity what was really going on, the disease of alcoholism took almost everything from me. Maybe I knew I had a problem, maybe I didn’t. Maybe I just couldn’t reconcile my glamorous vision of a successful legal career with a life without my very best friend. It doesn’t really matter what happened or how it happened. All that matters was that now I was sober, and I wanted my life back. Read the full story here.

Welcome to Sidebar, brought to you by North Carolina’s Lawyer Assistance Program, where lawyers help lawyers by sharing their experience, strength, and hope as they delve into their personal journeys of recovery.

We’ll initiate and guide the conversation with lawyers and judges, who will share stories, insights, lessons, and tools discovered along the way with the intention of relieving the stress and stigma of talking about how life, mental health, and the practice of law have affected them, both personally and professionally.

We encourage you to listen to another episode or two, subscribe to our newsletter, and peruse the resources at www.nclap.org. And, if you know a lawyer who could use a hand, please share this episode with them today. Remember, at Sidebar…you are not alone, in fact, you are in quite good company.

Sidebar: tune in for the conversations, community, and camaraderie. Stay for the shared hope and humanity you discover.