True Surrender

The wheels came off the day the bar results arrived. I have no idea how long I had been an alcoholic drinker by then, but I have a few guesses where it started. Years prior, I was in a serious accident, hitting the pavement at more than 55 miles per hour. A couple of surgeries and more than a decade of rehab later and I still feel discomfort every day. At the time, painkillers made me nauseous, but I had to quell the pain, so I turned to wine. A lot of wine. A seed was planted – alcohol numbed physical pain.

Fast forward several years and I was at the end of my first semester in law school. Although I visited family during Thanksgiving break, the stress of looming exams weighed on me. I told myself that studying was more important than visiting my grandfather. His health had been gradually failing for years, but winter break was approaching, and I would have plenty of time to visit him after exams. He died a week later, just days before my first exam. I was a wreck. The anxiety I felt going into my first exam, coupled with the pain of loss, drove me to several strong drinks just before the exam. And another seed was planted – alcohol numbed emotional pain too.

I proceeded to take every single exam that semester with several drinks in me. When we got our grades back, it turned out I had done quite well. That was all I needed to justify spending the rest of law school drinking more and more, never once taking a test, writing a paper, or giving an oral argument fully sober. I graduated at the top of my class, but I was miserable, and I drove away almost every friend I had made along the way. The summer after graduation, I drank around the clock, fooling myself into believing I was studying. I actually took a cooler with wine to the bar exam because why change what had worked all through law school, right?

I started working for a large firm shortly after the bar exam and things seemed to be going well for the first few weeks. I was excited to be working, I was “drinking like a gentleman”—in other words, only after work—and everything seemed to be back on track. Then the bar results came out, and not surprisingly, I had failed. I was in shock. I had graduated at the top of my class in high school, from a military service academy, and now from law school, but I had just failed a test of minimum competency. For the first time I could remember, I had failed. I made excuses to stay out of work for a week as I drank around the clock. When I did finally go back, shame and despondency led me to sneak away every few hours to take another drink. I even woke up with nightmares and would drink more to get back to sleep.

By October, my toes started tingling. Initially, I told myself I was just cold, or it was poor circulation. Within a week, my feet were numb to the touch, and I was beginning to have trouble walking. Within two weeks, I was numb almost to my waist. A few medical tests confirmed that my central nervous system was deteriorating due to a severe vitamin deficiency, almost certainly thanks to the volume of wine I was drinking. I remember the doctor telling me that he could prescribe me something to help reverse the effects, but that I had to stop drinking to recover. I went home and took my prescription with wine.

Thankfully my family intervened a few days later. It was beyond time for a medical intervention, so I was off to a detox and rehab facility. The first phone call I made was to a dean from my law school. I knew she would have good advice, and this seemed like the type of thing I vaguely remembered her talking about regularly in law school. She was incredibly supportive, and she told me to call the North Carolina Lawyer Assistance Program. I did, and it probably saved my life. I also called a senior partner at my law firm. I had only been there for six weeks, I had failed the bar, and I was ready to be fired. I do not remember much of that conversation, except that he asked if I needed a ride to rehab. Years later I am still at the same firm, and I still work with that partner. I will never forget his kindness and compassion when it counted, and I will be forever grateful to those who rallied to support me.

I spent three months in rehab completing an extended program for professionals and came back to work ready to face all of the questions about my disappearance. Those questions never came. Generally, people were just glad I was healthy again. But despite the professional and physical toll alcohol had taken, and despite all I had learned in treatment, I still was not convinced I was an alcoholic. Sure, life had thrown me some curveballs and I needed to work on some things, but I was not convinced that alcohol was the problem. Regardless, I decided to work with LAP as an insurance policy after I left treatment. I knew the threat of a character and fitness hearing still loomed as I had yet to be licensed, and I worried that if the Board of Law Examiners found out I had just spent three months in rehab, I would never practice law. Today, I chuckle at that notion since seeking necessary help is exactly what they want to see from would-be attorneys, but I digress. I agreed to work with LAP, promising that in exchange for actively participating in twelve-step recovery and consenting to periodic alcohol screening, LAP would vouch for me, if necessary, at any character and fitness hearing.

It seemed like a reasonable trade, and I knew I should abstain from alcohol until I passed the bar exam. I buckled down, actively participated in twelve step recovery, and I passed the bar exam the next time around. With life seeming back on track, my doubts of my alcoholism began to take hold. Every time I heard an alcoholic share, I focused on the differences in our experiences. I clung to the siren song so many alcoholics hear that I might be able to drink successfully one day if I fixed everything else in life. Over time, I grew a resentment over LAP’s monitoring since I did not believe I was really an alcoholic.

That doubt in my own alcoholism continued to grow, as did the resentment, and I eventually cancelled my insurance policy with LAP. Still, I avoided a drink because I did not want to disappoint my sponsor and my friends in recovery. I knew if I returned to drinking, those friendships would wither. Then my twelve-step sponsor unexpectedly relapsed and ended up in a treatment center himself. That was all the excuse I needed, and the cord was cut. Soon thereafter I took my first drink and for a few weeks I drank “normally”—only a few drinks a day, and only on the weekends. Two on Sunday afternoon, to be exact. I was counting. The mental obsession with alcohol returned swiftly, and within a month, I was drinking several drinks a day, every day. Thankfully, I recognized the obsession, and it scared the hell out of me. I knew that it was only a matter of time before the negative consequences of drinking would begin. With my tail between my legs, once again humbled by alcohol, I returned to the rooms of twelve-step recovery and picked up my start-over chip.

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