NCLAP publishes a quarterly e-newsletter, Sidebar. LAP volunteers regularly submit articles for Sidebar around recovery themes or slogans. LAP volunteers understand, as few others can, the sense of loneliness and isolation that are so devastatingly integral to depression and drinking problems. “You Are Not Alone” is a popular theme because it offers so much hope. We share two of our volunteers’ stories here.
One LAP volunteer writes:
It was the most difficult time of my life. I had been diagnosed as a person abusing alcohol. I was also diagnosed as suffering from depression. To make matters worse, I had been suspended by the Bar for two years for failure to pay income taxes. Where could I turn?
The director of the LAP program reached out to me and invited me to join a support group of other lawyers in Charlotte who likewise had addiction problems and significant mental health issues. I came to the first meeting scared and not knowing what to expect. They all greeted me and welcomed me. I told them my story. They understood and showed genuine concern. They had all traveled this road before. They knew there was hope, but they also knew it was important for me to work an amazing program of recovery.
I was assigned a mentor. He had been down my road of alcohol addiction. He quickly called me. He let me know that he would always be there for me on my road of recovery.
A judge in our support group introduced himself to me. He had been where I was for many years. I could instantly see that he knew the journey well, and he believed in the power of recovery and the power of coming together with those like me to share our stories. He invited me to my first AA meeting. It was amazing how people stood up, candidly told their stories, and gave thanks for their sobriety and their return to meaningful living. I asked my judge friend if he would be my sponsor in AA and he extended a hand of friendship. He would be with me on my journey. He helped me to believe in myself once again.
I continued with the support group for 14 years every Monday night. We talked about problems in our practices, difficulties with our spouses, challenges with our children, and, most important, we talked about ourselves. Men and women with all kinds of issues: some addicted, others suffering from depression, anxiety, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, or suicidal ideations. They helped me to begin to mold myself into an individual with self-confidence, with love for those who stood with me in my journey, and a hope for the future full of the knowledge that I would never be alone.
I worked the Twelve Steps. I came home to myself. I discovered my selfishness. I realized that there was a Higher Power in my life who unconditionally loved me and would walk with me always on my journey.
I started attending Twelve Step weekend retreats and came into the fellowship of other lawyers who were on a similar journey. We joined each other on our journeys. We began to know ourselves even deeper and we promised each other that we would always be there for each other.
After several years, I could see the power of brotherhood and sisterhood in reaching out to those beginning their journey. I became a volunteer mentor with the Lawyer Assistance Program. I promised my mentees that they too could overcome the power of their addictions as we would walk their journeys together.
My journey has been the most incredible and powerful journey of my life. My journey would never have been possible without my mentor, my sponsor, the director of the LAP program who believed in my promise, the endless stream of brothers and sisters in the Bar who shared their journey with me, and my Higher Power who lifted my lonely existence with grace and unconditional love.
Another volunteer reflects:
I heard someone say at a recovery meeting recently: “Only an alcoholic would choose isolation as a way to deal with loneliness.”
I was a solitary drinker. I drank every evening from the time I got home from work until I stumbled off to bed. Even though I was married with children, my drinking became a barrier I built between myself and everyone else, including my family. At some point during the evening, I would go on a long walk with the dog, mini-bottles filling my pockets to be sure I could sustain myself until returning home. I imprisoned myself in my own home and neighborhood, afraid to go out for fear of what driving under the influence might cause. Anyway, why would I want to leave the bottomless supply of alcohol I had stashed around my home?
And of course, I was not about to share anything about my situation with anyone else. I was a lawyer, after all, charged with solving everyone else’s problems. I couldn’t let it be known I had problems of my own. And I certainly couldn’t let on that I might have a problem with alcohol. The more I drank, the more insurmountable my problems seemed to become. And the more my problems mounted, the more I drank. That makes sense, right?
Finally, God (and my wife and LAP) did for me what I could not do for myself.
My wife’s despair at what was happening to me and to our marriage led her to call on the Lawyer Assistance Program (she’s a lawyer too). She wasn’t so much turning me in as she was looking for some help with a problem I denied existed and she felt powerless to solve on her own. So, on that fateful day, I arrived home to be met by my darling wife who said she had been to the alcohol enforcement division of the North Carolina State Bar and that they wanted to see me (well, that’s how I remember it sounding at the time).
A lot of things could have happened next: denial, shouting, cursing, “how dare you.” Instead, I was oddly relieved. Maybe my imprisonment would end. Maybe there was help. Maybe I was not alone.
And, in fact, that’s how it turned out. I visited the LAP office the next day. The day after that I went to my first AA meeting. I’ve been going to meetings of AA and LAP ever since. Most of what I discovered surprised me—amazed me really. It’s amazing that after being a daily drinker for years, I found I did not have to drink, and I have not had a drink since that day. I was equally amazed at how happy and upbeat recovery meetings always seemed to be. Those in recovery are truly blessed, and for the most part they seem to know it. I hear more gratitude expressed at recovery meetings than anywhere else I go.
It is also amazing how much one recovering alcoholic is willing to do to help the alcoholic who still suffers. And, to be clear, we remain alcoholics after we stop drinking, and we sometimes still suffer. As one lawyer in recovery said: “AA doesn’t open the gates of heaven and let you in; but it does open the gates of hell and let you out.”
There is still loss; there is still fear; there is still guilt—but now there is a solution other than a drink. And a very big part of the solution is that I/we are not alone. LAP and other recovery programs are there, literally 24/7 to listen, to understand, not to judge, to empathize in a way only someone who has been where you’ve been can. It is a blessing beyond words.
I am not alone.
You are not alone.
We are not alone.