April 2001

Turnaround

I dropped out of college in my second year. They discharged me under other-than-honorable conditions from the military within two years of being commissioned as an officer. My last duty station was an involuntary assignment to Leavenworth, Kansas.

After returning from Vietnam, I went on an exploratory excursion to Central America, where I ended up serving time on an island penal colony for six months. In the course of 23 years, from ages 17 to 40, I was arrested, involved in fights, had auto accidents and a couple of voluntary commitments to Harborview and Western State hospitals. Never, during all that time, did I make the connection that my troubles might be a result of drinking and drugging —that’s denial!

I had a rationale for every situation —it was seldom my fault; it was yours or someone else’s; it was circumstances, bad luck and life. I had heard that adversity built character, and I rationalized that character was my greatest virtue. Not everyone agreed.

I have been in recovery for 14 years. I finished college, got a J.D., and was admitted to the Bar. My application was several pages longer than the average, since there were serious issues as to whether or not I would be accepted. I sat in my criminal law clinic class as a 3L, listening to classmates agonize over having to include various traffic infractions on their applications. I chuckled and told them that when I got to that level in my own application, the severity of my other disclosures caused me to add "and various other traffic infractions and minor civil violations" as a footnote.

I had the good fortune to find Alcoholics Anonymous through the court system, but certainly didn’t think it was good fortune at the time.

When I got my DWI and deferred prosecution in Kittitas County, I never appeared in court. I simply sent the fee to the Cle Elum attorney who represented me. I was required to go to outpatient treatment, which was nonsense to me, but I was afraid of losing my driver’s license, so I went. I had finally become a taxpayer and had held a job for about three years — a job that required driving.

I have looked back through the process of recovery, and I now recognize what I couldn’t see then. I remember blacking out after a high-school dance. I had driven 25 miles to my parents’ driveway and had no idea where I was. I thought I might have a brain tumor, but remember thinking, "I better not tell anyone or they’ll tell me that I must stop drinking." That’s alcoholic thinking.

I was able to moderate my drinking enough so that blackouts were not a regular occurrence, but by the time I was 19 and in the military, I drank to drunkenness, and was exposed to marijuana and to lax, irreverent attitudes of some Vietnam veterans assigned to my training unit. Eventually it was my use of pot that secured my Leavenworth assignment. A personal plea to Senator Warren Magnuson got me home for Christmas, 11 months early, after serving 14 months in the Army’s "big house."

I began a slow, insidious decline from 1970 to 1982. It seemed like I was in control, but I merely surrounded myself with those on the same skid. We reinforced each other’s denial, and held each other up while bailing water on the Titanic. My siblings and parents tried in their loving way to coax me from the other side of the street, but I could not see the fault in my thoughts, nor the hurt I was causing others. I could not see the life of opportunities and potential ebbing away. I regret my behavior, and particularly that my father died before I got clean and sober.

The miracle is that I am clean and sober. My attendance at AA meetings began to turn my thinking around. I spitefully agreed to follow some of the suggestions for six months, believing that I would certainly be able to show the "losers" in AA that their infantile approach and Pollyanna program was not going to work for this "road warrior." Hah!

Today I am gladly the butt of my own joke. I cannot tell specifically why or how the program worked for me, but in about three months I began to experience a new joy in my life without any artificial substances. After six months I even began to enjoy going to meetings. After I got into law school, I was lucky enough to find an all-lawyers AA meeting. The professionals in that group, with varying degrees of sobriety from months to decades, have become my friends and mentors in sobriety, in life, and in the practice of law.

When I chuckled at my classmates struggling over their Bar applications, I did not tell them that I called my AA sponsor from the lawyers’ meeting, regularly agonizing over my application with such questions as: "Do I have to mention this six months in Panama? After all, it is another country, it was a military government, and I didn’t even get a trial." The kind, thoughtful answer was: "Put it down. Put it all down."

I was probably the only one in my class to get a call from the general counsel of the WSBA two months before graduation to tell me that I had made it, because he knew that I would be concerned. He said that when he got to the disclosure part of my application, he thought there might be a problem and couldn’t see a way to approve it. When he received my explanation with a narrative of what I had been doing since recovery, including volunteer work and single parenting, he said that he was leaning toward admittance. When he recognized the signatures of two attorneys who recommended me, that clinched it.

Sometimes I use my experience in steering some of my clients in the direction of recovery, and helping those who have "taken the bait" gives me as much satisfaction as any aspect of this wonderful profession.

I believe that if it worked for me, it can work for anybody. I have witnessed miracles of recovery in people from every walk of life, with every degree of substance abuse. I have seen street drunks come to recovery after seven runs through a treatment facility. I have seen successes, and I have seen failures.

The only solution that cannot work is the one left untried. If I can be of help to any person who wants to find out more about recovery, please contact me through the LAP program. I choose to remain anonymous, except to those who will recognize my story — my closest friends and associates, in and out of AA. Thanks for being there when I didn’t know I needed you.

The WSBA Lawyer Services Department offers these programs:

The Lawyers’ Assistance Program (LAP): 206-727-8268

Confidential assistance for lawyers with emotional, drug/alcohol or other personal problems.

The Law Office Management Assistance Program (LOMAP): 206-727-8237

Offers consultation and information to help solo and small-firm practitioners deliver legal services of the highest quality.

The Professional Responsibility/Ethics Program: 206-727-8284

Lawyers can call a WSBA lawyer for assistance in resolving ethical dilemmas.

The Alternative Dispute Resolution Program (ADR): 206-733-5923

Offers two low-cost methods of resolving disputes: voluntary fee arbitration and mediation.

Lawyers’ AA meetings or assistance with an alcohol/drug problem: contact Mike Hoff at 206-733-5988 or mikeh@wsba.org. 

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