News Post

Substance abuse and addiction don’t discriminate, and for some lawyers, the pressures of their demanding profession can push them to their breaking point. But recovery is possible, and the Alabama Lawyer Assistance Program (ALAP) offers a vital lifeline to those who are struggling. In this personal account, an Alabama lawyer—who has gone through the ALAP program—shares their story of addiction, recovery, and the support that helped restore both their career and personal life.

The Alabama Lawyer Assistance Program offers a compassionate, nonjudgmental space where lawyers and judges can seek help for personal and professional challenges that may be affecting their ability to practice law. Through lawyer peer support provided by our dedicated ALAP committee members, counseling referrals, or structured monitoring when needed, ALAP’s mission is to help lawyers and judges regain stability, restore their health, and continue their careers with renewed strength.

The following is a personal story from an Alabama lawyer who faced difficult challenges, but found hope and healing. Their experience is a reminder that no one has to struggle alone and help is available, to those willing to reach out.

By: An Alabama lawyer to remain anonymous       

Despite proper church raising, I drifted from the faith in college and began dabbling with drugs and alcohol.  I discovered I really liked opiates.  By my junior year of UAB, I was snorting oxycontin daily and had a real problem.  After finishing undergrad and eventually starting law school, I was using suboxone to function and oxycontin to party (an off-label use of both).  In active addiction, I can vividly recall returning to my church and feeling out of place.  In hindsight, I was ashamed.  By my third year of law school, oxycontin was off the market and I was on to heroin.  After somehow getting a good job with an apex plaintiff’s firm in Huntsville, I had more money than ever before and it culminated with my arrest at a cinco de mayo party shooting heroin with nurses.

At this low point, God began sending people into my life.  First, my lawyer articulated a plan to save my license and suggested I immediately contact the Alabama Lawyer Assistance Program.  One week later, I was having coffee with Jean Marie Leslie at a coffee shop next to my old law school and she convinced me to sign an ALAP contract.  Within a few weeks, I was justifiably fired by the law firm I worked for, lost my health insurance, spent all my money and had less than a month left in my apartment.  At this point, Jean Marie told me I had to go to an inpatient rehab to keep my law license.  She told me that since my health insurance was no more, a high-end rehab was out of the question.  She told me ALAP had the funding to send me to a state funded rehab that lawyers went to, but it would be alongside indigent patients the State of Alabama paid for.  I immediately buckled and vigorously resisted.  She persisted and told me I was to meet with a Judge in the small county my family is from by the end of the week.  I strolled into the Judge’s chambers on a Friday afternoon and he looked relieved.  He told me about our mutual friend and that he was happy to be able to call her back with an update.  The Judge then took out an old edition of the Alabama Lawyer and showed me an anonymous story written for ALAP.  He asked me to read it and paused for what seemed like an eternity.  After reading the pages with my heart pounding, I found much to relate to involving addiction and the practice of law.  I thought I would like to meet this interesting character.  I was taken aback when the Judge told me that was him not so long ago.  He told me about how he went to a state funded rehab.  He told how he began practicing law again after working for an economic development trade journal selling advertising in the depths of his addiction.  He told me I didn’t have to go through all that if I began to take some simple suggestions.  He showed me a copy of his big book of alcoholics anonymous, told me more of his story and asked me to share mine.   After patiently listening, he said “Eric, I can’t tell you if you have a drug problem, but based on what you’ve told me, you might have a drug problem.”  A light bulb moment transpired and I accepted the possibility that my problems were beyond my fixing.  I checked into rehab the following Thursday with my remaining belongings in a storage unit and the back of my car.

God continued moving in my life.  Within a few days of checking into rehab at the Pathfinder, the Jefferson County District Judge allowed me to plea into Drug Court. Afraid of my shadow at first, I turned inward and made friends with my new roommates.  I began giving people rides and working the steps with a sponsor.  Me and some other lawyers in the rehab got on the court appointed list to represent indigent defendants for a low hourly rate.  We rented an office to meet with clients and starting working regular hours.  I began attending services at a local church. The local judge who ran Madison County’s drug court started appointing me cases.  Around Christmas time, the best of news and worst of news arrived: the Alabama Bar Association agreed to let me keep my license upon graduating drug court and agreeing to three years of probation, but Jean Marie Leslie had terminal cancer and only months to live.  I would later learn I was one of her last cases and the Office of General Counsel just couldn’t tell her no at the end.

My personal life continued stabilizing.  My straight edge girlfriend of only four months was shocked to learn about my drug arrest, but she stuck by me through seven months of state funded treatment.  I attended AA meetings morning, noon and night, with a service thrown in on Sundays.  My then-girlfriend, now wife, went out with me every Saturday and acted like she didn’t realize I averaged $15-$25 in my pocket each weekend.  I asked a man without a car to be my sponsor, Charles B.  Charles was a fascinating character: Philadelphia-area Obama campaign worker from 2008 turned homeless drug addict.  We hit it off as he walked me through the steps between meetings, meal prep and workouts.  Charles had graduated from the rehab I was at, lived in an apartment behind the rehab, didn’t have a car and walked all over Huntsville.  He used to say walking gave him more time to talk to God and to listen.  Over the course of 2012, Charles taught me how to live life again on life’s terms.  He rooted me in the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous.  I found a homegroup and worked the steps with him.  I did a moral inventory and shared my entire story with Charles.  I reached out and attempted to make right the wrong I had caused others.  After finishing at Pathfinder, I began sponsoring other men in the program and attending a primary purpose Big Book study.

While at Pathfinder, I was inundated with legal questions much like a lawyer in prison would be.  In between the free advice and/or bad advice, I found out a roommate was in a bad car wreck the year before in his own car.  Because he was passed out from heroin at the time of the wreck, he didn’t think he had a case.  I was delighted to tell him Alabama’s guest statute didn’t apply since he was the owner and he had a case.  He didn’t believe me, but he signed a contract.  The next Monday, I took the file and the case upstairs to the grizzled, veteran personal injury lawyer we were renting space from.  After some convincing, the landlord agreed to do the case with me and we were off to the races.  The case settled relatively quickly and more cases came from the recovery community flowed in.  The landlord asked me to try a difficult case with him in late 2013 and we popped a $100,000 verdict.  The following month, he pulled me in on another case and we popped a $250,000 verdict.  He asked me to move upstairs to a much nicer office with a view the following Monday.   I was still living in the three-quarter house behind the rehab, but I had some money in my pocket and saved up for an engagement ring.  I popped the question in New Orleans in December of 2013 and she said yes.  In 2018, I handled my first death penalty case and I haven’t been able to get the taste out of my mouth since.  I’ve handled over a dozen homicides in the past five years with more in the pipeline.

Participating in the Alabama Lawyer Assistance Program is one of the biggest blessings of my life and type of lay ministry.  From doing interventions when lawyers reach a crisis point, to helping at reinstatement hearings, to hosting monthly lawyers AA meetings, my closest friendships have been formed out of the fire of ALAP.  Unfortunately, funerals and loss are a statistical reality of the work.  Being a comfort and legacy point for grieving mothers is not foreign.  Within ALAP, the work is mostly 12-step oriented with lawyers reaching out for help or facing bar discipline.  ALAP monitors are to meet with incoming lawyers at least once a month and write a short report on their progress.  In the event a discipline or reinstatement hearing is necessary, we can testify or send affidavits.

Outside of work, my family loves travel and my six-year-old is getting deep into cheerleading and still enjoys dance.  None of this amazing adventure would have happened without the Alabama Lawyer Assistance Program.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse or mental health issues, ALAP can help. For more information or to reach out for confidential assistance, contact ALAP at (800) 354-6154 or visit alap.alabar.org.