A Lawyer's Guide to Healing: Solutions for Addiction and Depression |
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| Distributed by the Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs |
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This book is for lawyers who find law challenging, frustrating, or stressful-either a dream that must be pursued or a vision that cannot be ignored. This book offers insight into the addictive and emotional problems lawyers face and a special understanding of how we, as lawyers, become susceptible, get sick, and can seek help and recover.
Much of the information in this book about the nature of addictive disease and depression is not new. What is different is that this book places the best contemporary understanding of these issues into the context of the real-world problems of lawyering. If there is a repeated warning or a recurring theme in the book, it is to be wary of how the fast-paced, demanding life of a lawyer can subtly bring a kind of emotional isolation that is the seedbed for disease and dysfunction. If there is a repetitious positive refrain, it is the powerful hope that lies in solutions that break down this isolation.
Just as being a lawyer brings special health risks to each of us who choose the profession, the career also brings certain opportunities for healing that are not found elsewhere. Despite the years of bad jokes and press, we work in a profession that is about more than just making a living and aspires to things much larger than our own individual career goals. By virtue of that professionalism, being a lawyer offers an opportunity for healing not found elsewhere.
The gateways to healing are the Lawyer Assistance Programs that exist in almost every state in the country. While the American Bar Association's Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP) provides guidance and leadership, each separate program is the simple result of more than one lawyer caring about what is happening to another brother or sister lawyers. Yes, it is tough, competitive, wounding profession, but we look after our wounded. This book salutes that fact. You are invited to discover in these pages not only how to better look after yourself but also how to better understand and help those in our profession who need to heal.
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"Any lawyer or judge struggling with (addiction, depression, and other problems) or assisting those who are -- must read this wise and instructive book"
-- Judge Carl Horn III, author of Fourth Circuit Criminal Handbook and LawyerLife: Find a Life and a Higher Calling in the Practice of Law
"As a lawyer speaking to other lawyers, Don Carroll provides a simple, straightforward, and very wise primer about addiction"
-- Stephanie Brown, Ph.D. author of Place Called Self: Women, Sobriety and Radical Transformation and director of the Addictions Institute, Menlo Park, California
"This book is a gift of guidance and inspiration to lawyers seeking healing from addiction and depression and to those offering help"
-- Al J. Mooney, M.D. coauthor of The Recovery Book
"Don Carroll provides a wealth of information regarding impairment and recovery, while never losing sight of the human side of the equation"
-- Michael Cohen Executive Director of Florida Lawyers Assistance, Inc., and member of the Florida Bar Standing Committee on Professionalism
"This is a must-read for all Bar and practicing lawyers who need to understand what Lawyer Assistance Programs do, and to understand the addiction and mental health issues many lawyers face in the profession"
-- Richard A. Soden, Chair of the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and practicing attorney at Goodwin Procter, Boston, Massachusetts
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