Redundancy and
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LawCare News Autumn 2009
The Truth behind the Easy Fix – A drug addict’s tale As I sat at my desk a shaking shivering wreck, I pondered how I would make it through the day. As my mind absorbed the flurry of activity in the office around me, my eyes began to feel heavy and gradually dropped. As some shrill sound startled me, my head jolted up and my mind jumped back to reality. I knew I had to leave. I knew I needed to score. Every pore of my body craved the drug. My palms were damp with anticipation. My muscles shook and ached. My mind was all consumed with getting more drugs. How had it come to this? Over the months and years, I had exhausted a myriad of excuses: death, car accidents, plumbing problems, health scares, and family catastrophes. This would be one more lie in a series of deceitful bids to hide my addiction from my work and colleagues and to protect my double life. I had partied and drunk hard at University and through law school I experimented with a concoction of ‘recreational drugs’. My peers’ readiness to rack up a line of cocaine after a monotonous day at Law School seemed to enable my delusion that what we were doing was glamorous and socially acceptable. As I embarked upon my training contract at a top City Law Firm, I soon discovered that the glossy brochures with smiley, healthy looking faces intended to lure under-graduates in to a career in the City did not reflect the stark reality which awaited me. The long hours, high pressure, aggressive and competitive culture fed into my perfectionism, competitiveness, ego and low self worth. My self imposed pressure to succeed in this egotistical environment left me at breaking point and as my stress levels escalated, so too did my using. My drug use went from being a social pick me up to the crutch which I needed to get me through the day. My weekend wind-downs soon stretched into the weekdays. My once active social life soon comprised of solitary sessions where I attempted to anesthetize myself and block out reality. I was left un-inspired with life and lost interest in all of the things which I had held dear to me. My health started to deteriorate. I found myself in financial difficulties. I was having trouble with my personal relationships. And eventually I was unable to hold down my job. I had crossed a line into the dark and deadly grips of addiction and as much as I tried to stop using or cut down, I found that I could not. In utter desperation, I called LawCare anonymously. I found out that there was help and support available to me and discovered that I was not alone. In fact, alcoholism and addiction is rife in the City: perhaps the ‘work hard, play hard’ ethos makes the City a breeding ground for potential addicts. Or perhaps the type of personality attracted to a career in the City can be pre-disposed to it. Once I was willing to accept help, I was ready to embark upon my journey of recovery. LawCare and the Solicitors Benevolent Association helped to get me into a treatment centre where I underwent a period of detoxification and was introduced to the 12-steps. Through the fellowship of Cocaine Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous I was able to embark upon the 12-step recovery programme which has helped me to recover from my hopeless state of body and mind. I am now free from the obsession to use drugs. I am still working in the legal profession but have changed my area of law. I now use the tools given to me in my daily recovery programme to deal with the stresses and strains of work and am able to face life on life’s terms without turning to a wrap or a bottle. The author of this article has now been drug free for several years and is helping others as a LawCare volunteer.
Help for Problem Drinkers on Tap, by Ros Powell I know, and drinkers know, how difficult it is to control their problem, if it was easy there would be no problem drinkers. As a long standing counsellor I have been using a therapy know as Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) for the past 2 years with a high level of success. EFT involves tapping acupuncture meridians, mainly on the head, face and hands. It is used in conjunction with a dialogue between me and my client, and has been shown to have some success in treating alcohol misuse. Many problem drinkers have tried AA and alcohol agencies, but stopping for 6 or 12 months does not mean that there is no longer a problem. If complacency sets in, or if there is a crisis, the person may return to drinking. Drinkers have emotional issues which mask with alcohol, so the problems never get faced and resolved. Health suffers, jobs suffer, and families suffer, which only adds to the level stress and therefore the level of drinking. It can feel that there is no way out! Using EFT can help drinkers (and anyone with emotional issues) in many ways. It can help to reduce cravings and to deal with those difficult emotional issues more quickly and less painfully then traditional therapies. I have been amazed at the speed with which some clients overcome major problems, which for drinkers decreases the need to drink. The other advantage of EFT is that it is something the person can practice at home for themselves, at any time they need to relax or be reassured. In all my years as a counsellor I have never seen such a fast and effective treatment as EFT. It has helped a large number of my clients, including drinkers, frequently with lasting effect. Ros Powell is a counsellor who specialises in addictions and runs a therapy group at the Woodbourne Priory. She can be contacted though her website: www.newleaftherapy.com.
A New Way to Help LawCare If your firm or office uses a printer, you probably get through a fair number of laser or inkjet toner cartridges. These are made of plastic which takes over 1,000 years to degrade naturally, and so recycling them is a far better option than throwing them in the bin to add hazardous waste to the landfill. LawCare can now benefit from your used toner cartridges. As a registered charity, we get a donation for every used cartridge recycled through www.recyclingappeal.com. If you don’t already have a recycling system in place at your firm or chambers please consider letting LawCare benefit from your old toner casing. It’s easy: 1. Check what make of printer you have. Epson and Oki cartridges cannot be recycled in this way. If it’s any other brand, then LawCare can benefit. 2. Whenever you replace your toner, put your old toner cartridge to one side. Ideally put it in the box it came in, or the box you took the new one out of. 3. Once you have at least ten, phone 08451 302010 and ask for a courier collection. 4. Quote LawCare’s reference code (VEN0355769) and explain that you want the value of the waste cartridges to be credited to LawCare’s account. 5. You will be assigned an account number and e-mailed a form to enclose with your collection, and labels to stick on each item. (When you call subsequently, you will only need to give your account number.) 6. Your cartridges will be collected within 48 hours. If your firm has more than one printer, then make sure all staff know what to do with the used cartridges. Old mobile phones can also be recycled in the same courier collection, and are worth even more. Why not bring in old cartridges from home, or encourage other firms, friends, family and neighbours to donate their used toner and ink? If you don’t get through ink fast enough to make a courier collections viable, call LawCare on 01268 771333 to discuss other ways of donating your cartridges. Thanks so much for supporting LawCare, and the environment, in this way.
A Message from the Chief Executive One of the points that we make in our stress recognition and management training is that when a person is subjected to stress – whether self-induced by unreasonable personal expectations, or created by outside factors – one of the first things to suffer is the ability to keep things in perspective. That issue is more important now that ever, when so many lawyers are finding themselves facing redundancy, or as sole practitioners / small firms, are having to wind up their practises because they cannot meet the insurance premium for their professional indemnity cover or there simply is not enough work to keep them going, and so they struggle on from month to month Over the years, the facets of the legal personality have been identified by psychologists – high achiever; perfectionist; A type personality; over conscientious; driven; unable to delegate; highly aspirational; competitive – and these are just the facets that add to our pressures when we are subject to stress in the workplace. They make it all the more difficult to keep things in proportion. On 30th April 2009, Mark Levy, a highly successful and very popular Washington lawyer, regarded by lawyers and Judges alike as one of the most skilled appellate lawyers in the USA, sat as his desk and shot himself in the head. He had been told, just a couple of days beforehand, that he was being made redundant. He was one of many amongst USA law firms, as in the UK, and the redundancy did not in any way undermine his achievements to date, his high reputation or his happy family life. Yet such was the shock and stress caused by the redundancy that he sadly lost sight of all of these positives in his life. A friend commented, “He was the last person in the world who would inflict the kind of pain and sorrow that his death inflicted on so many people” so his reasoning processes, whilst they no doubt seemed balanced to him, had become severely distorted. Perhaps the most telling comment was that “… he loved the practise of law but struggled with the business of law”. That is a feeling shared by many lawyers today, who find that the practise of law is being overwhelmed by all the demands of running a business, demands for which most lawyers are not trained and which many struggle to balance against their dedication to client service. The result can be long term stress that distorts an individual’s appreciation of what matters in life. The reality is that it is the individual, their loved ones, their friends and all the people their life touches. A job, status, money etc fade into insignificance beside these. So, if you are finding that due to the pressures in your life, you feel that you are losing sight of the realities and priorities, please ring us. We will talk things through with you and hopefully help you to see that the positives outweigh the negatives. Hilary Tilby
Noticeboard Legal recruitment consultants in the US recently published some advice for older lawyers preparing CVs. They suggested that previous jobs be listed with the most recent first, and that dates be included but downplayed—so the phrase “30 years of experience” should be left out, for example. They also suggest that sports and computer hobbies should be prioritised in the “interests” section over bridge club and opera.
According to government data, alcohol-related deaths in the UK have risen by 40% in the last 10 years, with the increase for men being 43% and for women 32%. Also, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal, one in ten deaths in Europe could be attributed to drinking alcohol and one in 25 worldwide, consumption in Europe being almost twice the world average. Deaths in men were 6.3% against 1.8% in women, but the overall increase in deaths since 2000 was mainly due to the increase in the number of women drinking.
Strange But True: Amanda celebrated her 21st birthday by going out drinking. Her friends bought her drinks but unfortunately, she drank herself to death, with a blood-alcohol content of 0.459%. Whose fault was it? According to Amanda’s family, her friends were to blame and they sued not only the bar which served her, but five of the friends, since they deemed Amanda to have been in their care. Their lawsuit argues that even though Amanda was a student nurse, because she was intoxicated she had no duty or ability to protect herself as she took drink after drink, and others therefore had that duty. Minneapolis Star Tribune, 28 February 2008.
At LawCare we try not to endorse the services of one particular specialist or counsellor over another, but can recommend the blog of Catrin Mills, The Lawyer Coach, which includes some really good and sensible advice for stressed lawyers. Go to http://the lawyercoach.wordpress.com. Catrin is currently writing a book on Time Management for Lawyers which will be reviewed in a future edition of LawCare News.
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