foreign [Music] [Music] a lawyer and judge wrote in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes someone who falls alone is in real trouble the mission of the state bars Texas lawyer assistance program t-lab is to ensure that no lawyer who slips or Falls is alone when the stresses of professional and personal life drive a lawyer to substance abuse and depression help is available through t-lab but a lawyer has to know when it's happening personally or to a friend and has to have the courage to ask for help lawyers are trained to be Advocates champions for others to take on clients needs to fight for them to win any weakness especially a personal weakness seems contrary to what lawyering is about in reality it's just another problem to overcome and no Texas lawyer needs struggle alone T lamp provides confidential respectful and effective assistance to lawyers and law students throughout our state if you find yourself slipping or see a colleague struggling do the right thing get help is there I graduated from high school in 1964. and was drafted by the Baltimore Orioles in 1967 had a chance to play professional baseball ended up teaching school for a couple years after my baseball days were over graduated from Southern Illinois University in 1970 applied to St Mary's Law School in 71 graduated from St Mary's Law School in 74. had one child and another on the way by 1978 my wife Harriet and I were moving into a nice home in the Oak Hills area of San Antonio I had a job working for Oliver herd's firm two two sons and a daughter had we had been blessed with by that time had a portion of the driveway at membership at Oak Hills Country Club Spurs season tickets The Firm had a condo at the coast in Port Aransas life was good no one ever forced me to take a drink or smoke anything or snort anything you know I did it very freely and voluntarily you know my mom and dad didn't have a problem my sister didn't have a problem but somewhere in in the early 80s I crossed this invisible line and didn't even realize it you know I had the car I had the job I have I come from a loving home I come from a family that you know my mom and dad every time I glued a pinto bean on a piece of construction paper they were there cheering telling me how awesome I was you know in my story just wasn't the story that I saw in Hollywood you know it wasn't the story that I saw on TV and so it took me a while to figure out hey girl you know it's not normal to lock yourself in your home for four days it's not normal to black out drink you know every night for three weeks it's not normal to think your car is stolen because you drove it home and don't remember where you parked it you know I look at it as a a stoplight it and there was no yellow light it was green and red I was either going and blowing and drinking and partying and out in front of everybody or I was a red light and I was totally isolating not answering my phone not answering my door when my parents would come by and knock I had a practice at a flatlined I had a family and tatters a reputation that I'd worked very hard to establish gone what I tell people is that it was almost bone grinding hopelessness despair self-loathing guilt shame when you see 12 years of hard work as a lawyer and reputation and later I mean I sat on the Board of Trustees at Duke Divinity School in my active addiction I was that good at quote unquote hiding it but you see opportunities like that fade away you're unable to even do what we're formerly the simplest of task you become professionally almost incapacitated you know I was just paralyzed with fear of inadequacy and fear that that I was a terrible lawyer fear that I didn't deserve the job that I had that I wasn't capable of doing a good job and I would let that fear just paralyze me and I was unable to work at all I mean I would just I remember several times just staring at a computer screen just trying to get that brief started or just trying to respond you know amend a pleading and I just couldn't do it because all of these emotions and fears and insecurities you know all a part of my depression would come you know come storming in and it would render me it would render me incapable I've learned now that you know alcoholism and chemical dependency can be cunning baffling and powerful and when you're in the throes of it you don't recognize it in fact you stay in denial I'm an alcoholic that's what I did I mean when you when I had feelings I had to get alcohol whether it was happiness because I didn't feel like I deserved to be happy whether it was shame or you know whether it was just anger sadness stress I managed every feeling I had with alcohol and depression was no exception and so what would happen would be I would just go on drinking binges when I would start feeling really low and really depressed and I was taking medication at the time too for my depression and so that wasn't working that wasn't it wasn't able to work and these emotions become so intense and so you use again you got to numb those out and so it becomes this cycle this just this death spiral of numb out feel worse oh use more to feel worse oh use more feel worse and it's just this spiral that goes down and down and it speeds up and once that board is sort of pulled out of the drain it just goes straight down just and it happens really fast I mean some people will Circle the Drain for a very long time um we joke around sometimes and say that your bottom is when you stop digging uh uh I didn't know how to stop digging I just didn't you know I got a masters from duke a law degree a Philosophy degree laude major I'm not a dummy but all the intelligence and willpower that I could muster I couldn't stop I did not know how to stop I stopped but I couldn't stay stopped the 80s for me or like a lost decade you know the divorce came in 86. bankruptcy came in 88 I drowned the Porsche in 89. the kids weren't speaking to me I got arrested for the second time in my life Mother's Day weekend 1990 for writing hot checks on that particular occasion my son Mike who had come to live with me after the divorce watched me get handcuffed into a put into a police car I was very lonely I isolated kind of pacing back and forth like a caged animal had really upset all the people that cared about me my mom and dad my sister my former wife the kids no one was really paying much attention to me former wife Harriet had purchased two black dresses she knew I was going to die she didn't know I was going to be the winner of the summer it's scary it's it's very the depths of hopelessness and despair that you're just marinating in uh for months on end sometimes you know there were times when I would pray you know please don't let me wake up because you just get tired of that Hustle you know actually stood on a chair put a rope around my neck and couldn't take that step had a couple guns in the house I put a round of ammunition and I couldn't pull the trigger so you know I got to that place that I I've heard others talk about where I didn't want to live and I couldn't die I remember feeling like I don't care if I live or die I don't care if I wake up tomorrow I just felt like there was no way that I was going to get better that this was how my life was going to look for the next 50 years and I just didn't want to live that way anymore but I didn't know how to make it stop how to make the madness stop I just didn't know how because what I knew was when I was drinking I wasn't thinking about my depression even though you know I know now that one just fed the other but that was just how I chose to manage everything I chose to manage my life by drinking and what I didn't realize was how unmanageable my life actually was I don't know how many times I looked in the mirror hung over the next morning and I'd ask myself Tom what are you doing you need to stop and then I look in the mirror and I said well wonder if you try to stop and you can't what's that make you and I didn't want to answer that I didn't want to admit that I was an alcoholic and a drug addict but in fact I was and it took a lot of pain and I had to hurt a lot of people including myself to finally recognize and become aware that I had this this disease this chronic progressive fatal disease of alcoholism that the American Medical Association in 1956 came out and and recognized and I know um you know that I needed help and we're so stubborn to ask for help lawyers professional people and it was the best thing I could have done it takes professionals I mean nobody in nobody in here what's what do we say the lawyer represents himself as a fool for a client the person in their active addiction who tries to fix himself the same is in the exact same boat you need professional help sometimes and uh fortunately I had some friends who intervened and said you need help and we've made arrangements to get you the type of help that you need and I remember just this deep breath of it's over and uh that's that's what got me started in the recovery well when I first called tlab I honestly expected a voice machine or to have to press one for this press three for that and someone answered the phone right away and that was so critical because I I know I I worry that if someone hadn't answered the phone that I just would have put it off another day but I didn't have to because someone was there I think also part of me expected to be judged a little bit and it wasn't like that at all and I felt cared for I felt comfortable I felt unjudged I felt like I was in the hand hands of some professionals that really knew what they were doing and I felt comfortable that the advice that I was getting was Sound Advice and it was it was a very positive experience for me we went to an assessment uh yeah you're a candidate for treatment all right I can laugh about that now at the time it was uh it was pretty sobering you feel part in the pine because of where I was professionally and financially I wasn't in a position to help myself with that I was I was a solo I didn't have health insurance at the time as most solos don't so tilap was my only resource that I had so I contacted t-lab and they got to work immediately on getting the funding and help and stuff that I needed to make treatment a reality so tlab took a huge pressure of financial pressure off of me by dealing directly with my providers for example they would build tilap directly and T like yeah we have it covered and I did that because I'm a lawyer see what you did um it is tough stuff because I don't know where I would be at without t-lab I really don't because I don't I don't know of any other professional funding mechanism for treatment and any other Professional Organization that enjoys the same amount of care and concern that t-light gives lawyers and positions like I'm at I found the Texas lawyers assistance program to be an invaluable tool if you're suffering from alcoholism or chemical dependency or think you have a problem in those areas or have been down the dumps and in your cave too too long I really encourage you to pick up the phone and call tlap it's not the grievance committee we're here to help you it's anonymous social tilap can get someone in their area to go talk to them if they're ready you know a phone call happens first it's just better safe than sorry because what you have you know if it's your law partner you have a malpractice suitcase just waiting to happen I'm very grateful for what tlapp has done in that regard because we're not for them I wouldn't be sitting here right now doing this interview and that was four years 18 days ago so that's a big deal to me tlap means an awful awful lot to me they didn't just help me save my career save my life and I mean that literally there's no question about it I was wondering how to celebrate my 25th a birthday if if I can make it between here and November 11th and I gave it a lot of thought and I want to take everybody to Disney World in Orlando so um I I count my blessings I continue to go to two or three meetings a week I continue to stay involved with the tlap program I never want to get too cocky too complacent too arrogant that I think I've got this thing licked when I made that call to tlab and I got the help that I needed my life became hopeful I got answers I felt with the help of tlab I felt equipped to have a successful professional Journey and I would say peaceful I feel like my life has gone from chaos to peace I know what happiness is you know you know real happiness how it's not that's not contingent upon the world around you um gratitude honesty character capacity life hope and I'm very grateful for Second Chances [Music] just a chance to get it right this time [Music] when a lawyer calls tlab they'll speak directly to one of our trained professional staff and all of us are lawyers so we know what it's like to practice law and we know the demands and stresses of the profession most importantly we care we want Texas lawyers to know that there is hope and that tilap is here to help lastly Texas lawyers need to know should they need financial assistance the Sharon Crowley trust has been established to help with expenses related to treatment and Recovery the Patrick D Sharon of Michael J Crowley Memorial trust was founded by members of Texas lawyers concerned for lawyers around the state in 1995. please know that any dollar sent to the trust will be used directly to assist a member of our profession in recovering from one of those seemingly helpless states of mind and body and get that individual him or her back on the road to recovering his or her practice is our family his or her life the mission of the Texas Borough college is professionalism through education we firmly believe that the more legal education attorneys have the better we can serve our clients as well as the public the college supports tlab because our mission to actually converge tilap wants attorneys to be able to do their best at all times and that's what the college wants as well when you make that call to tlab you're not only helping that lawyer but you're helping that lawyer's family you're helping that lawyer's colleagues and you're doing your part to make ours a better profession and Tila gave me a way to get out a damn good way I mean it's extraordinary where I'm at today as compared to where I was just a few short years ago [Music] [Music]