THE ONTARIO LAWYERS’ ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Alcohol, Statistics and You!

Alcohol use, misuse and addiction are subjects you, as a law student, may think do not apply to you. But, they do. Here are some statistics to think about:

• Lawyers, judges and law students are alcoholic at three times the rate of the general population which is 10%;
• Studies have shown that law students have as high as or higher rates of alcohol misuse and addiction than other professional schools; and
• Alcohol use on university campuses is encouraged by happy hours, “blowing off steam” from stress and peer pressure

Very few people become alcohol dependent when they take their first drink. The path to alcoholism follows a continuum of use, misuse (bouts of binge drinking – 5 drinks in a four hour time period, mad-dogging – getting drunk more than once in a day), increasing abuse (misuse increased) and, finally, physical and emotional dependence on alcohol at the disease stage. This can take a few years or be spread out for many, many years before addiction.

All of us know someone who is a functioning alcoholic – someone who works every day and seems to handle life competently but drinks a lot. However, looking at the whole picture, we discover family problems, work performance issues, looming financial disaster, loneliness and unhappiness with life.

Perhaps a clinical definition of alcoholism at this point will help. It is short.

Alcoholism is a chronic progressive incurable fatal disease characterized by the loss of control over alcohol. 

Let’s look at the elements individually:

• Chronic – This constituent factor is evidenced by a progression from occasional drinking to every day use. A person may try to stop totally and, perhaps, can for short periods of time. Eventually, the alcoholic goes back to drinking more than planned and more often than planned.
  
• Progressive – More alcohol needs to be drunk to get feeling high. This is called tolerance. Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) is dependent on amount consumed only and is not necessarily reflected in visible effects. Presuming you are a 150lb male drinking on an empty stomach, after one hour (with women having higher BACs in the same period) you will have a BAC of .05 after drinking 2 drinks in an hour, .10 for four drinks, .20 for 8 drinks and .30 for 12 drinks. As a person who exercises can build up a longer running stamina or lift more weight, an alcoholic can drink large amounts of alcohol and appear sober and be physically functional.
  
• Incurable – There is no pill, shock treatment or course of natural herbal remedy to cure alcoholism. Once you have this disease, the only way to treat it is total abstinence, not controlled drinking. Diabetics watch their diet; people with heart problems take cardiac medications. The only effective treatment for alcoholism is to not drink at all.
  
• Fatal – The physical results of alcoholism include inflammation of the pancreas, cirrhosis of the liver, anemia, heart disease, malnutrition, physical nerve damage, muscle damage, impotence and a wide variety of cancers. The life expectancy of an active male alcoholic is 56 years.
  
• Disease – To determine if alcohol use misuse and abuse have reached the stage of being a disease, the following factors assist in identification. A person who depends on alcohol physically and emotionally is an alcoholic. Getting the “shakes” if you do not have a drink, regular or constant consumption during the day (eye-openers, a drink to get through the afternoon, a pre-dinner pick-me-up, a drink to help you sleep) and needing alcohol to just settle down shows a physical dependence. To know that there is emotional dependence, know that an alcoholic is always thinking about where the next drink will be coming from, how to get it and maybe even “tasting” it before consumed.
  
• Loss of control - Hiding bottles, putting alcohol before family, work and personal commitments and responsibilities and lying leads to problems that a person caught in this disease handles by taking yet another drink.

So, are you on your way to dependence physically and emotionally on alcohol? Here is a simple screening tool called the CAGE questionnaire to help in the early detection of alcoholism. If you answer “Yes” to any of the following questions, there may be a problem.

• Have you ever felt you ought to Cut down on your drinking?
• Have people Annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?
• Have you ever felt bad or Guilty about your drinking?
• Have you ever had a drink first thing in the morning (an Eye-opener) to steady your nerves or get rid of a hangover?

If you have any concerns about yourself or someone you know, you can get more information. The American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Association 2002 ( www.psych.org ) at pages 212 – 223 discusses this disease in depth. To learn about Alcoholics Anonymous, go to www.alcoholicsanonymous.com.  Other helpful and informative sites include – www.olap.ca , www.lpac.ca with its excellent course on alcoholism and the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health site at www.camh.net . Treatment centre sites include www.bellwood.ca and www.homewoodhealth.com .

If you think you have a problem, the first and best thing you can do is to go to your counselors at Osgoode to talk it out and determine what other help you may need. Sometimes the realization that you even want to talk about your concerns is enough to bring you to awareness and vigilance. Getting help and getting over denial is the first step to recovery.

BACK TO MAIN STARZYNSKI ARTICLES PAGE

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A PRINTABLE VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE (MS WORD)

Legal Profession Assistance Conference (LPAC) |Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP) | Lawyers Assistance Program of British Columbia (BCLAP) | Nova Scotia Lawyers Assistance Program (NSLAP) | Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC) | The Lawyers Assistance Program (LINK) | The Alberta Lawyers Assistance Program | Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (Saskatchewan) | The Lawyers Professional Indemnity Company (LawPRO) | Law Practice Consulting