Evening would fall and his heart would race as he thought ahead to another sleepless night. Each time he got sober, he’d spend months white-knuckling his days in court and his nights at home. He went back to rehab once more and later sought help at an outpatient center. says it was this message-that there were no small missteps, and one drink might as well be 100-that set him on a cycle of bingeing and abstinence. Everyone there warned him that he had a chronic, progressive disease and that if he listened to the cunning internal whisper promising that he could have just one drink, he would be off on a bender. He tried to dedicate himself to the program even though, as an atheist, he was put off by the faith-based approach of the 12 steps, five of which mention God. He spent a month at a center where the treatment consisted of little more than attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He lived in Minnesota-the Land of 10,000 Rehabs, people there like to say-and he knew what to do: check himself into a facility.
He defended clients who had been charged with driving while intoxicated, and he bought his own Breathalyzer to avoid landing in court on drunk-driving charges himself. He often started drinking after his first morning court appearance, and he says he would have loved to drink even more, had his schedule allowed it. (who asked to be identified only by his initials) sometimes drank almost a liter of Jameson in a day. After four or six weeks dry, he’d be back at the liquor store.īy the time he was a practicing defense attorney, J.G.
But nothing quieted his anxious mind like booze, and when he didn’t drink, he didn’t sleep. He could, and occasionally did, pull back, going cold turkey for weeks at a time.
His drinking increased through college and into law school. He discovered beer, too, and loved the earthy, bitter taste on his tongue when he took his first cold sip. He favored gin and whiskey but drank whatever he thought his parents would miss the least. started drinking at 15, when he and a friend experimented in his parents’ liquor cabinet. He’s also a worrier-a big one-who for years used alcohol to soothe his anxiety. His choice of profession seems preordained, as he speaks in fully formed paragraphs, his thoughts organized by topic sentences. He’s a fast talker and has the lean, sinewy build of a distance runner.