Enter this query in your web browser: “Lawyers prone to addiction and depression.” Or, “Lawyers and suicide.” Search, and it will generate several days’ worth of reading. But why? How is it that in this profession that many love, sometimes hate, and may be ambivalent about depending on the day of the week—that so many struggle with the twinned illnesses of addiction and depression?
Is it the professional environment of law practice, with its frequent negativity, pettiness, back biting? One lawyer said it’s a field in which there is always someone out there doing his best to make sure you fail. Another said that it can be like a surgeon working with all his craft to save a patient, while on the other side of the operating table, there is an equally skilled surgeon doing his best to kill the patient.
