PART II
CHAPTER 10: JULY 12, 2015
“things he accumulated” Frank, Robert H. “How Not to Buy Happiness,” Daedalus, Vol. 133, No. 1, 2004.
Quoidbach, Jordi, et al. “Money Giveth, Money Taketh Away: The Dual Effect of Wealth on Happiness,” Psychological Science, Vol. 21, No. 6, June 2010, pp. 759–763.
“craving sweets is a common” Contet, C., Kieffer, B. L, and Befort, K. “Mu Opioid Receptor: A Gateway to Drug Addiction,” Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Vol. 14, No. 3, June 2004, pp. 370–378.
“researchers speculate” Mysels, David J. and Sullivan, Maria A. “The Relationship Between Opioid and Sugar Intake: Review of Evidence and Clinical Applications,” Journal of Opioid Management, Vol. 6, No. 6, Nov.–Dec. 2010, pp. 445–452.
“any kind of lasting happiness” Richins, Marsha L. “When Wanting Is Better Than Having: Materialism, Transformation Expectations, and Product-Evoked Emotions in the Purchase Process,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 40, June 2013, pp. 1–18.
“people at the top” Frank, Robert H. Luxury Fever: Weighing the Cost of Excess. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010.
Frank, Robert H., et al. “Expenditure Cascades,” Review of Behavioral Economics, Vol. 1, 2014, pp. 55–73.
Ganch, Brandon. “Work to the Grave: Choosing Consumption Over Freedom and Happiness.” Dissertation. Dartmouth College, ProQuest LLC, 2014.
“it’s not just about consumption” Schor, Juliet. The Overworked American. New York: Basic Books, 1993, and Plentitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. New York: Penguin Press, 2010.
“he contracted an infection” Endocarditis, the infection that killed Peter, is an infection of the inner lining of the heart (the endocardium). Bacteria can enter an intravenous drug user’s bloodstream through unsterilized or contaminated needles and syringes. If it goes undiscovered and untreated as it did in Peter’s case, it can permanently damage the heart and its valves. Another risk associated with endocarditis is that the bacteria growing on a heart valve—a mass called “vegetation”—can break off and travel through the bloodstream to other organs, infecting them too. Without treatment, infective endocarditis is fatal.
McDonald, Jay R. “Acute Infective Endocarditis.” Infectious Disease Clinics of North America, Sept. 2009, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 643–664.
Keeshin, S. W. and Feinberg, J. “Endocarditis as a Marker for New Epidemics of Injection Drug Use.” The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Dec. 2016, Vol. 352, No. 6, pp. 609–614.
“our brains during REM” National Institutes of Health, “What Is REM Sleep?”
“psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk wrote” Van der Kolk, B. The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Penguin Press, 2014.
“a study they conducted” Van der Kolk, B., et al. “A Randomized Clinical Trial of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Fluoxetine, and Pill Placebo in the Treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Treatment Effects and Long-Term Maintenance.” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2007, Vol. 68, No. 1, pp. 37–46.
CHAPTER 11: JULY 23, 2015
“a DEA Report” DEA Intelligence Report, May 2017. “Drug Slang Code Words,” prepared by the Drug Enforcement Administration Houston Division, May 2017.
PART III
CHAPTER 12: BIG LAW’S BIG PROBLEMS
“2014 analysis by CNN” Flores, R. and Arce, Rose Marie. “Why are lawyers killing themselves?” CNN.com, Jan. 20, 2014.
“at the firm Sidley Austin” Litt was critical of how the law firm Sidley Austin, her husband’s employer, handled his suicide. In her American Lawyer essay she wrote: “Then came Sidley’s handling of Gabe’s suicide—‘damage control’ that included a last-minute invitation for me and my mom to attend a service at the firm. We went because I needed to see what kind of narrative they were creating. There were a handful of attorneys there, but in the immense receiving line of people who patiently waited to tell us about their unique story of Gabe, most were support staff. One told me that after working at the firm for years, Gabe was the only attorney to take the time to know her name. I heard story after story about Gabe’s encouraging nature and how he made people feel like they could succeed at anything they put their mind to. One close colleague said she wished ‘Gabe had his own Gabe.’ ”
Four days after Joanna Litt’s essay was published—and a month after her husband’s suicide—Sidley Austin issued this statement: “We have seen Joanna’s letter in The American Lawyer. Her heartbreak is palpable and her words have moved us all. We have nothing but the utmost sympathy and compassion for the family as they grieve the incredibly tragic loss of Gabe. This is a painful reminder of the need to raise awareness and continue providing programs and services to help all lawyers and staff in addressing mental health issues.”
“law student health and well-being” Benjamin, G. Andrew H., et al. “The Role of Legal Education in Producing Psychological Distress Among Law Students and Lawyers.” American Bar Foundation Research Journal, Spring 1986, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 225–252.
Benjamin, G. Andrew H., et al. “The Prevalence of Depression, Alcohol Abuse, and Cocaine Abuse Among United States Lawyers,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 1990, Vol. 13, pp. 233–246.
Krieger, Lawrence S. and Sheldon, Kennon M. “What Makes Lawyers Happy? A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success.” The George Washington Law Review, Feb. 2015, Vol. 83, No. 2, pp. 554–627.
Krieger, Lawrence S. “What We’re Not Telling Law Students—and Lawyers—That They Really Need to Know: Some Thoughts-in-Action Toward Revitalizing the Profession from Its Roots.” Cleveland State University Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Journal of Law and Health, 1998–99, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 3–11.
“Survey of Law Student” Organ, Jerome M., et al. “Suffering in Silence: The Survey of Law Student Well-Being and the Reluctance of Law Students to Seek Help for Substance Use and Mental Health Concerns.” Journal of Legal Education, Autumn 2016, Vol. 66, No. 1, pp. 116–156.
“Harvard Law School released” Results of the survey were published in an op-ed in The Harvard Crimson on March 29, 2018, “Wellness at the Law School: Promises to Keep and Miles to Go Before We Sleep,” by Amanda H. Chan, Amanda M. Lee, and Adam P. Savitt.
“a query on TopLawSchools.com” This is the query I posted on March 28, 2017, on TLS.com: “I’m a journalist who wrote ‘The Lawyer, the Addict,’ a story that ran in the NYT in July about my ex-husband, Peter, who was a high-flying partner in Wilson Sonsini (the Palo Alto–based firm) and who died in 2015 an IV drug addict. Almost everyone in his life missed the signs. The story wound up with enormous traction and generated threads of commentary on TLS, including this one: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=279754. I’m now writing a book based on that story for Random House. Although it is about what happened to Peter, the broader story is about the problem of substance use (and often abuse) in white-collar professions—especially law.
“I am hoping that some of you will be open to discussing with me what you see and what you’ve experienced in your profession and professional environment, in terms of drug use and/or abuse. I’d like to use some of your comments in the book and will not know or need to know your names, so I hope you’ll feel comfortable being as candid as possible. I’m not here to make judgements, all I’m looking for is the truth about what’s going on. I’m interested in whatever you can tell me about drugs you are using or observe being used in your field: which drugs, what effects you see, any stories you have, any details you can share. For anyone who wants to contact me directly, I have a secure and encrypted email through ______.”
Responses to the TLS.com query can be found here: www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=287139#p10303333
“ABA/Hazel
den Betty Ford study” Krill, Patrick R., et al. “The Prevalence of Substance Use and Other Mental Health Concerns Among American Attorneys.” Journal of Addiction Medicine, Jan/Feb 2016, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 46–52.
This study was conducted by the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, and is the most comprehensive study ever done on substance use and mental health in the legal profession. It found that 21 percent of licensed, employed attorneys qualified as problem drinkers, 28 percent struggle with some level of depression, and 19 percent with anxiety. Younger attorneys in the first ten years of practice had the highest incidence of these problems. Of the 12,825 attorneys surveyed across 19 states, only 3,419 chose to answer the questions about drug use.
“Legal Professionals Program” This is the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s addiction treatment program specifically for attorneys, judges, and others in the legal profession.
“anger, jealousy, and anxiety” Seligman, Martin E. P., et al. “Why Lawyers Are Unhappy.” Cardozo Law Review, Nov. 2001, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 33–53.
“experienced layoffs” 2016 Report on the State of the Legal Market, from the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center and Thomson Reuters Peer Monitor. The report stated that 2015 was the sixth consecutive year of flat demand in the legal market, weakening pricing power and falling productivity. The report also noted that since 2008, the law firm market “has changed in significant and fundamental ways.”
2018 Report on the State of the Legal Market, from the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center, the Legal Executive Institute, and Thomson Reuters Peer Monitor.
CHAPTER 13: WHITE-COLLAR PILL POPPING
“After probate concluded” Probate is the legal process through which assets of a deceased person are distributed to beneficiaries or heirs by an executor named in a will or a court-appointed administrator.
“five stages of grief” Elisabeth Kübler-Ross defined five stages of grief—denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—in her seminal book, On Death and Dying, published in 1969 by Collier Books.
“volunteer at the Monarch School” The Monarch School in San Diego is the largest school in the nation for children impacted by homelessness. It provides education, emotional, physical, and psychological support; counseling; skills training; and so much more. The school is a nonprofit and relies heavily on private donations. To learn more about Monarch or to donate, please visit https://monarchschools.org.
“White-Collar Pill Party” I reached out to Bruce Jackson, the author of that 1966 article, to see if he had any thoughts on how drug use by professionals and the economically well-off had changed from then until now. He told me via an email exchange in August 2018: “Some of it was indeed about weight [the use of amphetamines]. But that scene was far beyond body management. The people I wrote about in that article were talented and (so far as I knew) high-performing. They were using drugs I’d never heard the names of. It was fast, sexy, and apparently functional. I don’t know what drove them. What drives anyone to get drunk night after night, or shoot up four times a day? The drug dealers in my days were guys on the streets. Now they’re guys in offices.”
“more than 70,000 Americans died” “Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on the twelve-month period from July 2017 to July 2018.
“synthetic opioids like fentanyl” Sanger-Katz, Margot. “Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017.” The New York Times, Aug. 15, 2018.
“drugs of choice” Jacobs, Emma. “Illicit Pills for the Hyper-Competitive.” Financial Times, June 18, 2015.
“nine-year study of investment bankers” Michel, Alexandra. “Transcending Socialization: A Nine-Year Ethnography of the Body’s Role in Organizational Control and Knowledge Workers’ Transformation,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Jan. 2012, Vol. 56, No. 3, pp. 325–368.
“doctors are five times” Merlo, Lisa J. “Reasons for Misuse of Prescription Medication Among Physicians Undergoing Monitoring by a Physician Health Program.” Journal of Addiction Medicine, 2013, Vol. 7, No. 5, pp. 349–353.
Karlamangla, Soumya. “Doctors and Drug Abuse: Why Addictions Can Be So Difficult.” Los Angeles Times, July 24, 2017.
Berge, Keith H., et al. “Chemical Dependency and the Physician,” Mayo Clinic Proceedings, July 2009, Vol. 84. No. 7, pp. 625–631.
“about four million views” Estimate provided by Hacker News.
“a large number of commenters” My query on Hacker News asked: “What can you tell me about drug use as a professional or in your profession? I know there is drug use in law, finance, medicine and technology, and am hoping that some of you will be open to discussing with me what you see and what you’ve experienced in your profession and professional environment. I’d like to use some of your comments in the book and will not know or need to know your names, so I hope you’ll feel comfortable being as candid as possible. I’m not here to make judgements, all I’m looking for is the truth about what’s going on.
“I’m interested in whatever you can tell me about drugs you are using or observe being used in your field: which drugs, what effects you see, any stories you have, any details you can share.”
A link to many of the responses can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16465762.
“A 2017 State Department report” United States Department of State, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 2017, Vol. 1.
“766,000 new cocaine users” Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, The CBHSQ Report: State Estimates of Past Year Cocaine Use Among Young Adults: 2014 and 2015, December 2016.
“an analysis of data” Bachhuber, Marcus A., et al. “Increasing Benzodiazepine Prescriptions and Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1996–2013.” American Journal of Public Health, April 2016, Vol. 106, No. 4, pp. 686–688.
“between 40 to 60 percent” Bierut, Laura J. “Genetic Vulnerability and Susceptibility to Substance Dependence.” Neuron, Feb. 24, 2011, Vol. 69, No. 4, pp. 618–627.
Ducci, Francesca and Goldman, David. “The Genetic Basis of Addictive Disorders.” Psychiatric Clinics of North America, June 2012, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 495–519.
“both genetics and the environment” Drug Facts: Genetics and Epigenetics of Addiction, revised February 2016, a publication of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.
CHAPTER 14: BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY
“this group spans” Williams, Alex. “Move Over, Millennials, Here Comes Generation Z.” The New York Times, Sept. 18, 2015.
Dimock, Michael. “Defining Generations: Where Millennials End and Generation Z Begins.” Pew Research Center, Jan. 17, 2019.
“almost half of the U.S. population today” According to Nielsen, Gen Z is now 26 percent of the population. The Pew Research Center projects that Millennials will overtake Baby Boomers in 2019 as America’s largest generation.
“More than one in three” Fry, Richard. “Millennials Are the Largest Generation in the U.S. Labor Force.” Pew Research Center, April, 11, 2018.
“likely to be more troubled” Luthar, Suniya S., et al. “I Can, Therefore I Must: Fragility in the Upper-Middle Classes.” Development and Psychopathology, Nov. 2013, Vol. 25, No. 402, pp. 1529–1549.
“Monitoring the Future study” The annual Monitoring the Future survey has tracked national substance use among U.S. adolescents every year since 1975 for twelfth-grade students and since 1991 for eighth- and tenth-grade students. The survey is conducted by a team of research professors at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research and is fun
ded under a series of competitive research grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is part of the National Institutes of Health.
“Poverty and substance use” Ford, Jason A., et al. “Neighborhood Characteristics and Prescription Drug Misuse Among Adolescents: The Importance of Social Disorganization and Social Capital.” International Journal of Drug Policy, Aug. 2017, Vol. 46, pp. 47–53.
“Anxiety may be one reason” Wilson, Robin. “An Epidemic of Anguish: Overwhelmed by Demand for Mental-Health Care, Colleges Face Conflicts in Choosing How to Respond.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fall 2015.
Denizet-Lewis, Benoit. “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering from Severe Anxiety?” The New York Times, Oct. 11, 2017.
The American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment, Undergraduate Student Reference Group Executive Summary, Fall 2016.
“college students suffer from depression” American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment II: Reference Group Executive Summary Spring 2018. ACHA is an advocacy and leadership organization for college and university health located in Silver Spring, Maryland.
“according to Twenge, 92 percent” Twenge, Jean M. and Campbell, Keith W. “Associations Between Screen Time and Lower Psychological Well-Being Among Children and Adolescents: Evidence from a Population-Based Study.” Preventive Medicine Reports, Dec. 2018, Vol. 12, pp. 271–283.
“major depressive episodes among teens” Twenge, Jean. M., et al. “Increases in Depressive Symptoms, Suicide-Related Outcomes, and Suicide Rates Among U.S. Adolescents After 2010 and Links to Increased New Media Screen Time.” Clinical Psychological Science, 2018, Vol. 6, pp. 3–17.
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