How my high-flying law career drove me into a spiral of addiction
The air is thick with the scent of hot tarmac and cigarette smoke, the heat pressing against my skin. Around me, clusters of office workers linger over Tesco meal deals, their voices low, their lanyards catching the midday sun. I sit on a sun-warmed bench in the park, my hands trembling, my blouse clinging to my back, my mind spiralling.
I’ve just cc’d the wrong party in a confidential email chain — everyone is about to find out. And I’m terrified about what will happen when they do.
“I can’t breathe,” I say.
Mara*, another trainee barely looks up. She shrugs, pops a pill into my hand, then another. “It’s called Xanax,” she explains. I don’t ask why she has it. She says it’s from her psychiatrist. We all have psychiatrists. No one questions it. I just swallow the pills.
Twenty minutes later, I feel better.
Herson worked at the law firm for 19 months
Dorothy Herson
Addiction, but not the kind you think
Two years into recovery, I find myself reflecting. Unlike many addicts, I wasn’t hooked from my first gulp of Smirnoff or the lazy haze of a spliff. My first addiction wasn’t sexy, reckless, or romantic. It was achievement — the sharp, metallic hit of dopamine that came with every A-grade, every gold-starred victory, every neatly packaged dose of validation.
If you secure a training contract in the Magic Circle, a group of elite London law firms, you’ve likely been living by the same rule for over a decade: work, reward, work, reward. GCSEs, A-levels, first-year marks, vacation schemes, training contract interviews, GDL, LPC. Win. Move forward. Repeat. Validation becomes your drug, and once you start chasing it, stopping is almost impossible.
And the legal industry? It feeds on that addiction. It convinces us that success is worth suffering for, that exhaustion is a mark of devotion, that without the job, you are nothing.
“The problem with your generation is that you all want to be happy,” a senior partner remarked once at a departmental event, slowly chinking the ice in her gin and tonic before taking a large gulp.
The hollow prize at the top
I had passed through the golden gates, landed the prestigious contract, and reached the so-called dream. I thought that it was success that would make me happy. But there were cracks in the fantasy. In amongst free tickets to the opera and Michelin-star meals, there were achievements to aspire to – associate, managing associate, partner, equity partner — but I was beginning to realise I was deluded to think each step would bring me the happiness I so desired.
This was it. There was no great reward waiting at the top, no deep sense of fulfilment, no promised land, no void that would be filled. Just more work
I thought that it was success that would make me happy. But there were cracks in the fantasy. There were achievements to aspire to — associate, managing associate, partner, equity partner — but I was beginning to realise that I was deluded to think each step would bring me the happiness I so desired.
I was inside the Magic Circle, and I wasn’t happy. Worse, neither were my superiors. The equity partners, the ones with real power, were shackled to ruthless, psychopathic clients who expected the impossible, operated without conscience, and blacklisted the word “no.” Every day, the realisation grew stronger. This was it. There was no great reward waiting at the top, no deep sense of fulfilment, no promised land, no void that would be filled. Just more work. More pressure. More people collapsing under the weight of it all.
The high-functioning addicts of the legal world
The legal profession has an addiction problem. Nearly 70% of UK lawyers struggle with their mental health, while one in five faces bullying, harassment, or discrimination at work. The pressure is relentless, the culture toxic, and the coping mechanisms destructive. Lawyers are twice as likely to be problem drinkers and 3.6 times more likely to suffer from depression than the average worker.Patrick Krill, a researcher specialising in mental health, addiction, and suicide within the legal profession, has found that alcohol is the go-to substance for lawyers managing stress. Drinking is ingrained in legal culture, normalised as early as law school. But lawyers aren’t just drinking to take the edge off — many turn to stimulants just to keep up. Because how else do you survive a 90-hour work week?
James Paul/Unsplash
The magic pill that made it “better”
10 months into working at the firm, I started doing badly. Their standards were ruthless, and I was crumbling, an anxious wreck teetering on the edge. I knew that if I didn’t achieve good appraisal marks, I wouldn’t be offered a job upon qualification. By month 15, I was taking mental health leave, making errors in the simplest things, and buckling under psychological strain. I’ve learnt that under extreme pressure, I dissociate, panic, and stop functioning. Not exactly a match for 17-hour days, ruthless appraisals, and constant scrutiny.
I needed something to optimise my performance — to sleep less, work harder, and chase the ultimate carrot: an international secondment. Then, in the dining hall one day, a solution presented itself: Adderall.
“What’s that?” I asked the same friend who had given me Xanax.
“An enhancer,” she said. “Creative people take it.”
I had always wanted to be a poet. Maybe this was what would unlock my creative genius. I stared at the plastic-sealed capsule, half powdery blue, half translucent cream, tiny white beads shifting inside. A promise wrapped in plastic. A shortcut. Why not?
A system designed to break
At first, Mara handed out Adderall freely, slipping me the pills like a benevolent dealer. But soon, she had to start charging – her psychiatrist invoiced her, and, frankly, I was burning through them at an alarming rate. £12 a pill. That’s what it cost to keep my head above water. And when my third-seat mid-appraisal plummeted, I knew I had to up my dose, fast – longer hours, less procrastination, double the efficiency.
My performance improved. I stayed awake longer. I felt sharper. But there was a cost. I couldn’t sleep – so I self-medicated with Merlot. I couldn’t face my own limitations – so I numbed them with Xanax. I couldn’t slow my heart rate in meetings — so I took beta blockers. I couldn’t face the fact that I wasn’t good enough — so I upped my dosages.
After just 19 months, I cracked. The last thing I remember before being driven to the hospital is the sharp, medicinal bite of gin
And I wasn’t the only one. At 3am, in the office bathrooms, lawyers weren’t just splashing water on their faces — some were doing lines of cocaine, anything to keep going. As Lucy Myers, the founder of Therapeutic Coaching Consultancy, put it: “This is when unhealthy coping mechanisms — alcohol, stimulants, gambling — kick in. They’re an attempt to survive.”
The firm didn’t hand me stimulants and a bottle of vodka and tell me this was the way. I did it to myself. I did it because I had no sense of perspective, because I thought a job was my entire life, because I convinced myself that an average mark was a catastrophe — and that the lawyer I was sleeping with would ditch me if I didn’t receive a qualification offer. After just 19 months, I cracked. The last thing I remember before being driven to the hospital is the sharp, medicinal bite of gin — juniper and ethanol, as if they might still hold me together.
The lies we tell ourselves
The truth is, I don’t think I was ever built for that world. And I don’t mean that in a self-pitying way — I mean it literally. Still, I tried. I forced myself into the mould, hammered a round peg into a square hole, convinced myself that if I just pushed hard enough, I’d eventually fit. I took the pills. I drank the drinks. I did whatever it took to survive.
I used to think I wasn’t tough enough, resilient enough, ruthless enough. Now, I see that my body wasn’t failing me, it was trying to save me. If you’re self-medicating, if you’re drowning in alcohol after work just to numb the fear, maybe the problem isn’t you. Maybe it’s where you are.
In recovery, I once complained to my sponsor about how unbearable a party had felt without alcohol. “Why?” she asked.” Because the music was too loud — I felt overstimulated and anxious. Because I felt awkward, like I had nothing to say. Because I got bored. Because the flashing lights were overwhelming. Alcohol used to make it fun.”
She shrugged. “Maybe it was just a bad party.”
Huh. Maybe it was just a bad party.
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