Back From Addiction, and Sharing the Lessons

I GRADUATED from the Dickinson School of Law of Pennsylvania State University in 1999. Then I got a clerkship, which should have been the first step in a great law career.

Laurie Besden, 33, now works as a paralegal at Oliver & Caiola, in East Norriton, Pa.

But I was addicted to Vicodin, a prescription medication for pain relief, and was taking up to 50 pills a day. In feeding my habit I broke the law and went to jail and had my law license suspended. For the last three years, I’ve been working my way back, thanks to two law partners who have given me a chance. I hope to have my license to practice law in Pennsylvania reinstated one day.

I think I had addictive tendencies even as a child. When I would get codeine pills for tooth pain, I’d save a few for a rainy day. I even asked my dentist for laughing gas for a cleaning. A month before I was to graduate from law school, I found some Vicodin at the house of a friend whose father was in the medical field and took a few sample packs. No one even noticed they were missing.

I was preparing for the July bar exam, and I found I could study for hours with the pills. I started ordering them over the Internet from a doctor affiliated with a pharmacy in Texas.

Soon I was taking 30 pills a day and using cocaine once in a while. I remember thinking, “At least I’m not hooked on coke; then I’d be a real addict.” The only time I thought I might have a problem was when I went to Europe after graduation. I called the pharmacy from a pay phone in Spain to make sure I had pills waiting for me when I got home. That made me wonder — for about a second.

After passing the bar, I was a clerk for the Pennsylvania Superior Court. Then the doctor who prescribed my pills was indicted and I was desperate. By then I was taking 40 pills a day.

I got a drug manual and learned what I needed to know to impersonate a doctor and call orders into pharmacies. I completed a second clerkship, but by then my addiction consumed all my time. The first time I was arrested for prescription fraud, in 2002, I spent 48 hours in jail. I entered a rehab program at my family’s urging, but I went in with drugs, I left with drugs, and I took drugs the whole time.

In 2003, I was arrested again on the same charge and was ordered to undergo rehab. It didn’t work that time, either. When I got into trouble yet again, the judge got fed up and gave me a sentence in county jail. I’d rather not dwell on the negative. What’s important is that I have turned my life around.

I mark Jan. 29, 2004, my first day in jail that time, as my first day of sobriety. J. David Farrell, from Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, a nonprofit organization that assists lawyers, visited me that day. My family had given up on me, but he convinced them and me that treatment could help. He stuck with me the whole time I was in jail.

When I was released, I went to Caron, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Wernersville, Pa. That program changed my life. For five years, I hadn’t functioned one day without pills. I learned how to live without drugs. Then Dave found me this job.

The partners here are extremely supportive. They trust me because Dave believes in me. Every year on the anniversary of my “clean” date, we have a cake. I can’t work directly with clients while my license is suspended, but under the partners’ supervision I can help on cases. I can also use what I’ve learned about addiction to help others.

I tell clients who have been in motor-vehicle accidents and are taking pain pills to be careful because they could become addicted. One client said he was depressed and drinking a lot, so I took him to a self-help meeting. I’ve never had a drinking problem, but I go to support group meetings for both drugs and alcohol. To me, a drug is a drug.

I heard one of the partners telling this man that the two of them would have to go out for drinks sometime. Later I took the partner aside and said, “You have to be careful who you say that to.” He was grateful.

That I’m helping people now amazes me. One couple was about to be evicted from their apartment after the woman had a bad fall. She couldn’t work, and they fell behind in their rent. I helped with their settlement. They stopped in to see me afterward and said I had no idea what a difference I had made in their lives. Another man sent me flowers and found me at my gym to thank me personally. He had tears in his eyes.

I also volunteer with Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers. I got a call the other day to contact two lawyers in trouble because of drugs. If anyone had told me five years ago, in the middle of my addiction, that I’d be doing what I am today, I wouldn’t have believed him. I’m lucky to be alive after my drug use, and I’m living proof that there is life after felonies.

As an addict, I can’t predict tomorrow. But for today, I am not putting those pills in my mouth. Nothing tastes as great as freedom.

As told to Patricia R. Olsen.