Discarding Maladaptive Adaptations

The modern world is maladaptive and the legal profession is ground zero. I talk about law because I know about law and lawyers. I been in the game for a minute now. I know plenty of dead lawyers. And not ones who died at a ripe old age after a life well-lived. Ones who dug their own early graves. Heart attacks, overdoes, even suicides. I know plenty of them. And I know a whole bunch more who aren't dead yet, but will be soon. So, for what it's worth (on my Buffalo Springfield shit again):

My son is four. He frequently skips when he's going some place exciting. While playing, he routinely drops down into a perfect squat. And just sits there. Straight down. No forward lean. Heels flat on the ground. And, whenever he wants, he bounces back up. When he's tired, he falls asleep. When the birds start chirping, he wakes up. If the sky looks amazing and all awash with different colors, he stops and marvels at it. When Sultans of Swing comes on the speaker, he stops whatever he's doing and goes on a dancing bender.

Many of us were once some variant of that. Some completely alive little person not yet fucked up by the world. But then the world sets in. And we develop all sorts of coping mechanisms. We are all different shades of escapists.

Twelve years ago (almost to the day), I hung my own shingle on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Las Olas). And over that first decade, I cannot count the number of loaded up, coked up, fucked up professionals (so called) who I encountered on Fort Lauderdale's mean streets.

I pass no judgments. Some of us have been there ourselves. Though I generally was not full-out loaded, I definitely was slightly sauced most days after 5pm. I call real shots, even on myself (especially on myself, that's why I'm a savage hitter).

You might ask why. I'll tell you. At first, it was just the way business was done. I knew old timey muckity mucks who would work the bars and restaurants during happy hours. They'd hit the mixers and charity events. They did the circuit. And that was how they drummed up business. So, in my naiveté (yes, in the before times), I joined the party.

Until about 30, I wasn't more than an occasional drinker (minus a 3 month stint in Vegas which basically resembled The Hangover and involved some wild nights in clubs crossing paths with Paris Hilton and whatnot). Law changed all that -- especially when I went out on my own. In BIGLAW, I rarely drank. I was mostly glued to my desk. And bouncing at 5pm to go drink and mingle was not in the cards. But when I became a free man, that world suddenly opened up to me. It was almost a right of passage. To go hit the bar for happy hour while my former BIGLAW colleagues shlepped back to their offices to appease the bossman (bill hours).

There was always a mixer. A happy hour. A function (booze will be served). Lawyers. Bankers. Real estate types. That's just what we did. And it went that way. For years.

Then Covid hit. And it was hard times (Baby Huey style). I had a (former) client go belly up and stiff me on more than $100,000. Everything got tight. Work slowed down. Add to that a newborn baby. And I was under a lot of stress. My adaptation of choice: drink more wine and smoke more cigars.

I doubt I'm alone when I say that I basically drank my face off during Covid. Instead of one or two glasses of wine it became three or four. I weathered the storm and work picked back up. But I kept drinking copious amounts of wine. The new normal and whatnot. And it just stayed like that. For a long time.

So I turned myself to face me...

That was maladaptive. And I knew it. I knew it for a long time.

All of our adaptations - good, bad, and otherwise - are habitual stress responses. Rinse and repeat for a year or two. And it's not just a habit or a pattern. It becomes the way we live.

Eventually, that lifestyle no longer served me. So I discarded it. It didn't happen all at once. It wasn't an overnight thing. It was more of a process. At first, I relegated my drinking to weekends only. But, quite naturally, I proceeded to drink my face off on the weekends (making up for lost time). And that was maladaptive. So I discarded that, too. Am I a teetotaler? Nope, not at all. It's just no longer a pastime of mine.

The other evening at 5pm, instead of going to happy hour, I was carrying a 90lb sandbag around a 3 mile loop through the woods. That serves me.

Keep the faith.

JP