As part of our Stomp Out Stigma Campaign, we’re pleased to present The Addicted Mind: Why Smart Professionals Lose Control.
Addiction doesn’t discriminate by intelligence, education, or professional achievement. In this session, Dr. Kim explains how substances gradually erode judgment, motivation, and sense of self, why willpower fails even the smartest people, and why recovery is not only possible but well within reach. This talk is practical and designed for legal professionals who want to better understand addiction in their clients, their colleagues, or themselves.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the nature of addiction: how substances gradually reshape a person’s priorities, instincts, and decision-making until the choices they make no longer feel like choices, and why intelligent, ethical people end up in places they later can’t explain.
- Recognize how addiction quietly undermines the very qualities lawyers depend on: judgment, foresight, risk assessment, and emotional steadiness, and why knowing better is never enough to do better.
- Understand that recovery is real and within reach: how treatment, peer support, and time restore what addiction takes, why relapse is part of the process rather than proof of failure, and why asking for help takes more courage than going it alone.
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Q&A from the live presentation is included in the recording.
Meet Our Presenter
Jungjin Kim, MD
Dr. Jungjin Kim, MD is triple board-certified in General Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, and Forensic Psychiatry. He serves as Medical Director of the Alcohol, Drugs, and Addiction Inpatient Program at McLean Hospital and is an Instructor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. His clinical interests include treating individuals facing addiction alongside depression, anxiety, and other mental health challenges, the intersection of addiction and the legal system, and the relationship between imposter syndrome, confidence, and addiction. He specializes in helping individuals and families navigate addiction without shame, while preserving dignity, agency, and professional identity.