My name is Mary-Ellen King. I am the current president of the Austin Bar Association. This is my story.
I grew up in church, a star athlete, always a leader—secretary of my high school’s student-government association, sorority officer, involved in campus politics, president of alum clubs, Rotary president, president of the Austin Bar, and leadership in various foundations, to name a few. I am type-A and task-oriented—like most lawyers, a dutiful perfectionist.
In 2007, while in trial school at Southern Methodist University, I met Rick. He was handsome, a brilliant lawyer, and an overachiever—even more than me. Way smarter than me. A charming former Fifth Circuit law clerk and alum of an AmLaw 200 international law firm.
We married in 2009, and I gained three precious bonus children when they were 10, eight, and six. The next five years were amazing. We started a very successful law firm together, were heavily involved in our local community, I had brilliant engaging stepchildren, and we decided to have a child together. From the outside looking in, we were a picture-perfect family.
After trying many years and with a huge setback and emergency surgery in 2013, I became pregnant in 2014. I had noticed by this time that something was not right. I stayed up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, and Googling things, trying to make sense of it all. One night at three a.m., I finally pieced it together: I was living with an alcoholic, a very high-functioning alcoholic, and it was getting worse by the day.
I had my beautiful son, Wyatt, in January 2015. At that point, when my life should have been full of joy, it was spiraling. I started attending Al-Anon recovery meetings, which are different from Alcoholics Anonymous meetings: Al-Anon is for family and friends affected by someone’s drinking.
During one of my Al-Anon meetings, a quote hit me and stuck with me: “Trying to make someone else happy will ultimately make you full of anger and rage, especially when doing it to compensate for someone else’s addiction.”
That was me. I was miserable. I was angry and mad — that my life was falling apart, that the picture-perfect life I had painted for the world was an illusion. We were nothing more than a sandcastle being washed away by each wave.
As with many things, you’ll hear people say about addiction, “It runs in the family.” I was determined to change the narrative of my family and adopted a second part of that phrase for my life: “This is where it runs out.”
When my life started crumbling around 10 years ago, I stopped everything but attending church and Al-Anon meetings. Most days, I would sit and cry during church and recovery meetings. I felt helpless.
I left Rotary, I left the sorority alum club that I loved, I left the law firm I started, I disengaged from community events, and I went to work on myself and overcoming the impact the disease had on me and my family. We were collateral damage of something completely out of our control, and it was devastating.
My story is long, and the details are horrifying. I was 850 miles from my closest family and from my mom and dad, but I started to realize that I was not alone. There were days when I literally did not feel like getting out of bed. Days when I was not sure how to put the right foot in front of the left. My brain was foggy. My life was in shambles.
But now when I look back, I know something bigger than me was walking me through the storm, and I did not quit. That went on for five years. I finally filed for divorce in 2017, and it was finalized in April 2021. Divorcing someone you are no longer compatible with is hard. Divorcing someone you love so they can self-destruct is a feeling that I cannot put into words. “Sad” does not adequately describe the feelings I have.
In the end, I lost the picture-perfect family. But, through my faith and Al-Anon, I became a better person, and I started to live again. I am still an active leader, but today I lead in quite a different way. I share my story, my struggles, and I am vulnerable and open about what we have been through and what we will continue to go through for the rest of our lives because of our encounter with addiction in our family. And, most days, I do it without a lot of worry or anxiety.
That was not always easy. When I am in the dark valleys in life, I worry: I worry about the future, I worry about tomorrow, I worry about everything. One of the lessons I learned over the last 10 years is that instead of worrying, I need to be grateful for what I have—even the simplest of things, like the sunshine, the flowers, the birds, this gorgeous city in which we live.
And it has transformed my life. It has taken me from a place of constant worry to a place of peace. And it allows me the opportunity to see daily gifts and to share with others. Instead of living a life of fear and worry, I now live a life of gratitude. I live life in the moment.
As Brené Brown says, “What we don’t need in the midst of our struggle is shame for being human.” And after being through what I have been through (and continue to endure), I have learned that showing others grace and love amid their struggles is how I can make the world a better place. People struggle. We are human. No matter the choices, no matter the place in life, everyone deserves grace—it can be transformative.
In April 2023, my ex-husband, ex-law partner, and father of my eight-year-old son (at the time) was diagnosed with stage IV liver failure. He passed on Nov. 27, 2023, at the age of 55 from the disease of addiction. When that happened, our lives were shattered, but simultaneously we were at peace. What I came to realize is that through the personal work leading up to that moment, I was preparing for the inevitable. I learned how to have strength and peace in the face of extreme personal struggles and adversity. Those lessons carried me and continue to carry me through very dark days. We now choose to find joy and gratitude in the small things of everyday life. There’s more good in this world than bad; you have to choose on which you focus.
If you find yourself facing similar struggles, I encourage you to visit the Austin Bar Association resource page.
If you are looking for a local Al-Anon meeting, you can find them here.