what are my rights??

Nurses General Nursing

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I have had a rough year, son on meth and husband died related to alcoholism. I got a few tickets, neg. driving and possession of marijuana reduced to lesser charge. I went through treatment and am clean and sober now. I lost my license temporarily and am going to get it back soon, but they want me to enter the nurse monitoring program. I don't really have a problem doing it but it is a lot of demands for five years. They told me it was voluntary but yet they won't give me my license back until I commit to it. What are my rights? Just wondering if anybody knew anything about this subject.

Cool. How did it go for you? Were you able to talk to other nurses in the program and get support that way? I got to meetings and all but it is different nurse to nurse.

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Specializes in Public Health, DEI.

Wow, what a rough year. I'm sorry for your struggles. I would look at the monitoring program has an opportunity rather than a burden. You need to prove to everyone, most importantly yourself, that you are able to deal with whatever life may throw at you without reverting to self destructive behavior.

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You are absolutely right. As great as regular meetings are, sharing with another recovering nurse, or even a room full of them, is special. If you decide to go the nurse monitoring program in your state, and I really hope you do, one of the things they will do is help you find recovering nurse support groups. At least in Massachusetts they did for me. But I also share my whole story in regular 12 step meetings (I did as recently as last sat) and lo and behold, another woman volunteered that she too was a nurse beginning her journey in recovery. So I don't hold back on my nursing background and intervention. You never know who might hear what they need to hear.

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Please go to this website for support and accurate information. You will get accurate info and support. Please EM me privately, I will do what I can to help.

http://www.voy.com/24203/

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I look at it this way. If you have nothing to hide and everything to gain, why not undergo the monitoring? If you are clean then you will only be proving that to all who look. You will also be able to prove to yourself that you CAN do this.

Good luck in your efforts.

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