Louisiana RN recently "caught". Need Advice

Yeah, me too.


How are you? Have you gotten any help yet? You can pm me also.

Yes, if they are physically able to work, they should be out there busting their butts just like you have been doing. It is time for you to "fix" you!

I'm glad that you are on the right track to recovery. It's a good thing.

Hey! Well, I am glad to hear from you - I had been praying for you and your family. I can still remember when I made that same call. It was August 17th, 1999. For a while after getting caught, I had been having nightmares about the last day I worked and got caught. I can remember the feelings I had, the sheer terror knowing I had just really screwed my career up - at that time, I just thought you lost your license when you got caught - but also almost feeling relief. Relief that I had gotten busted and did not have to keep coming up with different STUPID excuses about why I stayed "sick" as much as I did. Simply, I stayed sick because I stayed high as a kite. Relieved that I had not hit and killed someone with my car while I was driving to and from work under the influence of narcotics.

I had gone through a nasty divorce not too long before I was caught, and had been dating a local fireman for a few months at that time. He dumped me like a hot potato as soon as it all came to light, he didn't want me to "tarnish the image" he had since working in the community. He actyually told me that. At the time, I was just devastated, but now I look back and say "thank God he dumped me when he did..."

My parents had divorced when I was graduating from high school and I had always been a lot closer to my dad than mom. No reason, I guess, other than I was adopted at birth and my mom at times kind of seemed like I kind of disappointed her in general. I guess due to that, I didn't have a problem telling her what I had been doing, but my dad was another story. Mom drove me to Pineville, where I had to attend treatment at the state run facility there since I lost all my insurance as well as my job when I got caught. I asked Mom to tell Dad what I had done, but not until she dropped me off at the facility. She did, and by the next night at phone call time, I got the call from Dad disowning me - he was very disappointed in me, he said, and I knew he would be. I have always been a daddy's girl, so that call really hurt me. Of course, he called me back less than an hour later in tears and apologized for what he had just said and done. He said he had no idea that I had been having so much troube, and wondered why I didn't come to him and tell him before I had gotten caught. I tried to explain to him that before I had gotten caught, I had convinced myself that I was doing NOTHING wrong (yeah right). It's been a long time since then, 10 years coming up this August, and I'm still a daddy's girl - that was the longest hour I have EVER experienced, when my Dad disowned me. I'm not sure who cried more, me or him.

I still have a physical reminder of what I had been doing. I was using Demerol and Phenergan IM, and was injecting into my thighs while sitting down in the BR at work. I was still high from the previous shot, and didn't do a very good job with the second one and made a big abcess on my left thigh. It took forever to heal, I still have a scar - it turned into a big abcess the size of a fifty cent piece. For the longest time, I told everyone I had been bitten by a spider.

I had to wait a month for a bed at the state facility to open up, and since I lost my job, I lost about 25 or 30 lbs in the month waiting for a bed. The facility was a Godsend, I learned so much about myself in that months time.I think now, that was the best place I could have gone.

Anne, RNC

Anne, Thank you soooo much for sharing! I'm sure it wasn't easy but it gave me a lump in my throat. I hope many people read it and realize that if you made it back from that, then they can too. Congratulations on 10 years! Sending love and a big hug your way. I really admire you!

Tipselu, I am so delighted to hear the progress you are making towards recovery and agree totally with the information shared by jackstern regarding the disease of addiction and the overall culture in nursing.

Believe me when I say this is an extremely common occurence, in every state. The attention to the subject is picking up, not just among nurses but in the general media.

There was a recent radio show aired that devoted the entire latter half of the program to the subject of chemical dependency specifically in nurses and can be accessed at www.prescriptionaddictionradio.com

Within the past four months alone, two books have been published solely about addiction in our profession. One is a primer aimed at prevention not just of developing an issue, but preempting any relapse in recovering nurses. It also addresses the subject in a way that can help affected nurses, their families and colleagues understand the importance of all that is demanded by the board of nursing and/or state alternative program.

The other book is one nurse's personal story.

Absolutely hang in there; know you are one of thousands of nurses during this year alone who crossed a line that was noticed by an employer to the extent that they were confronted at work. I know this for a fact having worked exclusively with recovering nurses for several years now and having presented on this very topic in several states.

No, no, no, no ,no ,no ,no.............NO!!!!

You are NOT stupid!!! That's the moralistic, judgmental, "doesn't understand the pathophysiology of addiction" part of you talking (and thinking). PLEASE read the following articles so you can begin to understand why we do what we do when our disease is active. It will also help you understand it takes 18 - 24 months of abstinence from mood altering substances for your brain to recover from the chronic exposure to all the mood altering chemicals you subjected it to. Your brain will never return to it's pre-addiction state, but it will recover enough for you to learn about the disease, how to recognize early signs of relapse, the importance of building a recovery community around you to help you when things get rough, etc. This also explains why we are always at risk for relapse.

YOU ARE NOT STUPID, OR EVIL!!

Feel free to PM me if you want additional reading resources.

Drug Addiction Among Nurses: Confronting a Quiet Epidemic

The Disease Concept

Terence Gorski: The Disease Concept

Alan Leshner: Addiction is a Brain Disease

William White: What if We REALLY Believed Addiction was a Chronic Disease (and it is!)

You are not stupid, weak, evil, or lack willpower!

Hang in there! Keep coming back nd let us know how you're doing.

Hugs!!!!!

Jack

Well, I am SO glad to hear from you! I have been praying for you and your family - been there, done that! I am so thankful for my current dh. He is also an RN and I have known him professionally since 89 or so. I may have talked about how we met and reconnected, but I had only been out of HS for a little over a year, and was ward clerking on a medical unit. He is 10 yrs older than me, and was a house sup at the same hospitsal. He was married and we worked together off on and on. I left the facility and moved, then came back to town after I had been using.

I went to inpatient rehab for a month and walked into our nursing aftercare meeting and walked straight into him. Surprised, to say the least! We got caught up and became friends. We both have 10 years, but he got sober before me, so his birthdays both as a matter of fact, are in July, and both of mine are in August. We became coworkers after the first year we were in the program, and will celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary in August. He is such a wonderful person, and we are there for each other. But, I digress...

Please let us know how you are doing. It does at times feel like you are the only person in the world having to do all the things we do, but it will make you healthy. Please know you have a support system here.

I am not working any more, I will have to travel to New Orleans to have cardiac surgery in the next month or so, but thanks to wireless internet I will be here. I had an EP study eblation last week and stayed online until about an hour pre op.

Blessings to you.
Anne