My Story...Long...

I searched the entire thread of Nurses with Disabilities and after doing so, decided that my home is here.

Here is my story...briefly.

Last year, in June, I fell asleep one night on the job after having my BPD meds switched around. I looked as if I were drunk or impaired. I know I should not have gone into work that night, but my DON is very strict about absences. I went in. I got no work done...and my med pass? Erratic at best. My charge nurse wrote me up for being impaired on the 11a-7p shift. I went home that morning after report. I probably could have killed someone or myself going there or coming home and by the grace of God, I didn't. I went home and went to sleep feeling excessively groggy from the switch in medication. (I went from 150 mgs of Lamictal to 300mgs and from 40 mgs of Geodon to 80 mgs. I also had my xanax increased from .50 to 1 mg.) Anyway, she didn't drug test me...and I didn't ask for one. I was too out of it. All these meds were prescribed to me so I took them as I was supposed to. Fast forward to the next day. 7a to 3p shift came and went. I was at home sleeping. Finally at 4pm, the DON called me up and told me that I was not to come into work for the night shift...and she would talk to me tomorrow. I didn't really think anything of it. The following day, she called me to come in at 4p as she wanted to have a talk with me. I came in. She told me that she notified the BON that I had come into work impaired and sleeping on the job as per several CNA's and my Charge Nurse. I tried to explain myself...about my meds, but she wasn't having it. I asked for a drug test. Instead, she terminated my employment.

A couple of weeks later, the BON got in touch with me telling my that my license would be suspended pending a BON review. I had to go up in front of the BON up in Tallahassee (MANY miles from my house) and plead my case. I did without benefit of a lawyer. The BON confirmed the suspension of my licence and ordered me into an IPN eval. I went to the eval just this past week. They ordered me into an IOP for 2 months and the BON recommended probation for me for a two years.

In the past year, while sitting around waiting for all of this to settle, I have been unemployed. Out of depression, I began to take my husband Percocet (he has them for a broken femur...gets them once a month. A LOT of them.) I spent a lot of days in bed feeling sorry for myself. I was taking up to 10 Percocet a day at one point. I really had a problem. As the IPN got closer, I took myself off of the Percocet for about 2 weeks. That was the hardest two weeks of my life...but I wanted my drug test to be clean. I didn't realize they were taking a hair sample as well. So, that showed up...and of course, I didn't have a prescription for the Percocet to back it up.

IPN will be drug testing me now for the next few months...maybe years, I don't know. One of the medications that they want me off of is Xanax. Apparently, this drug, while prescribed to me, is a no no. It took me asking my husband to dump his Percocet down the toilet to keep me away from that. However, I am having a terrible time parting from my Xanax. I need it. I have such bad anxiety related to my BPD.

I haven't started IPN program yet because they haven't sent me my "contract" yet. I know my first drug test is going to come up positive for Xanax because I haven't begun to wean off of it. I don't feel like I can. I am craving my husbands Percocet like mad. A year has gone by and I haven't worked because I can't seem to get myself off of these drugs.

I am putting my story here, as opposed to the nurses with disabilities forum because I think my problem by now has to do with addiction as opposed to my BPD. I haven't had a manic episode in at least 8 months. I don't sleep at night, so I take more xanax. I am supposed to take three a day. I find that I take about 5 at night instead of what I am supposed to take.

I don't know what to do with myself. I have ruined my life because of these drugs. I used to be a highly competant and capable nurse. Now I don't even feel like I have a right to post on this forum because I feel less than worthy. I am lost right now. I want so much to be working again and to get my life back...but I don't know how to get myself clean again. I don't know where to start. It is the most helpless and hopeless feeling I have ever had. My husband? He's an enabler of sorts. He will tell me "no" about taking his pills...and I will feign a migraine or something so he gives them to me. At my clearer moments, I tell him to keep them out of the house. He hides them...and I always manage to find them.

In the interim, I am sitting here waiting for this contract to come and tell me what I need to do as far as the intensive outpatient therapy they have lined up for me. There are certain days I don't even care anymore...

For those who struggle with addiction, tell me how you get through your days. What makes you want to get out of bed in the morning? When does this hopelessness go away? How can you be a nurse when you can't even take care of yourself and your family anymore? I feel like I have hit rock bottom and even if I get my license back, I don't feel worthy of being a nurse anymore.

This is the worst feeling in the world. Very isolated. But I come here and read this forum and it gives me glimmers of hope seeing that some of you have gotten your lives back on track.

Tell me how to get back on track. Please.