Are you better off?

Nurses Recovery

Published

Hi Everybody:

Before Thanksgiving my nurse support group had our weekly meeting & the topic for discussion was gratitude. More specifically our counselor wanted us to discuss how involvement in monitoring improved our lot in life. A couple people there described how involvement in the program saved their lives and careers and I think that is a wonderful thing!!! More people were polite and said what they thought needed said to keep the counselor happy (I know this because we talk after the meeting). I told the counselor that my life was much worse in every category since being involved in the monitoring program. Literally nothing is better. Of course she hated that answer but it's the truth.

Anyway, I'd like to know if involvement in this program has made your life better. Are you happier now? More financially secure? Is your job better? Anything really. I'm simply curious

have a great day!!!

Specializes in ER, ICU/CCU, Open Heart OR Recovery, Etc.

Sign me up!

I posted a call to action in Nurses/politics - It's a bit lengthy but give it a read. I am looking for nurse who want to be part of effecting change in this. We can not truly heal if we just sit in our anger.
Up Vote Up Vote ×

I read it and it is worth the time

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ER, ICU/CCU, Open Heart OR Recovery, Etc.

In this situation, there aren't simple answers to this.

I am definitely better off getting clean and staying clean. I believe I would have either ended up harming a patient or myself had I not, and it would have been a tremendous waste. No one really wants to inflict that kind of harm on themselves or others.

No one wants to live that way. That is what I tell whoever will listen, is that no one wakes up in the morning and decides they want to be an addict.

On the other side of this coin are the Boards of Nursing and the monitoring programs that have little to no oversight or accountability. When money and power and draconian thinking are mixed, a toxic brew results. The effects of this have little to nothing to do with public safety. It is a thinly veiled guise of a larger and more ugly problem that affects all of us.

Better off? My life is very good today because I am clean. I am a better person than I was, and I have a chance to do good in this world.

What concerns me are those that have almost absolute power with no accountability that do not follow ethics and go way beyond what they should.

Yes, public safety. But what about the professionals that are tossed aside as a result of the draconian policies?

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Yep I agree. In my state we lose about 9% of the participants in the monitoring program, I feel those are probably the actual alcoholics and addicts who desperately need help. The rest of us manage to pee clean for 1/2 a decade. They are thrown away like so much old trash. For nurses to be OK with that is a travesty

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Nope, massive debt, broken up family (mostly due to lack of finances, job in different city), draconian BON rules, list goes on. They (the BON) increase you're stress level by 1000%, limit places, positions and hours you can work, require you to spend thousands on testing, counselling etc and in all that recover and be happy. I'm not any better now than I was 3 years ago. One thing is for sure though. I'm never touching another bottle or vial of narcs because this is hell.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in OR.

This "advocacy program" has reduced me to a highly educated, bankrupt 40-something year old child, dependent on parental support for everything from rent to groceries. But for the the generosity of family, I'd be living in a gutter. I'm working a minimum wage job where I'm treated like dirt by customers (for that pittance of money, I shouldn't care, but it still stings. Like a constant reminder.) I've never been good at pasting on a fake smile when I'd really like to say **** ***.

I will only be better off when it's over.

Up Vote Up Vote ×

This program has not made me better at all. It has bankrupted me financially. Caused me to take my last semester off school which has cost me thousands of dollars and undue stress. The "treatment" was of such a poor quality given by people whose main "qualification" for the job is that they stayed high or drunk most of there lives or by social worker control freaks who couldn't help a staving man find a piece of bread. I agree that the public should be safe from impaired nurses so if there is a reasonable cause that a nurse is impaired in the work place then pee test to your hearts content. However, I don't see how any of this stuff helps with recovery. Imagine is 12 step programs said that everyone that sought help would have to lose their ability to do their job, keep logs of "anonymous" meetings, pay to expensive treatment which essentially says get to a free meeting, have people you never see determine your professional fate based on uncertain criteria, be forced to go to "professional counseling" where you don't dare tell the truth about what you feel and completely take your ability to support yourself away if you relapse or worse yet suffer a false positive. These programs are hideous abominations whose sole purpose is to control and punish for "wrongs" that very often had nothing at all to do with a nurses professional life.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Med/Surg, Women's Health, LTC.

Since I have not started my monitoring program, I cannot attest to if I am better off or not. However, for those of you who had that one DUI or something so far back in their past, it does not make sense to me to put you into a "one size fits all" program. It does not make sense to me for those with issues better handled by mental health professionals either, but, I am not the one running the programs, so.....

For me, I am an alcoholic and the AA/NA meetings I go to do offer me something. I am lucky to live in an area where I can attend meetings that cater to my non-Christian beliefs. I know for others, they may not be so lucky. And I have accepted my lot in life. I made the mistakes that cost me my license. I have to pay for them.

Now, I may feel totally different once I am in the monitoring program, but, I am just hoping with crossed fingers, that I get the chance to do that. I wish each of you well and hope we all keep each other updated, so we can hear those stories of success!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

It's horrible. Absolutely horrible. The shame. They say it's confidential but somehow everyone knows. And trying to get a job with all the restrictions and before that, waiting on the therapist to give a work release. How is keeping me from work helping my situation? I can't pay my bills and I'm supposed to be happily skipping through recovery? While they steadily hold their hand out for more money that I don't have because they won't let me work?

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Am I better off...

They took three years to get to me. So three solid years of anxiety and fear every day and night in waiting.

I submitted everything to reactivate over a month ago and..nothing.

None of this time counts towards my very public probation..

The drug monitoring company (first lab) sent out a generic email yesterday with some phone number changes etc to me. This email was immediately recalled via another email. The reason you ask... They sent "to" rather than "bcc" in the addresses. They publicly sent an email to over 140 people with their names and emails for all to see. I saw the first and last names of all of these folks and they can all see mine. Which of course contains my name. Just another kick to my pride and any shred of dignity I had left. These people are being monitored by First lab for god knows what.

I hate it all

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in OR.
Am I better off...

They took three years to get to me. So three solid years of anxiety and fear every day and night in waiting.

I submitted everything to reactivate over a month ago and..nothing.

None of this time counts towards my very public probation..

The drug monitoring company (first lab) sent out a generic email yesterday with some phone number changes etc to me. This email was immediately recalled via another email. The reason you ask... They sent "to" rather than "bcc" in the addresses. They publicly sent an email to over 140 people with their names and emails for all to see. I saw the first and last names of all of these folks and they can all see mine. Which of course contains my name. Just another kick to my pride and any shred of dignity I had left. These people are being monitored by First lab for god knows what.

I hate it all

Confidentiality? Patient privacy? My fat pale posterior!!

Even people on probation for felonies have more privacy rights that this!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

Absolutely. With our names and emails sent out like that.. The tiniest slip up and we are slapped with years more of this ******** but they can literally get away with this and a 'whoopss sorry lollll'.

I have a mild case of pneumonia and pretty bad bronchitis and finally went to the doc after 16 days of needless suffering. She gave me my meds, I faxed the visit summery and med list to my monitor, and then filled my prescriptions. No narcotics but there is a decongestant I am taking. Now I get to worry about someone misinterpreting this as an ingredient of meth and getting a positive.

We depend on these people to do things the right way and look at what I have experienced so far. Blatant breach of confidentiality and one drug test where the employee made jokes about how she smokes weed...

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment