I graduated from my nursing program well over a decade ago, magna cum laude, worked step-down for a short time then proceeded to ICU where I was excellent nurse (per my coworkers and managers) I joined the hospital Nurse Practice Counsel and had many friends at work. One aid for 14 patients isn't enough so after years of turning and boosting alone (sometimes a 400lb patient in reverse trendelenburg from the head of the bed) my back went. What was I to do? With over half my coworkers in MRSA and VRE precaution rooms and the patient unable to breathe because they were too far down in the bed and I wanted to prevent them from buying a vent. Proper body mechanics isn't always top priority...After a failed back surgery and a dura tear that wasn't repaired for three weeks I found myself addicted to the 2 mg of Dilaudid they'd been giving me every 2 hours while the doctor waited for the tear to "heal itself" after two failed blood patches. Sent home with a RX for Opana 30mg bid and my world was never the same. After struggling for months then years, RX chasing for the Opana, and having some extended periods of recovery, I got on Suboxone. Suboxone worked great for about a year until I changed jobs and insurance providers and the new insurance wasn't accepted by my Suboxone prescriber so I had to switch to a doc that was a regular family practice doc and didn't know or care about addiction so never monitored if I was staying clean. Well, I could say it was my back acting up that led me to divert drugs but really it was all that WASTE that no one really watches you waste, how tempting, I'd take out Dilaudid 2 mg, give 1mg and hoard the narcs like this all shift feeling distracted and as if I was STARVING just knowing the narcs were in my pocket....l always volunteered to go home early when census dropped. I never had the nerve to use at work, I was sure I'd be obvious or not feel the drugs at all because in order to avoid withdrawal I was still taking a half a strip of Suboxone prior to my shift and I needed some time in between the Suboxone and getting high to let the Suboxone wear off, it has a 36 hr half-life....I was never went through the Vicodin addiction part, my back went and I was in surgery in two weeks, I never believed much in addiction being a disease, I was and am full of self disgust and shame, I always felt like it was a choice but after reading up on how the opiates rewire your brain I'm not so sure it's not a disease. That starving feeling is the strongest desire I've ever felt. So if you think you're not an addict and never would be and you judge those who divert and abuse pain meds, gossip and judge....I hope it's not your back or knee or shoulder that "goes" one day and you have to discover just what you're capable of because this type of self-loathing and shame...it makes you not want to wake up in the morning.
So when you shake your head and wonder how anyone could divert drugs and destroy a career they worked so hard for remember that I was just like you.
Do you really want to equate stealing a patients pain medication with eating too many cheeseburgers?
That's oversimplified but yes, indulging frequently in a high fat, fast food diet will likely lead to heart disease. Frequent use of narcotics will likely, eventually, lead to an addiction to those narcotics. When the CDC defines addiction as a disease its not not without scientific backing. I have a hard time accepting that its not all willpower and personal, poor choices as well.
Now this is something I can respond to because I can relate. Would have been amazing if willpower alone could have saved me ffrom my active addiction- lord knows I tried. I forced my willpower to no end. It was an intervention at work (aka being fired) and the loving arms of y family and AA that saved me. Now those things and treatment continue to light a path for me.
A disease, simplified, is a dysfunction in the human body that requires treatment to cure or to sustain remission. Like a diabetic, my disease will require life long treatment. How long have you maintained sobriety? I ask because the guilt, shame, and anxiety has been greatly reduced in me these past few months.
I am so glad you are educating yourself, and I hope you are placing yourself around people who have experience what you have experienced. Seeing how happy they are has always given me strength. Everyone will have opinions. I remember in my first 30 days I told my sister "I am going to meet the most empathetic and cruel people through this process". So far I've not met one negative person, and at this point in sobriety I'd wave my hand and tell them to go feed the birds, I have more people in my corner than they could probably dream of. Not a bad deal.
Experience is the best teacher and because we cannot experience it all, we must learn through the experiences of others. That being said I'd like to thank the OP for sharing such a personal and emotional part of life.
I have worked on the behavioral units so I have cared for people who are going through an addiction. Like someone mentioned above, a person with an addiction can be very unlikeable because of what they do to get their way. I have had days where I had to read books to remind myself that those behaviors are not ALWAYS a choice.
I have once said 'I will never be addicted', now I know better. Not because I have personally gone through it but because I have let myself live through it with someone who is. It is easy to say I will never if you have the choice of taking the medications the first few times, how about during traumatic events when the med is really the only way to get through the pain? I recently fractured my ankle and I am glad that I did not require an opioid. IT CAN be addicting, and the rewiring of the brain is not a choice.
I doubt willpower alone is sufficient. It has to be will power backed by other reasons, a job, loved ones, religion etc..
My prayers are with you guys who have the misfortune of going through this. But it is a lesson for you and for us. Hopefully we can all appreciate that.
AMEN. I was getting super upset and trying to find the positives in this thread, then I found your post. That day before that judge is the only judgement that will and should ever truly matter.
Yes, the OP was just like you. Before her addiction, before the statistics got stacked in favor of addiction (remember learning those statistics in nursing school that taught us that there are external events that make people more prone to developing an addiction?), before she diverted...she was like you. Yes she made poor choices, I did too. So yes, I was not anything like you in my addiction. I was not anything like myself. I was probably something less than human at that point. Saying she was never anything like you is saying she was doomed, cursed, something always less than. She was just like you, and now that she's clean (hoping OP is clean :)) she is just like you again, and so am I.
Thank you for sharing this. I've always thought "craving" was a stupid word to use for drug cravings. It's really more like hunger or starvation, I would imagine. Craving is wanting a brownie. Hunger is *needing* that substance to function.
This is such a difficult topic for all of us at some level. We have dealt with addiction ourselves or dealt with someone close to us in the midst of addiction. I have a father that deals with addiction issues. I lost my mother when I was 20 to a drunk driver while she was walking home from work. I learned about addiction through these circumstances and while in school. In fact the night before my first day as a nurse I had a lady call me and tell me "Your dad needs some help. He is trying to withdrawal from drinking and it's been about 8 hours." I proceeded to go to downtown Dallas and pick him up, take him to parkland, and sit and wait for him to either start seizing or lose his mind. Luckily, he got real confused fast, so they admitted him. He was there for 2 weeks. Didn't know where he was or who I was. The doctor told me he had Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. I remember learning that in school because of his drinking. I was prepared for the worst. Watching him tremor while walking and trying to eat was devastating. He slowly recovered and gained I think all memory and function.
So..... I figured I was the poster boy for being anti-addiction! There was noooo way that I would fall in that trap, or allow myself to become victimized enough to succumb to addiction. I knew genetics weren't in my favor. I had too many in my family deal with addiction issues. While in school, I started developing panic attacks. That slowly lead to an extensive form of agoraphobia. Also, the depression that came with feeling so much of your life is destroyed, or taking away, because of my anxiety disorder.
I worked, and not much else. I did hang out with my friends. And I learned that alcohol kind of blocked me having to deal with my issues. And that double edged sword slowly turned on me. I too became addicted. I have somewhat gotten that in control of my life. But like a lot of other people with addiction, I learned what cross-addiction was after having my ACL replaced. Like others have said, "we don't become the monster that we are overnight". It slowly develops and the addiction takes over. I would NEVER CHOOSE to steal narcotics from work, or break in my mothers house for her pain meds. Or steal the pain patch off of my slowly dying grandmother. But, here I sit. With a lot of guilt, shame, disgust, loneliness, despair, and fear. Of course, the things we choose to fill that "hole" with sometimes become much worse than what we ever dealt with in the first place.
I really have learned a lot about addiction over these past several years. It so easy to run and hide from it. Or not want to deal with it and have to think about it. In the big book, it says "fear sobered me for a bit. Than came that insidious insanity of that first drink".
I know today that I must practice humility in my recovery. And not arrogance. And I know I can't do this on my own. My God is bigger than all this. It's human nature to be in the driver seat. But, I must remember, when I'm in the driver seat, God can't be in control. It's so simple, but not easy. God bless all of you.
Specializes in Psych, Addictions, SOL (Student of Life).
None, not one, of us know the future....but I concur with iam in trouble, no I would not make a decision In the future to incorporate drugs alcohol or whatever into my life. I have worked the steps and traditions in another program, and it has saved my life, made me a better rounded person and I am forever grateful for my hardships because it has made me who I am today. Please know what other people think about us is none of our business and it's ok.
Best wishes!
I for one am not disturbed by those who just don't get it. Either because they are a Normie who just doesn't get it. OR because they were witness to the destruction addiction and alcoholism breed in families and chilhoods . My recovery is mine - I don't do it to prove anything to anyone. I love the life I get to live today versus the life I was living ten years ago. Imintrouble has the right to his/her thoughts or opinions. When I do speak about my disease process I do try to put the human face on it.
Specializes in ER, ICU/CCU, Open Heart OR Recovery, Etc.
I never thought I'd become an addict either, but I did. I never thought I'd do a lot of things, but I did. Some take benzodiazepines and don't become addicted. I did.
I don't recall waking up one day and deciding I was going to become an addict. It was a slow decline punctuated by a need to be able to sleep and escalated to a need to escape what I felt.
For me, I'm grateful to have had the experiences, because it has made me much more compassionate. I have learned the meaning of self respect. I know more about myself than I ever have, and for the most part I actually like what I see.
It's very simple for me regarding addiction: Some people do become addicted, some do not. Statistics show probabilities and there are factors that influence, but there are those that defy the numbers. I make note of this information, but the most important piece of knowledge that I have is the knowledge that I AM AN ADDICT.
I totally agree with the main poster. Never thought I would ever have done the things I did until I was gripped by depression. I just wanted to add that during my journey into recovery and since....I have been judged the harshest by my fellow nurses. Getting a job took one long year and its not because I was under qualified. I was rejected again and again after disclosing my involvement in P.N.A.P. It stuns me that we as nurses take care of drug addicts and alcoholics and don't blink twice but when you are in the position of knowing one, hiring one etc. oh how that caring nursing attitude goes out the window. The only nurses who truly treated me like an equal were those in rehab. Nurses are not invincible, we are human beings prone to the pitfalls of addiction like everyone else. Having addiction is not a flaw. Don't treat me as if I am a bad nurse because I am an addict. To be honest these experiences have made me really ponder my career in nursing....
Specializes in ER, ICU/CCU, Open Heart OR Recovery, Etc.
Which is unfortunate. I too have looked at some nurses askance at the divisiveness. We should be looking at inclusiveness, not shunning, of those in recovery.
michirn
9 Posts
That's oversimplified but yes, indulging frequently in a high fat, fast food diet will likely lead to heart disease. Frequent use of narcotics will likely, eventually, lead to an addiction to those narcotics. When the CDC defines addiction as a disease its not not without scientific backing. I have a hard time accepting that its not all willpower and personal, poor choices as well.