Does anyone else feel violated?

[HunnieBadger]

Per the rules of my contract I have to attend AA or NA at least 3 times weekly for the duration of my contract. I am struggling with the meetings, let alone the others in attendance there. I am not saying I'm better than anyone let me make that clear! I have no desire for the meetings, do not find them helpful, and a waste of my time. I feel like a fraud among them. I find myself wanting to use sitting around all these dry drunks if you will. The fact I'm being forced to do so or lose my licensure is not fair at all. I have found intensive outpatient therapy helpful and think it's a far better fit for learning and re-learning coping skills. But to be sentenced to a meeting that I can't find anything good in is killing me and I feel like my first amendment rights have been violated. Not to mention there are NO proven, evidence based studies that show AA works. Yea they say it, but if you look at their drop out rates they don't correlate! I know I can get an attorney...this is more food for thought, because I don't want to drink the cults kool-aid...

[jwmwinter, ASN, RN]

At first, I felt violated, but in time, I learned the meetings helped a lot. Perhaps you haven't found the right meeting for you. There are nurse meetings so that you will feel more comfortable around your piers. To locate these meetings, you can go onto the state board of nursing website, navigate to the recovery program's website and there should be a list of nurse meetings located throughout the state. Also, based on your post, I gather your recovering from alcohol. Have you tried NA meetings. I attend both NA & AA meetings and have found that NA meetings are more interactive and the members are very inviting regardless of what your recovering from...drugs or alcohol.

[HunnieBadger]

I haven't been able to find a nursing group r/t AA/NA yet. I was given some info on Caduceus groups but they are all a bit of a drive for me to attend. I am doing okay as far as going to AA, I'm willing to play the game so to speak. My drug of choice was not alcohol but opiates. NA was too "hard core" for me, maybe it's just the area I'm in. No matter what I'm dedicated to getting my life back and willing to do whatever needs to be done!

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I haven't been able to find a nursing group r/t AA/NA yet. I was given some info on Caduceus groups but they are all a bit of a drive for me to attend. I am doing okay as far as going to AA, I'm willing to play the game so to speak. My drug of choice was not alcohol but opiates. NA was too "hard core" for me, maybe it's just the area I'm in. No matter what I'm dedicated to getting my life back and willing to do whatever needs to be done!

It doesn't sound like it from the tone of this post.

I've followed a number of your posts across the forums because I'm a recovering alcoholic with 21 years of hard-won sobriety under my belt, I'm interested in people with problems similar to mine, and I like to help them with their substance abuse issues when I can. But I fear that the anger you feel about your alleged victimization by the monitoring agency is considerably stronger than your commitment to staying clean, and things will NOT go well for you if you continue in this mindset.

It is not the job of the people who hold your career in their hands to care if you're inconvenienced by meetings, or perhaps treated as less than an upstanding citizen at the lab. It is not the job of AA/NA to conform their way of doing things to your exact problem, nor put together a 'nurses-only' group for you because you apparently don't believe you can benefit from being around other substance abusers from all walks of life. None of that matters. What does matter is that you stop putting up roadblocks to compliance with your program and making excuses for the way you got into this mess in the first place.

Sorry, but co-signing the BS by sugar-coating the message won't help you, and believe me, this is far from the last reality check you're going to get in the coming months and years. Having a substance-abuse problem wasn't your choice, any more than alcohol dependence was mine; but if you want to reclaim your life, your license, and your privacy, you have to own your behaviors and take this seriously.

[HunnieBadger]

Apparently you're missing a large sum of my life's story. I do own my addiction, I have never assumed that I am better than anyone or that I cannot learn from them, or even that I want a nurses only meeting to hide from something. I do believe that things should be conducive to a mind set so that learning is optimal. Perhaps you feel that I need it sugar coated, and maybe I should find a local krispy kreme for that? I wasn't mal treated at a lab, it was by a provider, a doctor-who was of no help and letting her personal beliefs get in the way of my health care. I suppose you know me just based on my posts, and feel you need to step up and be the stereo typical nurse and eat her young. 20 years or 2 days, it's all an accomplishment of sorts-I may not have your sober time, but I have my sober time. Anger is part of my process, perhaps you don't allow that-I must've missed that chapter in your rule book to recovery. Perhaps you don't see how it's transforming into something greater for me as well. Not that you care or I need to justify, but it's made me want to be more understanding of addiction and be supportive for those in need (not that I'm asking you to grasp that concept here). Thanks for your faith in my relapse, and your support as a fellow nurse (insert sarcasm here).

[TXRN2]

HunnieBadger: i understand both sides of this issue. i totally get that many parts of the process of addiction/getting caught/the recovery process are frustrating & maddening. for me, family night was the hardest because it was very difficult to hear my DH talk about what my addiction had done to him- but i had to own up to it & own it. i also understand Viva's concern: anger, resentment are counterproductive to recovery- they can lead to relapse- this is a proven fact. that is where his concern comes from.

[Geslina, BSN, RN]

I have heard this as well, that going to meetings and sitting around listening to everyone ***** and complain and talk about using makes one want to go out and use as well!! As another poster mentioned, there ARE nurses meetings...not sure how you would find one - perhaps start with calling the national numbers for AA or NA and ask? What you need is a group that is focused on recovery, not on the past...and ideally, a nurses group would be the most helpful, as you would be with kindred souls.

I know what you are saying, though, I am not a firm believer in the AA philosophy, which I think takes away your power and puts it in the hands of "God" or whomever. Why is it such an unbelievable concept that WE cannot control our own lives and addictions. Another thing that bugs me is that I work with nurses who come in hungover 2 or 3 days a week - and that is not usually an issue, because alcohol is legal. Or the idea that most institutions have that if you are an addict, you are also a thief, and will steal drugs from work. Not all addicts steal! Oh well, don't get me started.

Good luck to you. Hope you can find a nurses group.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

Wow is all I can say from reading this thread. 'Violated'? Really? As another poster stated, you are fortunate to be in a program and not in a jail.

[mclennan, BSN, RN]

You know what's also counterproductive to recovery? Sober people pulling rank, condemning one other's place in the process, and condescendingly one-upping and judging another sober person - rather than being supportive at a time when they might be the most fragile. SHAME ON YOU, VivaLasViejas. You don't know ANYTHING about the nurse you've decided to take upon yourself to lecture, for no apparent reason other than that she has been honest in expressing her feelings of anger and frustration. Obviously something about where SHE is in HER process triggers some equal anger and resentment in YOU.

Nurses in recovery are individuals, and those who are making an effort to repair their mistakes and do so with honesty - need support, love and understanding. Not your empty soapbox of resentful, tough-love cliches pulled straight out of the AA playbook. Your holier than thou attitude and moral one-upsmanship represent exactly why this thread got started. What you said to her perfectly represents many of the problems a lot of people have with conventional recovery philosophies. You sound like SUCH an AA sheep, evidenced by your determination to degrade her anger as a destructive force in her recovery. Sounds to me more like jealousy on your part that she is rejecting the "powerlessness to God" cult crap and embracing her own path. ANGER IS AN ENERGY!

Recovery is difficult and embarrassing enough. Reflect on what it is about her process, her honesty and rage that triggers YOUR equally angry, destructive, boot-camp moralizing. Respect where she is in her process and offer encouragement. If you can't bring yourself to consider that, then at least consider keeping your mouth shut altogether. Good grief.

[mclennan, BSN, RN]

HunnieBadger: don't engage the idiots. Walk calmly through the hoops and do this YOUR way. Anger can be positive! The recovery machine is a for-profit industry with its only backbone being a creepy religious cult of powerless sheep. Take that rage and use it to rise above the machine. Play a good defense, block and cover the idiots, as you run for the goal. Don't let anyone pull rank and play moral boot-camp with you. No one in recovery is superior to anyone else. Find your allies and keep them close. Deflect the idiots!

Keep fighting and kicking to stay who you are. The recovery machine tries to take that away from you. Don't let it. Stay sober and stay angry if that's what works for YOU, for now, for the future, forever if necessary!

[catmom1, BSN, RN]

"I fear that the anger you feel about your alleged victimization by the monitoring agency is considerably stronger than your commitment to staying clean, and things will NOT go well for you if you continue in this mindset."

I was not thrilled with all requirements of my monitoring program but sucked it up & got my license clean again.

I understand Viva's concern about the OP but think that it is a bit of a leap to go from "feeling violated" to not being committed to recovery. Just because a person is an addict and transgresses, it is not fair that they lose all human consideration. Criminals have more legally protected human rights than nurses who are being punished in an administrative law venue.

That being said, no one said that life was fair and anyone who diverts has caused his or her own consequences. I see no need to celebrate that addicted nurses are treated like human trash, however.

Catmom :paw:

[morte, LPN, LVN]

If, in an attempt to help, more problems are made, what do we do? If you "force" a person to attend a religious program when it is against their belief system, how is this a good thing? The whole idea is to return them to professional function, correct? what other way can we do this?

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

.......