Drug addicted nurses

Nurses Recovery

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I am a nursing student and in one of my classes we have recently talked about nurses and substance abuse. I think that it is hard for me to wrap my brain around the issue. My questions are:

1. what do you do as a fellow nurse and friend of someone who is involved in substance abuse...especially in the workplace?

2. is this really prevelent and have any of you been put in this position?

Thanks!!

not my opinion but some would think that a once impaired nurse would be too risky in dispensing narcs to pts, in that they (mgmt?) are trying to protect the pt population to ensure that none of their pain meds are taken.

lesllie

That might be a valid consideration but what about the uncaught ones, who continue to steal until they are caught or seek help? That is a rather illogical position for some to take.

Grannynurse:balloons:

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That might be a valid consideration but what about the uncaught ones, who continue to steal until they are caught or seek help? That is a rather illogical position for some to take.

Grannynurse:balloons:

i agree.

and i'm the first to admit that i would be hesitant about any (recovered) addict returning to work unless they were consistently drug-tested and closely monitored.

leslie

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not my opinion but some would think that a once impaired nurse would be too risky in dispensing narcs to pts, in that they (mgmt?) are trying to protect the pt population to ensure that none of their pain meds are taken.

lesllie

I agree that a nurse who has more than one relapse should not be allowed back in patient care, at least not without super close monitoring, but those of us who have a great support system in recovery do well. I understand being nervous and untrusting when an addict first returns to work, but when an addict is trying to regain his/her spot in the workforce, he/she should be able to earn that trust back. It's a shame when years later the fingers are still pointing and the whispers still happen.

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It's a shame when years later the fingers are still pointing and the whispers still happen.

i totally agree w/you tazzi. when someone has been clean for yrs, there is absolutely no reason for distrust or malicious gossip. as i'm sure you've learned, it takes all kinds- and God knows the mentalities that come along w/the territory.

leslie

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i totally agree w/you tazzi. when someone has been clean for yrs, there is absolutely no reason for distrust or malicious gossip. as i'm sure you've learned, it takes all kinds- and God knows the mentalities that come along w/the territory.

leslie

The problem is that too many nurses still distrust, point fingers and gossip maliciously. Just read some of the comments here. I will not work with one. I will not allow one to take care of me, someone I love. They shouldn't ever be allowed back in our field, to name a few. And I am not surprised, too many of them hang on to the old school.

Grannynurse

And no, I am not an addict, haven't ever been one and am sick of some of the half baked ideas presented by some.

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The problem is that too many nurses still distrust, point fingers and gossip maliciously. Just read some of the comments here. I will not work with one. I will not allow one to take care of me, someone I love. They shouldn't ever be allowed back in our field, to name a few. And I am not surprised, too many of them hang on to the old school.

Grannynurse

And no, I am not an addict, haven't ever been one and am sick of some of the half baked ideas presented by some.

i can understand the reluctance, the judgements, the outright castration of a newly recovered addict returning to the workplace. as i said, i'd be reluctant myself. but after yrs of being clean? there is no excuse in the world to doubt their comptency, their dedication to staying clean and their commitment to their pts.

i've reported nurses who have diverted and take a firm stance on those who take from the patients. and trust has to be earned. i just cannot fathom the concept of those who still continue to judge, yrs after the fact.

leslie

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How sad,Gianni,for you. You reached out to a community of your peers(the caring profession) What you got from most of them is who is right about their point of view. I feel you are reaching out and to be scared that you can't trust anyone ,even on an anonymous post board is very sad.It reaches farther than that,you probably feel that you can't trust anyone..so where will you get real help. I think you will do it..you sound intelligent and caring..You Did Reach Out Afterall..There is no hiding..big clue toall those RIGHT people. I would someone be honest and real in life than have to be right. good luck gianni

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The problem is that too many nurses still distrust, point fingers and gossip maliciously. Just read some of the comments here. I will not work with one. I will not allow one to take care of me, someone I love. They shouldn't ever be allowed back in our field, to name a few. And I am not surprised, too many of them hang on to the old school.

Grannynurse

And no, I am not an addict, haven't ever been one and am sick of some of the half baked ideas presented by some.

Umm....I'm confused....you wouldn't want to work with a formerly impaired nurse? Or the ones that point the fingers?

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Specializes in NICU/Neonatal transport.

She was giving examples of comments made by others :)

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For those of you who say they have zero tolerance for recovering nurses I have this to say. Be careful. I was once just like you with the same closed minded attitude. And then a tragedy happened to me and I found myself not being able to cope. In part because of my closed minded holier than Thou attitude. Funny how life occasionally humbles us!

As I've shared on this board before, I am a recovering addict. When I returned to work, it was with a narcotic key restriction. Other nurses had to pass my narcs for me so it was useless to try and maintain any form of anonymity. This was a good thing. I was forced to be totally open and honest concerning my addiction. I found the nurses that I worked with to be amazingly supportive. They even went so far as to offer me support and help me to deal with situations I found to be uncomfortable. Even after all these years I'm still open about my addiction at work. I no longer have a key restriction and I could be discreet about my past if I chose to, but I find that my past experiences have helped me to be a better nurse and my honesty has helped those around me to seek help for their own afflictions....whether it be drug addiction or spousal abuse or whatever. I have not been judged harshly by my peers or my subordinates. They seem to be comfortable confiding in me. It has made me a better manager. To have come out the other side a better person is a message I try to spread to those that are dealing with conflict...whatever that conflict may be. We ALL have something in our past. ALL of us. It is how we deal with it and learn from it that makes us who we are.

If we decided that anyone with a past could never be a nurse again, we wouldn't have very many nurses.

I would also suggest that it is not the nurses who are in peer assistance programs that one needs to be wary of, but rather the ones who are still using and hiding their addictions. By the time a nurse shows signs and symptoms of drug addiction or impairment at work, he/she has probably already been using and/or diverting for some time. Diverting is not difficult. It happens every day on any given floor in any facilityl. I was never caught. My peers never reported me and my nurse manager had no clue....yet I was shooting up 200mgs of morhine every 6 hours!!!

Drug addiction among nurses is a reality. It is something that all nurses need to learn about. It could happen to anyone. Nurses can and do recover with the right support. Some of us use this to learn and grow and to be better nurses...better people.

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Umm....I'm confused....you wouldn't want to work with a formerly impaired nurse? Or the ones that point the fingers?

The ones pointing their fingers. I had a co-worker who was reported to the Florida BON for something that I would not consider diverting. She worked part time in a clinic. Part of her responsibility was to fill out prescriptions. Owing to the number of patients, the pad was presigned. To make a long story much shorter, the pad was stolen, the person tried to have one filled, was caught. To save herself, she claimed my friend had pre-sign the pad and given it to her. After a police investigation, her statement was held to be untrue. The BON decided she had to have been involved and using the drugs herself. She was given the option, give up her license or to into the impaired nurses treatment program. Which would you have done? And many of her peers didn't belive her. And many held it against her. She finally left.

Do not take this the wrong way. I fully support peer assistance programs for health professionals. When this happen, Florida had had a program for only 18 months. They were being over zealous, I believe but a good nurse was labeled for a foolish mistake. And the person who stole the pad, used my friend's name on the script.

Grannynurse:balloons:

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"I am an addict". I have only been able to say these three little words for the past few months, despite the fact that I have been using narcotics since 2003, either for my very real physical pain from ulcerative colitis, or as a release from stress into a world of peace. I have been clean now for over a year, after two times in rehab....once in Spring of 2003, and for a relapse in Winter, 2005. My license has been suspended for 3 years, as of April, 2003. I am a single mother of 3, I have not been able to find a job that will support my family, and I am about to lose our home. I am being sued by a friend of over 20 years (we met during nursing school) because she lent me money after the kids and I fled from my gun-waving, bi-polar husband in 1999. She did not know that I had a drug problem until last year, when I called her after my relapse in tears. She was absolutely unsympathetic and unwilling to wait until I either get back on my feet by finding a good paying, non-nursing job, or when my license is (hopefully) reinstated. A little background on my friend, the only reason I even mention it is because I want to stress that she very easily could wait....

My friend is 48 years old, has three college degrees, and has never lived on her own-she went from her Mom caring from her, to marriage #1-bact to Mom-onto marriage #2, to a wealthy doctor. She and her husband do not have children. She spends 3 months a year with a college group in Tuscany, Italy, painting and enjoying a Holiday in the Italian country side(her husband is home, working 60-80 hours a week as a surgeon in an inner city hospital) She also has a major marijuana habit of about $300.00/month, which is her husband is ok with. I have helped her out in many ways in the past; (she hated nursing & would often come to me for help on assignments, she was suicidal after her first marriage failed, and much more..)

I lost a second friend,a former co-worker in the ER-we both have 10 year old daughters, and often got together, we used to go to the gym together, babysat one another's child, helped each other in the ER (with me doing much of the helping-my friend was very timid about learning any new procedure, such as accessing a porta-cath, or setting up chest tubes, etc)

Yet I remember how sometimes we would walk to the parking lot together after the shift was over, and she would confide in me how one of her patients refused a percocet, and now my friend was going home to a glass of wine & a percocet, because she was having marital problems and the percocet would help her to relapse..)

I guess my question is: why are people afraid of me? By the way, I turned myself in to my nurse manager when I realized I had an addiction problem (after an episode of toxic megacolon-I receved 2 mg Dilaudid q 2-4 hours for severe abdominal pain, got transfused, was going to be sent to a big city hospital for a colectomy, etc.) Although I have had UC since the age of 11, I have never had an addiction problem until now. I went back to work, in the ER, way before I was physically ready, because my short-term disability ran out, and I need the $ to support my family...when I ran out of the 150 prescribed percocets, I believe I must have gone through narcotic withdrawl but interpreted the pain as UC pain...I began to steal the percocets..after 2 months of this, I did report myself to my nurse manager, and then I went to rehab, both to get detoxed physically, and to figure out what happened...

This is turning into rambling, and I'll stop here. Does any one else there have any idea what happened to my friendships-either from the point of view where you were the person who lost your friends, OR you decided to end a long term friendship with a friend because that person had/has a drug problem.

I would appreciate any insight on this! francesca

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