Nursing exposes us to many types of people. We can become jaded quickly against patient types we don’t like. We must remember the unlovely are deserving of our compassionate care. The next time you take care of a drug addict/alcoholic, remember that someone somewhere loves them just like you love your family.
I recently moved to my dream location, one with layers of mountains, breathtaking sunrises, and gorgeous lakes and rivers. It is the perfect lifestyle for me and my family. I left a hospital that I had worked in for 23 years. I left best friends and co-workers that are precious family to me. The medium sized hospital served mostly insured patients. Many were elderly, many were extremely sick, on occasion there would be the drug seeker.
Contrasting that with the patients I see a lot of now is amazing. The hospital I work at is in a low income area Many patients are drug or alcohol addicts with little or no insurance. As a result, they often come in with advanced disease processes and habits that are difficult to treat. Forming opinions on these patients is easy, choosing not to is difficult.
The young pretty girl lying on the stretcher had bright blue eyes. I smile at her as I begin to hook her up to the heart monitor in preparation for an EGD. Looking closer I notice the dark circles under her eyes, scattered scabs, and the slightness of her frame.
"What kind of stomach problems have you been having?" I ask.
"I have pain right here," she points to her right lower abdomen.
I can't help but see the black, broken teeth common with methadone addicts. My heart hurts to see someone so young and pretty already showing such devastating signs of drugs. We all know and love someone that has addiction problems. I personally don't understand the quicksand of drugs and alcohol; I am afraid of drugs and am not a big drinker. Over the years I have learned to be grateful for my fear, it has kept me from some dangerous situations.
Often as nurses we become jaded concerning certain types of patients. It gets old pacifying the whiney 30 year old man who thinks just because he's in the hospital that his every whim needs to granted. Or the drug seeker who asks for pain medication as soon as they wake up from anesthesia. It makes me weary seeing the IV pole being walked out to the parking lot by a patient in a hospital gown even in winter just to smoke a cigarette.
One day a young man in his mid-twenties was rolled into my room for an EGD. Anesthesia began asking the token questions about drug use. He stated that he had used drugs in the past, but was drug free now and had been for three years. As I put the oxygen tubing in his nose and around his ears, I looked into his sweet face.
He looks like my son. Suddenly I can't breathe. I move over to the counter with my back to the room. Trying to muffle the uncontrollable wave of emotion that washed over me when I saw my son in the young man. The only problem was that my son is still in the tight grip of drugs. At the same time I was proud of my patient, my heart reminds me that it is still broken.
Sometimes when we push pain down deep, it surfaces when least expected. I love my son with all my heart. I want the best for him. At the same time, I can't be around him until he gets sober. That is what is best for me and my family.
I try to remember when I see patients come in that are addicts that they may have someone praying for them. Someone that loves them more than life itself, someone that hates the habit. They are people, people who have made bad decisions. Whether it is because of traumatic events in their life, terrible home life, or peer pressure; one bad decision led to another. I treat them the same, even if inside I, in my humanness judge them. I set aside my feelings, recognizing that it is not my job to change their lifestyle but to give compassionate nursing care.
Talking about my son is not easy. In fact, I am not sure even now it's the right thing to write about. Putting it in black and white makes it very public, leaving me vulnerable. I share this to say that as a nurse, I am not to judge people. I do not know their circumstances or the reasons behind their pain. I have to put aside my prejudice and treat them with respect deserving of all human beings.
Remember... the next time you are confronted with a patient that goes against your convictions, they have someone who loves them and wants them to get better.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
In our community health clinic, we see a LOOOT of addiction, as well as a LOOOOT of mental illness. As one of the oldest community health clinics in the country, I am able to look through a person's chart back 20 years. And I see a lot of these women in their 20s and 30s, who were going to this clinic as a young child. I see them be raised by addicts, physically abused, sexually abused by family members, bounced around from foster home to foster home. And then they come to us as women in pregnancy, and it's no wonder they have mental illness, 4 children by 4 different men, and/or addiction to meth or alcohol or opiates. They had a ****** childhood full of abuse, neglect and rejection from the people who should be putting them above all others. Sometimes I feel incredibly powerless.
Specializes in Peds/outpatient FP,derm,allergy/private duty.
I don't think most people treat alcoholics as helpless victims, and I don't think the majority view themselves as helpless victims. If they wind up in a rehab/12-Step program the entire process is about the addict/alcoholic program "it works, if you work it". Nobody I know would choose to flush their job and family down the toilet if it was simply a matter of choice.
Saying addiction/alcoholism is a "disease" doesn't just mean a genetic component. Treatment almost always sees the family as a "make or break" and those significant others who encourage the addict to believe themselves to be a victim will most likely be advised that they are making their loved one's road to recovery much more difficult.
That could be said about a multitude of diseases, no?
And most of the drug addicts/alcoholics I have encountered have survived the most horrendous circumstances NOT of their own doing.
Again, my struggle--If circumstances are gonna screw up one's children and send them out into the world when becoming an adult to fend for themselves, some will end up invested in the disease of addiction. Or any other of the multitude of addictive processes.
We can treat diabetics with a sugar issue, obesity with a food issue, mental illness with a compliance with meds issue, hypertension with a salt issue as bad behavior helpless victims...why is it just reserved for addicted people? Is that also a "free pass"?!
If I understand you correctly you are asking if we treat others with a free pass ? I believe that we often do. The diabetic thats sucking down milkshakes or the hypertensive eating his weight in salt. I have read threads on AN voicing the frustration that nurses feel in these situations about how we shouldn't judge the patient because it isn't their fault.
I know that every situation is different but personal responsibility seems to be going the way of the dinosaur. At what point is a person responsible for their actions? Do you really believe that anyone thinks that their first hit of meth or heroin is a good idea or do they think they are special and won't become an addict like everyone else? Or are they saying I just don't care I want to feel good now ?Sometimes saying no from the beginning is the choice that you get. Making a bad decision and walking into addiction doesn't absolve you after you get hooked.
In other words, we are not predestined beings. We have free will. We have moral choices to make in life, we are not animals.
Society as a whole has lost its bearings in some ways. We've given its weaker members somewhat of a free pass, out of compassion mind you. In doing this, the burden on the stronger of us is becoming too much to bear. We are growing weary and stressed.
In other words, we are not predestined beings. We have free will. We have moral choices to make in life, we are not animals.
Society as a whole has lost its bearings in some ways. We've given its weaker members somewhat of a free pass, out of compassion mind you. In doing this, the burden on the stronger of us is becoming too much to bear.
Emergent, I don't know you at all so I don't know if your early/formative years have been easy, hard or something in between. However I tend to think that the weak vs. strong comparison is an oversimplification of a complex multifaceted problem. How does one define weak and strong anyway?
Is someone hooked on meth or heroin automatically considered weak and someone who's never touched either drug strong? Or is only someone who's encountered adversity in life and prevailed considered strong?
I was raised by two loving, highly educated and supportive parents. I was never even around, exposed to or offered illegal drugs as a child and adolescent. I was mostly happy and always secure in the knowledge that I was loved and that someone had my back. Because of this it doesn't come as a huge surprise that I don't have problems with illegal drugs and that I'm able to hold down a job and generally do well for myself. Does this mean that I'm stronger or a more moral person than someone addicted to drugs? I don't think so.
I remember a young prostitute addicted to heroin that I met several times in my former job. She certainly didn't do much to contribute to society although I guess she did in a sense. Her repeated minor crimes kept a few police officers and prosecutors busy and helped justify our paychecks. No crime, no need for law enforcement :)
She had lost her mother to illness at a very young age and her alcoholic father started selling her to his drinking buddies in exchange for a bottle of cheap booze when she was about seven years old. The buddies weren't very gifted in the romance department and would slap, hit, bite, spit at and call the girl a filthy ***** during the assaults. This went one for about two years before the girl was removed from her father's custody and placed in foster care. By all accounts the time in foster care seems to have been slightly better, but not by much.
Does anyone really wonder why this girl turned to drugs in her early teens? I can easily understand the need to numb oneself and to escape, if only momentarily, the miserable existence that is one's life.
So, am I really strong because I'm not addicted to heroin like her? Or am I simply fortunate that I didn't have a parent hell-bent on breaking my spirit and obliterating every ounce of my self-worth and sense of security and having no other adult who stepped in and protected me? Am I better than her? Or is she the strong one, for even being alive?
Every drug addict has a different story. Not all individuals addicted to drugs have had bad parents or childhoods. Some children who've had a really tough starts in life still manage to have productive, drug and crime free lives and some children have had parents who did everything right but circumstances or bad choices or vulnerabilities might still have led to addiction. But it is my experience that a large percentage of addicts do come from rather tragic circumstances.
You mention that being strong is a heavy burden to bear. I understand that meeting and caring (as a nurse) for individuals who are addicted to drugs is a challenge and can be very emotionally draining. I get it. But in all honesty, I''l choose my own life anytime over theirs.
Emergent, I don't know you at all so I don't know if your early/formative years have been easy, hard or something in between. However I tend to think that the weak vs. strong comparison is an oversimplification of a complex multifaceted problem. How does one define weak and strong anyway?
Is someone hooked on meth or heroin automatically considered weak and someone who's never touched either drug strong? Or is only someone who's encountered adversity in life and prevailed considered strong?
I was raised by two loving, highly educated and supportive parents. I was never even around, exposed to or offered illegal drugs as a child and adolescent. I was mostly happy and always secure in the knowledge that I was loved and that someone had my back. Because of this it doesn't come as a huge surprise that I don't have problems with illegal drugs and that I'm able to hold down a job and generally do well for myself. Does this mean that I'm stronger or a more moral person than someone addicted to drugs? I don't think so.
I remember a young prostitute addicted to heroin that I met several times in my former job. She certainly didn't do much to contribute to society although I guess she did in a sense. Her repeated minor crimes kept a few police officers and prosecutors busy and helped justify our paychecks. No crime, no need for law enforcement :)
She had lost her mother to illness at a very young age and her alcoholic father started selling her to his drinking buddies in exchange for a bottle of cheap booze when she was about seven years old. The buddies weren't very gifted in the romance department and would slap, hit, bite, spit at and call the girl a filthy ***** during the assaults. This went one for about two years before the girl was removed from her father's custody and placed in foster care. By all accounts the time in foster care seems to have been slightly better, but not by much.
Does anyone really wonder why this girl turned to drugs in her early teens? I can easily understand the need to numb oneself and to escape, if only momentarily, the miserable existence that is one's life.
So, am I really strong because I'm not addicted to heroin like her? Or am I simply fortunate that I didn't have a parent hell-bent on breaking my spirit and obliterating every ounce of my self-worth and sense of security and having no other adult who stepped in and protected me? Am I better than her? Or is she the strong one, for even being alive?
Every drug addict has a different story. Not all individuals addicted to drugs have had bad parents or childhoods. Some children who've had a really tough starts in life still manage to have productive, drug and crime free lives and some children have had parents who did everything right but circumstances or bad choices or vulnerabilities might still have led to addiction. But it is my experience that a large percentage of addicts do come from rather tragic circumstances.
You mention that being strong is a heavy burden to bear. I understand that meeting and caring (as a nurse) for individuals who are addicted to drugs is a challenge and can be very emotionally draining. I get it. But in all honesty, I''l choose my own life anytime over theirs.
Why is it that people always like to focus on the extreme and treat it like the norm? The little girl with the dead mother whose alcoholic father whored her out. Is that really representative of the average person who does drugs? You have spoiled brats who like to push the envelope, bored housewives looking to escape etc... let's be real. Let's talk about the rule and not the exception. Its like the 350 pound person who is in perfect health and only eats salads.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
Why is it that people always like to focus on the extreme and treat it like the norm? The little girl with the dead mother whose alcoholic father whored her out. Is that really representative of the average person who does drugs? You have spoiled brats who like to push the envelope, bored housewives looking to escape etc... let's be real. Let's talk about the rule and not the exception. Its like the 350 pound person who is in perfect health and only eats salads.
Where I work, it *is* the rule, not the exception.
Let's talk about the rule and not the exception. Its like the 350 pound person who is in perfect health and only eats salads.
I really wish that neglected and abused children were as rare as you seem to think that they are. I think that this girl's story although extreme, isn't as uncommon as you think.
You have spoiled brats who like to push the envelope, bored housewives looking to escape etc... let's be real.
I am real. I have a previous degree in Criminology. I've met hundreds or rather thousands of addicts. Very few of them fit your "bored housewife" mold. People who are mostly fine, albeit bored, don't normally turn to heroin or meth. Most addicts I've met came from poor backgrounds and many had parents who were addicts themselves. I'm not absolving people of responsibility for their own actions and lives but I can't in good conscience ignore the factors and circumstances that influenced the persons life.
Isn't putting all the blame on the addict while ignoring their life situation and what led to the addicition, simply a way of emotionally distancing yourself from that person and perhaps even consider their value as a human being slightly lower than your own?
I really wish that neglected and abused children were as rare as you seem to think that they are. I think that this girl's story although extreme, isn't as uncommon as you think.
I am real. I have a previous degree in Criminology. I've met hundreds or rather thousands of addicts. Very few of them fit your "bored housewife" mold. People who are mostly fine, albeit bored, don't normally turn to heroin or meth. Most addicts I've met came from poor backgrounds and many had parents who were addicts themselves. I'm not absolving people of responsibility for their own actions and lives but I can't in good conscience ignore the factors and circumstances that influenced the persons life.
Isn't putting all the blame on the addict while ignoring their life situation and what led to the addicition, simply a way of emotionally distancing yourself from that person and perhaps even consider their value as a human being slightly lower than your own?
Actually I think every person born into this world has exactly the same value. I know that abuse is too common. I was referring to the tendency of people to find the worst of the worst story and use that as an example for a situation as if its the norm. Of course every patients situation is different that's why care plans and treatment plans are individualized. My point is that as long as we treat everyone like a helpless victim with no input into their situation they will never get better. Anyone who has ever recovered from addiction will tell you the same thing if they're honest. They didn't get better until they took responsibility for their situation.
klone, MSN, RN
14,857 Posts
In our community health clinic, we see a LOOOT of addiction, as well as a LOOOOT of mental illness. As one of the oldest community health clinics in the country, I am able to look through a person's chart back 20 years. And I see a lot of these women in their 20s and 30s, who were going to this clinic as a young child. I see them be raised by addicts, physically abused, sexually abused by family members, bounced around from foster home to foster home. And then they come to us as women in pregnancy, and it's no wonder they have mental illness, 4 children by 4 different men, and/or addiction to meth or alcohol or opiates. They had a ****** childhood full of abuse, neglect and rejection from the people who should be putting them above all others. Sometimes I feel incredibly powerless.