Isolating, Obsessing, Life on hold

Nurses Recovery

Published

So I'm noticing some things about myself and my life and wondered if any of you are doing these things too.

I've become obsessed where monitoring is concerned, constantly checking my countdown calendar. I take a ridiculous amount of pleasure in deleting the completed "Check Test Status" task on my phone calendar. Sometimes I leave the completed/grayed out tasks on the calendar for several days just so I can go back and delete several at a time. I also take screen shots of Affinity every day when I check in so that later I can look at Photos and reassure myself that I really did check in that day. So I also go through my Photos and delete those screen shots every couple of days, and that somehow gives me great pleasure too.

I can see I have basically put my life on hold until monitoring is over. I have ongoing lists of things I want to do, and places I want to go, but I refuse to try to fit these trips into the restrictions of TPAPN. I don't want to ask permission to go, and I don't want to have to find an AA meeting wherever I go, or pretend that I did and lie about it. Too much stress. Since no one knows about it, (I never told any of my non work friends, family or my kids, only my ex husband knows) I can't go on a trip with a friend without having to explain why I need cell service every single day (for check in), why I might end up needing to find a lab etc. or why I don't ever order wine with dinner. So I just don't go.

I've also isolated myself from most of my old friendships and I'm not really interested in making new ones. I feel like it's this big secret that I have and I guess I don't want anyone to get close, because I'd have to either talk about it or cover it up. Neither one of those things are acceptable to me. A lot of social events include alcohol and I just get annoyed that I have to claim I don't drink anymore. I don't have a problem doing that, I've had enough practice in the last few years! But I just don't want to do it anymore! So I avoid most of the invitations to dinner, drinks, parties, even book clubs etc.

I have 135 days left and I can't stop thinking that I just have to get through this, then life can continue. I have plans to travel for a month overseas when I am finished and also I plan to step back to fewer hours, once I'm out of TPAPN. Because of the financial drain with monitoring I don't feel comfortable doing either of those things until I am officially out. So looking forward to my trip and cutting back on my hours is making me even more anxious to be done!

I know this isn't a healthy way to live, I don't expect to change, I don't need advice about "live for today" or whatever, I just wanted to know if I'm the only one!

There is nothing to do Tiff but get through these three years. I wish I could say something positive about the BS but I simply cannot. For me counting down the milestones have helped. First I got out of rehab which I hated. Then I got to go back to work which I needed desperately. Then I got to go back to the ER after a year and a half in a cubicle. My next milestone I'm looking forward to passing is the cessation of these stupid nurse support group meetings I simply loathe. I also got a DUI and have no intention of drinking and driving again but my final milestone will be having a drink after completing all this BS. Its a little less than 2 years away. This program has been wasted on me. Even if I was a dying alcoholic after being forced into rehab and having to attend the mystical & magical 12 step meetings I'd drink again out of pure spite if nothing else

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I hate AA. Loathe. The God and higher power talk make me I'll. And the sponsor requirement is absurd. I wish I had the money to file a lawsuit but Indiana is such a backward state I'd probably lose. I'm 44 years old....and have no life. I can't imagine living like this for 2 years and 10 months. I won't make it.

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I hate AA. Loathe. The God and higher power talk make me I'll. And the sponsor requirement is absurd. I wish I had the money to file a lawsuit but Indiana is such a backward state I'd probably lose. I'm 44 years old....and have no life. I can't imagine living like this for 2 years and 10 months. I won't make it.

In the AA/NA meetings, I convert "higher power" in my mind to be the collective "group" of AA. Many many people have gone before me, they learned some things, may or may not relate to my situation but I am willing to listen to their thoughts and ideas and consider. So that's what I consider relying on a higher power, the thousands and thousands of AA partipants before me. Not that I buy into all the 12 step stuff, but I'm willing to listen, take what I need and leave the rest.

As far as getting through the meetings required, I found groups that had back to back meetings so I could do 2 in one day. That way I wasn't working 3 days a week and going to a meeting on every single one of my days off. I NEED days where I have nothing scheduled!

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Oh and the sponsor thing. Idk how they can require that, but they do. So my "sponsor" is a friend I know who went through TPAPN years ago, is knowledgeable about the program and the 12 steps, and was willing to let me use her name on my quarterly reports when they ask about my sponsor. I figured if they ever contacted her, which I simply cannot imagine would be considered ok given the Anonymous part of AA!!!!!, but anyway, she has enough knowledge about the steps etc to answer their questions. They've never contacted her though.

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Look, I was worried about my alcohol use before my DUI, I knew I was abusing it but I didn't need it to function. And certainly was drinking before or during work. I can say with a clear conscience now that I don't NEED to drink. I don't crave it. But I do miss it in general. Sipping a nice wine or vodka or tequila. And ya know, I will do it again once this is over, whether I stick it out or give up nursing.

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But I do miss it in general. Sipping a nice wine or vodka or tequila. And ya know, I will do it again once this is over, whether I stick it out or give up nursing.

Oh yeah, I miss it too!! I like wine with dinner or after dinner. I like a cold beer in the summer. I love brandy in my hot tea in the winter, with lemon and honey. :)

I have every intention of drinking again when this is over. I even have a plan in my mind, to go to a Specs or other huge liquor store, and buy a little of everything I've missed, plus a few things I just want to try! Like I had some sipping sherry at a bed and breakfast several years ago...gonna buy me some of that, even though I've NEVER bought sherry before! And wine is in my list. And beer...not sure. I like beer ok but I'm trying to go low carb so I'm thinking I'll try vodka or bourbon, or both! This program and requirement for me to abstain from alcohol will actually probably have the exact opposite effect, I'm gonna drink more when I get out!! Brandy too I think. Cosmos, I keep reading about people drinking cosmos and I don't even know what those are but I'm gonna find out and try those! And lemon drops, that sounds good, I read about those in some book...gonna try them too! Yeah, this program will make an alcoholic out of me yet!

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Ha!!! Recovering I feel ya!!! Totally!!!

No a day goes by when I don't plan my next drink which will be as soon as I have a written piece of paper in my hand saying I'm done with this little trip to monitoring land. The funny thing is that I was totally committed to staying sober right after I got my DUI. I went to a meeting daily for 3 months and was doing my best in AA. However, once the monitoring program kicked in and kicked me in the teeth I grew resentful and that feeling only grows by the day. Once the meetings became mandatory and all the rehab industry stuff was crammed down my throat I knew I'd drink again. No way I'll do it while in this program but once this absurd & surreal trip is finished I'm having more than a few. The simple truth is that this program did nothing to make me better in anyway and I was happier drunk then sober. My life was in all ways better before getting involved in this BS and I'm going back to it

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I feel the same way exactly. Everyone I know thinks this is absurd. I'm in a job that actually WANTS to promote me but can't because of the monitoring.

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Specializes in OR.

Part of my contract (I think like most) is that I have to see a therapist. Great. No problem. I don't need a ********* contract to tell me I need to do that. I got in with a very good one as soon as I got away from the claws of that horrid money sucking nightmare rehab experience. I've been seeing the same one for, let's see, more than 3 years now. In our first session, she looked at me and said "I'll bet you've thought more about drugs and alcohol in the last 6 months than in your entire life." Yep, that's about right.

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It's crazy that a therapist would say that and this monitoring program still be the norm! Do real health care professionals think this works? I'm in IOP for probation and almost everyone admits to still using their DOC or swears they will just go back.

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Specializes in OR.

I am reasonably certain that real healthcare professionals, at least ones with ethics know that this stuff does not work worth cow pies. Like I've said before, there is a certain sector that this kind of thing is very beneficial for. For the rest of us, we are all just bewildered as to how and why this is the norm. I think the answer boils down to money. Many of these programs function independently with minimal to no oversight and have cozy relationships with a select few evaluators and rehab facilities. BONs turf troubled nurses to these programs and we're off and running.

I know for myself, I have spent the last several years not only working on my mood disorder but working through the anger and bitterness that I have courtesy of this experience and trying to undo some of the trust issues and mental damage caused by my unnecessary trip through the bowels of rehab-land. It's still a work in progress.

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I can completely relate!!! This program is all I EVER think and obsess about. I also RE-check in up to 10 times a day... just to be sure. I obsessively check for my results every time I test until they come back. The times they have taken 2 weeks to result By the time it comes back I've already been sick for days, so depressed I can't even function.. and already have it planned in my head how I am going to lose my license, job, ... life...

I'm constantly depressed, anxious, tired, irritable etc. on my days off all I do is sleep.

I have so much anxiety and such a complex about getting in trouble.. sometimes on my way to work I have to stop TWICE to use the bathroom due to anxiety. Every time my boss or DON even looks at me I'm scared I'm going to get in trouble. It's ridiculous! I panick at the end of every work day when I check in because I usually have so much more work to do I may not make it in time to test.

Not to mention no one would hire me, despite my extensive experience, except the last field I ever wanted to be in again. I can't even think about staying for 3 more years!!

I hate nursing. I hate the politics and crappy treatment from pretty much everyone.. I hate what the stress and anxiety has done to me and who it has turned me into. I can say with absulute certainty I would NOT be in this position or an addict if it weren't for being in this profession! Yes it was my choice.. and I regret that first choice.. but I was so close to a nervous breakdown it became my only way to cope. I hate that!!! I think it's very sad that I was the first of 6 nurses busted at a very small hospital in a 3 month period. I think that says a lot!!

I've wanted to quit constantly. My health has declined and my body and spirit are broken! But I'm stuck. Nothing else will pay me anywhere near my salary now, and I have to complete my 5 year sentence. Very few people know about my situation either.

If I had a choice, I'd sit in jail for 6 mos in lieu of this contract!! 5 years in this mental prison of hell is worse than what most child molesters are sentenced too!

I

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