My Daughter (also an RN) was arrested

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Specializes in Hospice.

I got a phone call at 1:15 this morning from ****** County Jail. My daughter has been arrested for possession of meth amphetamine. I am devastated. I live 2000 miles away on the other end of the country. We graduated nursing school together and she had been working as an RN in a SNF.

I had my suspicions, but it is not only the user that is in the grips of denial.

My question - Is there a process whereby she can retain her license? I know she needs rehab, counselling, etc to recover from this horrible horrible disease. I would imagine she should get a lawyer when she notifies the Board. I am relatively certain that she must notify the board. Can you give me any indication as to what sort of mountain she must climb, besides recovery/abstinence, to salvage her life.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

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So sorry to hear of this. She can find a nurse attorney familiar with dealing with the Board at the referral link here: www.taana.org. If she self refers she should have a better time of it. You can find a lot of good advice on this recovery forum. Don’t let her take the process for granted as we all know it will be no bed of roses. Best wishes.

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She needs to find the assistance program for the state she’s in PRONTO and join it VOLUNTARILY. Tell her to find every addiction and recovery resource possible. She needs to be proactive. Look into NA, SMART Recovery, she needs a sponsor, etc. If she wants to continue to be a nurse and get clean, she needs to attack this head on and not wait for the courts or the board of nursing to mandate it.

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First of all I’m sure that there are ways for your daughter to keep her nursing license. She will probably have to go through a monitoring program which is stress, expensive, intrusive as hell and lasts for years.

As far as recovery, I personally don’t know anything about recovery. I’ve spent years in a monitoring program and not 30 seconds in recovery but I’ve seen it work for folks. The one thing that all the folks that make in recovery have in common is a personal dedication to not abuse substances again. This personal dedication comes from a personal decision to combat their addiction. Does she want to quit using? Is she willing to dedicate herself to personal change? These are questions only she can answer and she must dedicate herself to making all this happen. From what I’ve seen these efforts must come from her. Don’t try to help too much addicts eat codependents like a fat kid at a candy bowl. Plus such a relationship only makes it worse for them in the end. Good luck

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