Messed up bad.....

Nurses Recovery

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So I've only had my nursing license since 2011, and I love what I do. Unfortunately, I messed up really bad and now I'm worried about what's next. I tested positive for meth about a week ago. My problem started about a year ago when I hurt my back lifting a patient because I work home health and had no one to as for help. I didn't want to take too much time off work so my doctor prescribed me Norco just for a short time. Problem is my back kept hurting but I didn't want to go back and ask for more because I'm a nurse and thought it was a conflict. So I started skimming them off patients. I'm from a small town and a I ran into a former friend who was into street drugs and said it was cheap. I reasoned it that at least I wasn't stealing from my patients. It got to where I was doing it daily to get through the day....I don't know how I got here. My supervisor got suspicious and called me into HR and I took a UA hoping that I would be clean because it had been a day or two. I wasn't and now I'm terrified of what's going to happen next. I've been looking online at the procedures but honestly I can't think straight. I worked so hard to get my degree and now it's all gone. Can someone please shed some light on what's next?? I've got an OH license. I looked at the BON site for insight for the program regarding drug abuse and chemically dependent nurses. It says something about rehab being an option to save my license along with some very stiff restrictions. Where would I go?? Thank you all in advance.

Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.
I wasn't going to make this comment but I had to.

I don't think you had the accountability and responsibility right from the start. You probably would have not stop either. Honestly, I'm glad you got busted!

I will be surprised if a fellow member of Allnurses defends your action and one may say that I lack sympathy or compassion. I do but only for cases like this.

--- It is inexcusable---

We all make mistakes. But what you did was intentional. As I mentioned, I'm really glad you got caught. And I hope you did not cause any harm to any of your patients while you were under the influence. "You, as a Nurse" should know better.

I'm not an Angel nor Perfect. But I tell you this, I will not do something intentionally stupid to waste what I worked hard for, my family, my livelihood and my future!

Sounds to me you're now all polite and sorry just cause you got caught!

P.s.

Tonya36rn, ADN You wrote:

"Awesome advice! No one is exempt. It can happen to anyone..."

Well, I sure hope not! Sweet Mother Of Hairless Baby Jessie, Please Help Them!

That's mean.

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Specializes in ICU; Telephone Triage Nurse.
That's encouraging actually. I know my license may never be the same but after everything I'm willing to work under any restrictions necessary.

Your license will be the same as long as you do what you are asked to do.

I did the voluntary program and completed it when many of you were still watching Blue's Clues ... No record remains.

I am also not the same person I was 23 years ago.

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3 ring. Thank God you replied. This thread has been so negative. Like a car wreck I can't stop looking. Your positive, helpful post is exactly what the op needs! That's what I'm talkin about!

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Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.

I have no words of wisdom regarding the path forward as it pertains to the BoN and your license.

Regarding your disease, though, I can encourage you to keep fighting the good fight every day. Addiction isn't something from which one really recovers but rather something which one learns to manage... you were in the acute phase of the disease and now you're transitioning to the chronic phase. You can do this.

And you're right about hitting rock bottom... nowhere to go but up.

Edit: After reading more posts I just wanted to add that it's easy for a non-addict to harshly criticize those who head down this path. I know, I've been that person. In my latter years, though, I've come to see the addict living inside my skin. I'm fortunate that my intellect saw me through my earlier years and that I stopped dabbling early on because I was afraid of the inevitable result. I'm also fortunate that there were no immediate consequences from some horrible choices made by my intoxicated mind - just dumb luck - or my life would be so much different. While I don't touch intoxicants and haven't for many, many years - and even then, just a bit - I am an addict... and I have a lot of compassion for addicts. I don't excuse nor tolerate the behavior (and boy, can an addict be a manipulative and destructive person) but I really empathize with the person.

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Specializes in OR.

While i consider myself of the "non-addict" flavor, thanks to our delightful BONs and "peer assistance" programs or whatever various states like to call them i have been dragged kicking and screaming through the entire substance abuse/rehab/labeled as an addict/oh you have a disease it's okay, but were going to punish you for it by breaking you in half etc. experience/hell.

As I look back on the last few years, I have seen so much cognitive dissonance in the way we as professionals treat each other (and the way the public treats each other, but that is for another post/rant.) We nurses are supposed to be a caring profession yet we are so very judgmental of our own. Some of the negative comments i have read on this thread alone are the very reasons why people with problems are afraid to come forward and ask for help. Even the idea of mental health problems is considered a failing. i came forward and asked for help and got nailed to the wall with inappropriate "treatment" for something i am not. Were I a patient out in the real world and not a nurse, this would be incomprehensible, like treating diabetes with chemotherapy. Instead i've no choice but to put my head down and take it. Yes i was very much wronged, but I have been able to find support in the threads here from others, folks with both mental health issues and addiction issues. We are not all that different. I have learned so much and gained so much respect for the people that have reached out with advice. Not always what i wanted to hear but given in a supportive manner.

What i have learned is that there are so so many different things that bring people to do the actions (drink, drug, smoke, party, divert, whatever) that they do. Are those actions wrong? Yes. Do we have the right to judge? No, we do not. We can go on all day about the disease theories or the idea that sitting in meetings all day is that cure or it's just a moral failing or what ever.

What it comes down to is that people come here not to be stroked and told that what they did was not wrong. They already know it, what ever it may be, wrong or not. They are scared of what may be coming and they want to get some insight into what may be coming next from people who have been through it, not be told they screwed up. Most of the time they are already flogging themselves quite sufficiently. oh, and maybe sometimes they just want to flippin' vent and this is not stuff that one can vent to just anyone!

So for all of you posters who only come here to judge and say garbage like "just give up your license and move on" or "you're just sorry you got caught" etc. keep moving, your judgmental nastiness is not welcome here.

We are not here to tell people that their actions are okay, we are here to do what nurses are supposed to do. That is support others in their time of need. You negative people should learn something from that.

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Yep I agree. People don't come to this site to be told they have done wrong by some twit that never met them. Guess What? They already know that Einstein. They don't need to be judged and punished my internet "tough" nurses who are probably spineless idiots when you meet them in person but develop a spine when the anonymity of the internet involved. Two things I know for sure. The Nurse knows they screwed up and if they had any doubts the monitoring Nazis and rehab thieves will make this fact abundantly clear and the BON involved will get its bloody retribution for all transgressions committed (and then some). Second, there is a sick percentage of nurses who feed of the misery, misdeeds and misfortune of other nurses. They gossip, judge and cast insults at every possible opportunity and it rots the credibility of a profession that is designed to lend aid and assistance to those in need and instead stands in harsh judgment of those in pain

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
That's mean.

And ignorant. Ahhhhh. This post-factual world now is in ascendancy.

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I wasn't going to make this comment but I had to.

I don't think you had the accountability and responsibility right from the start. You probably would have not stop either. Honestly, I'm glad you got busted!

I will be surprised if a fellow member of Allnurses defends your action and one may say that I lack sympathy or compassion. I do but only for cases like this.

--- It is inexcusable---

We all make mistakes. But what you did was intentional. As I mentioned, I'm really glad you got caught. And I hope you did not cause any harm to any of your patients while you were under the influence. "You, as a Nurse" should know better.

I'm not an Angel nor Perfect. But I tell you this, I will not do something intentionally stupid to waste what I worked hard for, my family, my livelihood and my future!

Sounds to me you're now all polite and sorry just cause you got caught!

P.s.

Tonya36rn, ADN You wrote:

"Awesome advice! No one is exempt. It can happen to anyone..."

Well, I sure hope not! Sweet Mother Of Hairless Baby Jessie, Please Help Them!

Really, Bend_Over? Get off your high horse, show a little empathy, and stop embarrassing yourself. No one agrees with you.

@OHRN, just know that it gets better, and getting caught saved your life. Wishing you the best of luck with your recovery and your journey with the BRN. And don't let jerks like this get to you.

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