When I first came to this forum in 2015 I was already done with my monitoring program but was hoping I could add some experience, strength and hope to help others get through this process, There was a lot of real support that I don't see now. There's a lot of anger some of it very justified by people who were never impaired at work, who got in some kind of trouble prior to even becoming a nurse or for people sucked in due to mental health issues.You know who you are and this is not aimed at you. I myself was never impaired at work but I was a garden variety arm chair alcoholic that was slowly spinning out of control and I have no doubt it would have spilled over into my work eventually. I self-referred to my states program after a failed suicide attempt. Ultimately I did need the discipline the program provided and I feel I would be dead today if things had happened differently.
If you are here for diversion of narcotics it might interest you to know that this was considered a felony before these monitoring programs started. Nurses were stripped of their licenses, prosecuted and sent to prison, sometimes for as long as three years.
For those of us who battle addiction it's important to remember that addiction is a disease of self-will run riot. Those who suffer from it have 2 character flaws in common, anger and resentment. My therapist was a nasty woman who told me that I needed to start living or get on with dying. I had to let go of all my anger and resentment in order to reclaim my life. I followed every rule, went to every meeting, got an approved job and always asked for some stipulation or another to be lessened or canceled every time I went in front of the diversion enforcement committee. So much so that I had my narcotic privileges within a year. I was never bullied, belittled or made to feel less than because of my addiction and by choosing to be open with friends about my circumstances, I learned who my friends really were.
I never burned any bridge with anyone.
Today I am happy, grateful and free of the clutches of my addiction. The job I got while in monitoring ignited a passion for Mental Health Nursing that has become a career I love. It always hurts me to see my profession so looked down upon by nurses who think they are better than psych nursing. Frankly Psych nursing requires a lot of outside the box thinking.
There's always a time to complain and B & M. But instead of egging on people's anger and despair maybe we should be trying to help by giving real examples of how to deal with the situation described.
