TPAPN "step down"

Nurses Recovery

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Well Fiends, it's true. TPAPN does have a step down year (3rd and final). Seems I just received my letter stating I not longer have to submit a meeting report and will have "LESS UDS". One more step to freedom! ...Peace...

I don't think that more than one year should ever really be justified. After one year of sobriety you are clean and have the tools to pursue a sober lifestyle. If you have no intention of doing so the amount of years don't matter. If they put me in a monitoring program for 20 years I'd drink as soon as I got my release if for no other reason than out of pure hateful spite of the long sentence and odious conditions. 3-5 years is just a punishment period that has zero to do with recovery and everything to do with the ability to inflict pain on a fellow nurse

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Step down, step down. With sweet spring my mind turns to step down. Two years July 19. Seems like such a small thing but right now to me it's the bladder lottery and I'll be a millionaire. Don't mind being tested, but I hate the bladder dance - will I have enough, not enough, don't want to be dilute, there's five people ahead of me, I'm bursting...Yah, tired of THAT!!

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I worked during treatment 2 weeks in

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In my State, it's 5 years for most. I went before the Board with nearly 2 years sober, clean hair samples to back up my claims. But because I did have a history of addiction, I was still given a 5 year contract with a 1 year key restriction. We have had 1 and 2 year contracts in our group. The 1 year contract was for a young guy who has a DUI prior to nursing school. And the 2 year contract was for a lady who'd gotten a DUI while nursing. For as many who are nailed, there are a select few with 'connections' who are dangerous. I had a group member who was married to a cop. She had 7 DUIs, but her connection was able to get her out of 6. The 7th they were divorcing, she was caught. They made her do 90 days of week-end detention in jail and she was landed into monitoring for 5 years. She should have been intervened on a long time ago; scary!

They do do some form of step-down in my State, it starts off as lifting some of the restrictions on working OT and less UDS. I believe it begins after 3 years.

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I signed up for IOP (8 weeks program) 2 days after getting DWI. 8 month later when I knew what my court agreement was to be, I self reffered to TPAPN (Feb. 16). Only restriction, I couldn't do ON CALL. By May BON ordered me to TPAPN. Already in program. I have a incredible manager and friends at my workplace, so I was able to keep working thru this whole miserable process. In 2 years in I've never actually spoken to my case manager. I stay off the radar. Do everything spot on time, so they have no reason to question me. Feb. of 19, I will be free. You can do this! ...Peace...

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

There was research that the AANA (nurse anesthetists) did back in the 90's that showed that 5th year out was a common time for relapse. However, I don't know if this is applicable to RN's. My experience was that the CRNA's were much sicker than the RN's. While most of the RN's were successful in returning to a similar position quickly, the CRNA's could usually not return to anesthesia. Their period of denial was longer. Perhaps loss of position is a bigger loss to them because of all the time and money they've spent. So eventually they did have to take that dialysis or desk job but it took longer to get to that realization. People who suffered childhood sexual abuse often need five years for adequate therapy. But requiring five years for everyone in a particular state is, IMHO, draconian and a waste of resources

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Yeah CRNA's return to practice very soon after completing inpatient & outpatient rehab. Their agreements are much like our docs. They get to return to practice sooner in exchange for a longer sentence in the land of dumb

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The whole length of sobriety argument is a facile comparison in these cases I believe. The studies I've read linking time from last drink / drug, effectiveness of treatment (dismal), amount of treatment ..... you name it all have to do with a different population than most people in monitoring. Those studies are presumably completed people who are in treatment voluntarily. We are not. I think a really good study would be to look at those who successfully complete these programs and maintain sobriety after being released. It's my theory that many of us here are sober only because of fear of our next pee test and that all this recovery garbage is just bilge. I base this on the presumption that people who successfully maintain long term sobriety have to actually want to stay sober. For me personally I'll probably maintain my sobriety about 15 minutes after getting released from bad nurse detention.

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Specializes in OR.

You get so many of these programs (both the forced stay ****holes and the hoity toity ‘promises' shtick one's) that claim "we have a 98% success rate in recovery. Yeah, they don't mention that this statistic refers to people while in the program. It doesn't track those who's sobriety lasts exactly 5 minute. Why would they. The ‘rehab industrial complex' thrives on the revolving door ideal.

I do recall some "study", again nobody could tell me where this study came from (seemed to be another one of those repeated things that had been parroted so much that it became set in stone) that said after two years, recovery was likely or blah, blah blah....my point is that once again any sort of recovery cannot be forced into a person. Any statistic can be manipulated to say what the author wants it to say to suit thier opinion. Finally, if any of these impossible to cite studies were correct, the 12 step model that these programs find so precious would not have people with 10-15-20 years of clean time/sobriety going out and getting high or drunk.

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Yeah I think the 12 step stuff works for the population that whole-heartedly buy into the program. Personally I'd rather die drunk and homeless

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So far, besides the first month of "step down" this has been true. I have been tested about every 25-30 days. It has been nice! Now if I can just figure out this silly quarterly report ordeal I would be all set.

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I'm an NP, alcoholic who also LOVES the smell of cocaine. Just passed my 4 year mark!!

I'm excited to finish so that i can look for a job without TPAPN involved!

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