Rehab Success Rate???

Nurses Recovery

Published

Hi all:

Does anybody have any numbers of the success rate of the substance abuse industry? I simply have no idea and Mr. Google hasn't been that helpful. Thank You all!!!

Specializes in OR.

I actually found TWO!, yes TWO! SMART recovery meetings, about 8 blocks from my house in the rather medium to large size town i live in. I have not yet checked into them due to time constraints but without even having done more than skim the info on the website, my interest is already quite piqued. If for no other reason than they can cite explicit reasoning behind their philosophy other than "it's what we've always done and it seems to work although we don't really seem to know if it even does but if you surrender it to your higher power and work the steps it'll be fine and if it isn't it's your fault because you didn't try hard enough...." (that last sentence gave me a headache)

Something that has always perplexed me about the 12 step model is that you will get screamed down about the evils of alcohol addiction or drug addiction or food addiction or gambling addiction or whatever addiction (because non stop meetings and working those 12 steps and I've honestly never been able to quite figure out what that means anyway, will fix all that), pause- inhale- and then go right outside and light up a cigarette. Is not nicotine an addiction? Do not many of these meetings serve coffee? Is not caffeine an addiction? How about soda? How about exercise? My point is anything done to an excess can be labeled an addiction. Alcohol and drugs ain't got the corner on the addiction racket.

Something like SMART seems to utilize the multifaceted approach that these nurse monitoring programs should take heed of. As if we needed another point of proof that these monitoring programs are about nothing more than money, it is much easier to lazily sentence the nurse to endless years of useless, inappropriate attendance of 12 step meetings.

Unlike 12 step which has not changed since before my father was born (and i ain't no spring chicken) SMART changes as research changes. That's refreshing. You hear horror stories of AA/NA sponsors discouraging their sponsees from taking of antidepressant medications claiming it as some sort of relapse because it's a drug. SMART encourages adherence to your medical professionals advice and APPROPRIATE use of prescribed meds, etc.

Lest i sound like i am pimping this program, it appears on the surface to be more of the sort of thing that any kind of nurse peer assistance program should be promulgating instead of the half-orificed bull jive we have now.

I kind of wonder if (like completion of driving school gets points off your DL) could completion through SMARTs 4 point recovery plan garner some time off a contract? Nahhhhh.....that would be considerate and caring and show some interest in actually accomplishing something good for the nurse besides raping their wallet and dignity.

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No, I haven't read The Sober Truth but, I'm so worried about running out of money I'm even limiting my food intake... worried I'll end up homeless. What I really don't understand is how the $&@! it isn't a HIPPA violation to publish our drug or alcohol addiction (considered a disease) or mental illness in a public magazine?! How the heck is that even legal? It blows my mind that this is done by the nursing field. I really don't get it. How are boards above the law and why don't the protections of HIPPA apply to nurses? Like this public shaming is gonna help me get a handle on my severe depression. The public humiliation which makes it hard for me to leave my house for fear of running into anyone I know I think is the reason I have daily thoughts of suicide- that and fear of homelessness and not being able to support my family. Just such a nightmare.

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Sucks there aren't any SMART meetings near you, they're a lot better than AA.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

There are online Smart Recovery meetings specifically for nurses. My state did not specifically requirebAA fir everyone. Smart Recovery was fine. However, I don't know how proof of participation is done now. They didn't have nurses' groups then. I have hears from participating nurses of shaming by AA members and feel for any nurse in a program that doesn't offer peer support meetings. It was a great place to get contacts for jobs and "lots of other stuff" as The Donald would put it:)

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
Prescisly . So far as these programs go. Appropriate would be DAU. You pee clean. You work. You don't. You're off work until cleared by YOUR (not chosen by program) doc/shrink/addictionologist. If you get written up or fired at work, that's your problem. Program notified. Happens X number of times, BON notified, appropriate action taken.

All this forced voluntary meeting attendance, forced rehab attendance, forced employment loss, forced financial ruin, forced loss of dignity.....has nothing to do with ensuring safety in practice.

Are you kidding? People taking propofol, fentanyl and nitrous at work shouldn't be forced to take off? After detox they can work, just not in anesthesia. Most nurses in the groups I worked withbwere only out if work for a month or two. Yes, there were limitations, but they were able nto get a paycheck and stay in nursing. Maybe not the job they identified with, but it paid the mortgage and allowed them to go to meetings and was generally less stressful.

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Specializes in OR.

Chill out! It was a random thought as to how to maybe make these things less onerous and backbreaking on the average nurse. I don't know how long ago you were involved in this stuff but the boilerplate way they are done now does absolutely nothing for any nurse, be they here for an ancient DUI or for diversion or the myriad of NON-addiction issues that these programs have deemed themselves the ones to decide safe to practice issues for.

Now, nobody is "only out of work a month or two" try a year or more and that is AFTER going broke from the pile of "treatment" chosen by the program that is highly unlikely to have been paid for by insurance (say bye bye to your retirement nest egg). If and only if you are fortunate enough to find some probably crappy job with some place that will tolerate the stipulations placed on you, you get to go back to work. You will probably make way less money and if you can't afford all the costs of this program? Too bad. Go sell a kidney. Or give up, nobody cares. Less stressful? Not!

I also get the impression from your responses to my posts that you think I worked in anesthesia? Like some of the other assumptions you've made about the current state of these programs you would be wrong. Many things have changed and not for the better.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.

No, I didnt assume you were in anesthesia. It's an area of nursing that has the worst addiction rates and has conducted the most studies of any specialty. You can't extrapolate nurses' recovery rates from those of thegeneral population. Just sayin'. And I only left nursing 4 years ago so things haven't changed that much. I do not think that Pa. has an alternatuve program. Do your names get released to any public sites? If so, I am sorry that you live in a state with such a backwards, punitive program. Maybe you're the person to change it. Lots of other states have gone to the alternative model decades ago because a very small number of people got together to get it done. However, the corruption you expose is true. It used to be that the program was able to give a list of recommended treatment programs. Those were the ones with nurse tracks. That list was deemed inappropriate and now participants have to fend for themselves with no vetting at all. Plus , cookbooks have overtaken thinking (have to accomodate the morons) so making individual plans for patients or program participants has become anathema. You claim to be the poster child for this descent into mediocrity and you may be right! But your bitterness and negativity speak louder than anything else. Let it go. There's LOTS of other things worst that can happen to you and you are already 55. We are in the Bermuda Triangle for health issues and it's not much fun when your friends start to die. So take a deep breath here and concentrate on being less negative. Hope you don't take this as patronizing.

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Are you kidding me?!?! I don't know where or when your point of reference is. What's this nonsense about returning to work after detox and then being able to return anywhere but an anesthesia service? That is simply wrong. In my state there is no way you are getting released back to work until you complete some form of "rehab" that lasts at least 3 months. After that you have to do 90 in 90. Oh yeah this whole time you are off work and not making any money you are expected to spew cash all over the rehab industry despite their dismal success rates. Typically people don't get permission to return to work for 6+ months. Simply going back to work after detox is a notion that is at very best outdated. When you are allowed to return to work you face a narc restriction for at least another 6 months so goodbye to the career you are used to and hello to nursing homes, dialysis and doctors offices. Six months after that you can ask to return to a critical care position. That's about a year and a half after being forced from a job and into rehab. It would be different if most nurses sucked into this vortex were actually diverting meds much less taking propofol, fentanyl and nitrous at work and getting high while taking care of patients. Those nurses are in the VAST minority in these programs. I've been in small group "support" therapy for a little less than a year with a couple dozen nurses and by my count two (2) nurses fit that profile. The rest; got DUIs (some years ago), failed pee tests for weed they didn't smoke at work, checked into rehab centers to battle addictions on their own and were naïve enough to trust that other nurses would understand with no issues at work, had disgruntled ex-husbands call the BON to report abuse, took an old percoset left over from an old prescription to battle back pain (do addicts have left over dope?). Simply ridiculous and in no way reflective of any reality of these programs in the year of our lord 2017

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Specializes in OR.

Okay we all are going to back up to our respective corners for a minute. Subee: I think you are confusing SpankedinPittsburgh and myself. We are both highly vocal on this forum about how badly these programs treat nurses and the issues of the rehab industry in general. We are also located in different states and found our way into our respective programs for vastly different reasons. Neither of those reasons have anything to do with diversion or impairment on the job. However we have both been raked over the same coals as the trademark "impaired professional." Both of us are poster children for what needs to be changed in all of this. However, I can't speak for Spanked but I can say that when I am done I don't want anything to do with this crap ever again. These days I have not even decided if, when i am done I want anything to do with my own profession that threw me to the wolves when I asked for help.

So that being said, //rant off//

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So, my friend who was a nurse had a bipolar manic episode- came out of nowhere, she didn't know she was bipolar, it was totally unexpected, unplanned, obviously no one chooses to be mentally ill. She didn't show up to work because she knew she wasn't thinking clearly. Was reported to the board, her license was suspended, she wasn't allowed to return to work. She spiraled deeper, lost her health insurance because she lost her job, ended up homeless. While she was manic she was arrested when the police were trying to take her to a hospital for resisting arrest. When she was clear she was put on probation for practicing nursing while impaired- she didn't practice nursing, she intentionally did not go to work. She had to do drug tests even though she was not a drug addict. Her case was published online and published in a magazine that is distributed to all nurses- so, everyone she has ever worked with, gone to school with, basically ever met now knows she is mentally ill (which to me is a huge HIPPA violation). When she got a job offer she was banned from taking the job by the state who said that her incident had occurred too recently (a year had passed, she was medically stable and had been working a non nursing job for months). She ended up having to surrender her license because she wouldn't be able to log the hours needed to keep it active. So, now (she's pretty young by the way) her entire life is ruined- she can't go back to school because she won't be able to get any kind of state license after having lost her nursing one. She can't get most jobs because of her arrest while she was sick. I have friends who are school psychologists who are speech therapists who have suffered with addiction and who have suffered with mental illness and they have boards to report to as well- their personal problems aren't publicly published for everyone to judge, they're not forced to jump through hoops determined by their boards and they don't lose their livelihoods. Addiction is a disease- I'm not proud of what I did, none of us are- and mental illness clearly is an illness- no other field of work destroys people the way the nursing field does for being human. I understand that we have people's lives in our hands although, not all nursing jobs are as intense as say ICU nursing- but, when people do recover or they are stable they should be able to restore their lives. That's not possible for everyone that ends up on probation- a lot of us don't get second chances. Not everyone is able to find a job on probation and they have to leave the field and finding gainful employment as a failed nurse- people ask questions, look into it and go with someone else. Cats is upset because she has a mental illness and is having to run around disclosing that to people and is forced into a recovery program for drug addicts, spanked is upset because he made a mistake outside of work and our personal lives should be our own, my friend I mentioned is perpetually upset because her life is ruined, and I get that I did something bad, but, I don't agree with the way we're publically shamed for it. As if living with addiction or a mental illness isn't a torture in and of itself- we have to be shamed in front of our entire community as well? That helps no one.

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Specializes in OR.

Thank you. That straight up says it. I could not have stated it better myself.

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Specializes in CRNA, Finally retired.
So, my friend who was a nurse had a bipolar manic episode- came out of nowhere, she didn't know she was bipolar, it was totally unexpected, unplanned, obviously no one chooses to be mentally ill. She didn't show up to work because she knew she wasn't thinking clearly. Was reported to the board, her license was suspended, she wasn't allowed to return to work. She spiraled deeper, lost her health insurance because she lost her job, ended up homeless. While she was manic she was arrested when the police were trying to take her to a hospital for resisting arrest. When she was clear she was put on probation for practicing nursing while impaired- she didn't practice nursing, she intentionally did not go to work. She had to do drug tests even though she was not a drug addict. Her case was published online and published in a magazine that is distributed to all nurses- so, everyone she has ever worked with, gone to school with, basically ever met now knows she is mentally ill (which to me is a huge HIPPA violation). When she got a job offer she was banned from taking the job by the state who said that her incident had occurred too recently (a year had passed, she was medically stable and had been working a non nursing job for months). She ended up having to surrender her license because she wouldn't be able to log the hours needed to keep it active. So, now (she's pretty young by the way) her entire life is ruined- she can't go back to school because she won't be able to get any kind of state license after having lost her nursing one. She can't get most jobs because of her arrest while she was sick. I have friends who are school psychologists who are speech therapists who have suffered with addiction and who have suffered with mental illness and they have boards to report to as well- their personal problems aren't publicly published for everyone to judge, they're not forced to jump through hoops determined by their boards and they don't lose their livelihoods. Addiction is a disease- I'm not proud of what I did, none of us are- and mental illness clearly is an illness- no other field of work destroys people the way the nursing field does for being human. I understand that we have people's lives in our hands although, not all nursing jobs are as intense as say ICU nursing- but, when people do recover or they are stable they should be able to restore their lives. That's not possible for everyone that ends up on probation- a lot of us don't get second chances. Not everyone is able to find a job on probation and they have to leave the field and finding gainful employment as a failed nurse- people ask questions, look into it and go with someone else. Cats is upset because she has a mental illness and is having to run around disclosing that to people and is forced into a recovery program for drug addicts, spanked is upset because he made a mistake outside of work and our personal lives should be our own, my friend I mentioned is perpetually upset because her life is ruined, and I get that I did something bad, but, I don't agree with the way we're publically shamed for it. As if living with addiction or a mental illness isn't a torture in and of itself- we have to be shamed in front of our entire community as well? That helps no one.

Would love to see a test case for this woman. It is such a violation of her privacy to have her name published. She deserves a verrrrry large settlement.

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