TPAPN

Magsulfate, BSN, RN · Apr 29, 2009

I'm not sure about the misdemeanor, that is something to ask an attorney.

I am from the Houston area, but I will assume that Dallas is probably about the same as houston when it comes to hiring tpapn nurses.

Sometimes you can be told that a hospital is tpapn friendly because they've hired tpapn participants before, but a hospital can only take on so many tpapn participants at once.

Your best bet to find a job is to look at LTC/nursing homes, long term ACUTE care facilities, and physical rehab facilities.... also psychiatric hospitals. I have seen tpapn nurses get jobs in all of these types of hospitals/rehabs.

The approach you use to find a job is very important. Here are some suggestions:

1. Always go to the facility to fill out an application, try to meet face to face with the person that will hire you. Don't tell them over the phone that you're in tpapn.

2. Wait until you are well into the interview before disclosing that you're in TPAPN. Don't tell the recruiter, you'll never get to meet the manager. Also, don't wait until after they've offered you the job to disclose tpapn participation. Some employers think this is sneaky, they don't like it.

3. Don't feel sorry for yourself. Look confident, feel confident, but always remember, you made this bed, and you have to lay in it. No one else did this to you, so it is up to you to either crawl out of the hole, or stay there and dig deeper.

4. Once you get a job, only tell the people that must know about your tpapn status. Some people are just plain nosy and don't need to know. If the manager asks WHY you're in tpapn, don't dive deep into it unless you know for sure she is going to hire you. Sometimes managers are nosy too and know darn well they're not going to hire you, they just want to be nosy and see how bad you've been. When I finally got a job while on tpapn, my manager never asked me what I did wrong. She didn't care as long as I was recovering. I did have a few bad interviews where they asked me what I did wrong and they knew from the beginning they weren't going to hire me,, I think they did it just to make themselves feel better. I learned after the first time.

5. Take with you from each interview your experience. You will learn something new on each interview. And NO, you probably won't get hired on the first interview. But the experience you will get on these interviews is invaluable!

6. Talk about your good points, and after disclosing tpapn, talk about how well you're doing and specify things that you're doing that are good. Talk about the positive aspects of hiring a tpapn nurse. Like---- With tpapn nurses, you KNOW that the nurse is sober, because you have to call in everyday for drug testing. If you slip, it is caught right away. Talk about how grateful you will be for a job and how you are going to do your very best to succeed at this job because you know your recovery/life depends on it.

The very best advice that I can give you is to not give up! Fill out those apps and GO TO THE FACILITIES!! Get that face to face time with those managers so they can see you're a real person!! They can see how confident you are and how SOBER you are!! Don't expect to get a job by sitting at home filling out internet applications, it won't happen that way.

Sometimes it can seem that TPAPN is too busy to give advice or help, but they really want to see you get a job. They really do want to help, only there are hundreds of tpapn participants (700 or so) and only 5 case managers in austin. If you have an advocate now and he/she is no help, request a new one. It may take a while, but they will find you one. But it all boils down to you. You really need to help yourself before anyone else can help you.

I can tell you these things all day long, but unless you get out there and give it your all, I can't be of any help. You must do your very best to try and get a job. Once you're working, you will feel sooo much better! I can't stress that enough.

Good luck, and if you need any advice, let me know.

lance197728 · Apr 29, 2009

bigttu,

Do you aleady have a misdemeanor, or are you facing a possible one? The other question I have is, is the misdemeanor for the same reason you are IN TPAPN? If so, just be honest with the board and with TPAPN and they will probably work with you since you are already in TPAPN. If its for something new, I have no idea what they will do. I knew someone in my recovery program that got a felony for forging a prescription and they didn't get any discipliary action on there liscense because that was why they were in TPAPN

phlox · Feb 16, 2010

Ok, I know this thread is from April 2009, but I found it doing a search on "TPAPN" and I wanted to comment as it is something that concerns me very much.

When people hear "TPAPN", they most often think "substance abuse". Re-read Magsulfates post and you will see that it is all about being sober and you made your bed and now you have to lie in it, things like that. Look at point number 3.

I will have to be in TPAPN because I have a mental illness. I did not do anything wrong or bad.

SO STOP ACCUSING PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS OF CAUSING THEIR OWN MISFORTUNES! I did nothing wrong!

lifeistweet · Feb 16, 2010

You have to be in TPAPN because of mental illness?

Magsulfate, BSN, RN · Apr 3, 2010

When I wrote this, I was writing it for the person that was requesting information. In this instance it happens to be someone with an issue of breaking the law and was more than likely a drug issue and not a psychological disorder. Maybe I was wrong for ASSUMING that it was an addiction diagnosis, but in my several years of experience with discussing TPAPN in this NURSING AND RECOVERY FORUM, unless stated as only psych issues, the original post would most definitely be concerning chemical dependency. From what I can read here at this time I wrote correctly to the original poster's questions, so I was not discussing the psychiatric side of TPAPN participants. As you can see with the length of my response, it might have been a little too much information to include the psychiatric issues when it had nothing to do with the questions. That might be best discussed in another thread that is about psychiatric disorders in nurses or TPAPN nurse participants with only Psychiatric Disorders and no chemical dependency diagnosis.

I do agree that most people think TPAPN is about drug addicted and chemical dependent nurses, but most of the participants are addicted to and have chemical dependency issues. Some of them even have both Psychiatric AND Chemical Dependency issues. As you might already know, a lot of psychiatric issues evolve into addiction problems because people will self medicate without even knowing that they have a psychiatric problem. They just know that there is something wrong and they have found something else that makes them feel better and "fixes it'.

I will not get into all of that here because it could be considered off topic and it is definitely too involved for a Saturday evening for me.

Ok, I know this thread is from April 2009, but I found it doing a search on "TPAPN" and I wanted to comment as it is something that concerns me very much.
When people hear "TPAPN", they most often think "substance abuse". Re-read Magsulfates post and you will see that it is all about being sober and you made your bed and now you have to lie in it, things like that. Look at point number 3.
I will have to be in TPAPN because I have a mental illness. I did not do anything wrong or bad.
SO STOP ACCUSING PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS OF CAUSING THEIR OWN MISFORTUNES! I did nothing wrong!