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Stories of Recovery
Name: |
Lucky |
Age: |
32 |
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| Drug of Choice: |
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stadol |
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| How did you become addicted? |
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Hi, Like "Becky" I am a registered nurse in a state mandated "recovery program", but my story started long before I became a nurse. Until the age of 18, I dont recall ever having any illness other than the occasional "cold". Shortly after my 18th birthday I began having excruciating bouts of abdominal pain. Over the course of the next two years I saw many different Dr's, each had a different opinion as to the cause of my pain..from "It's all in your head" to "it could be colon cancer or Crohn's disease."
I had my appendix removed, then 8 months later I had my gallbladder out.., then came the colonoscopy's, no one could find the cause of my pain, although they did find a benign brain tumor that they removed and I now have a big plasic "plate" in my head to show for it.....but the fact remained, they didn't now what caused this awful abdominal pain.
Over the next 10 years, I had good times and bad with it...sometimes I wouldn't have an "attack" for months and sometimes it was twice a week....and everytime it happened the only thing I knew to do was to go to the ER for pain medication, which they gave me without question. Then one night was a big turning point, and I wouldn't know how big of a turn for the worst it was for a couple of years. That night the ER Dr. (who was a fill-in for the Dr. I usually saw there), observed, "Did you know that Stadol comes in a prescription nasal spray?, cause we could save you a lot of time and money if you had that at home for these attacks."...It sounded like a logical idea to me, so he wrote me a script and the rest is history. The stuff worked great..and at that point no specialist had found anything else that worked any better, and they had finally given up on finding a cause for my pain. So whenever I called they gave me more stadol.
Somewhere in the middle of all this I managed to get thru nursing school, get married and have three kids, but thats a whole other story!!!, anyway, I dont think I was truly addicted or abused it up until fall of 2000, at that point the "attacks" came almost daily and were the worst I had ever had, so of course I used more and more Stadol. At that time there were a lot of family problems--lots of stress!! It was then that I realized how well the stadol worked for that too. What a wonder drug!! |
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| Your turning point? (What made you choose recovery?) |
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For me the situation came to a head when my coworkers began to notice my strange behavior, and the drug started to effect my work. Of course I thought no one knew anything!! One day I'm at work and our office manager comes to get me and says that a man was there to speak to me. So I go to talk to him, and he says he is from our states "impaired nurses recovery program", and that one of my co-workers had called him...he wanted to do an "assessment" to see if there really was a problem. Of course I told him that everybody else had a problem, NOT ME!!!
After that he said he thought I definitely had a "problem",(this agency is under contract with the Board of Nursing to handle these situations and hopefully keep us from disciplinary action by the board), he stated that I had a choice, I could go to inpatient treatment voluntarily or be reported to the board and deal with them....Luckily enough for me, I was at a point that I was ready to take any help I could get. |
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| Tell us about your recovery. |
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So, I went to rehab for 21 days, away from family, friends, and any idea of the world I knew before discharge and going back to work (they actually wanted me to come back to my old job!!), I was required to sign a five year contract, submit to counseling, random drugscreens (24 per year), mandatory AA/NA meetings.
I have been clean for over a year now and my life is great, for me the difficult part isn't addiction--I've left that all behind, and have no doubt that I will NEVER go back down that road again But,the hard part is the mandatory meetings; they do nothing for me. As I've said, this is a chapter in my life that I have closed, and yet I am forced to go to these meetings to hash and rehash the whole thing. This not therapeutic for me, and I understand that some get great benefit from AA/NA, but our Boards of Nursing across the country constantly try to jam all of us into the cookie cutter of the 12 steps, they need to know that one-size does not fit all. There are other programs out there and I believe we should have a choice. |
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| Your advice to others? |
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For the nurses, I'd say be very careful. If you are impaired by addiction, you definitely need to get help, but be careful where you get it and who you talk to. The program that I am in is pretty progressive and most states have nothing like it. In most states everyone is reported to the board of nursing automatically...and when that happens it is on your record permanently and can be reported to the national database. Tt follows you forever. If more states had "alternative" programs like mine, nurses would be much more likely to speak up and get the help they need much earlier, instead of hiding. Many lose their families and livlihood.
As nurses we are supposed to take care of the sick, and injured, and we are expected to NEVER have problems of our own, we are held to a much higher standard than other professions, but people need to know that we are human too. We get sick. We get hurt. And, we get scared just like everyone does as some point in their lives. But why are we expected to give support to others with the EXACT same problem (addiction? Yet we don't recieve any when its our turn to need help??? It's just not right!!!
As compared to my other nursing sisters, I have had it pretty easy, mostly by luck of being in the right place and the right time. I had co-workers and family that just wanted to see me get well. I was lucky they knew how to get me help without completely destroying my life. They are very supportive. My story of intervention and recovery is a good example of how this should work--with dignity and respect--for all impaired nurses.
I know nurses who have been in prison, under house arrest, had their licenses revoked or suspended....what help is it to lock us up???? We are highly educated and capable people, and yet a lot of us are treated like idiots and lepers. The bottom line is that if you are a nurse and think that you have an addiction problem, go to a meeting, do everything you can to get yourself clean without having to go to the "authorities."
Lucky |
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