The Failure of the War on Drugs- Understanding Addiction

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067

I have suspected for a long time that the punitive and isolating treatment of addicts has done more harm than good in fighting addiction.  The tough love, put them in jail instead of treatment is not working and only further isolates the addict.  Having a police record only makes the difficult road to overcoming addiction more difficult, if not impossible.  Treatment centers focus on shame as a way of overcoming addiction when, it is love, support and acceptance that are the things that really put someone on the road to true recovery.

We, as a society, need to change the way we view the disease of addiction and addicts.  What we are doing now is clearly not working.

My Son’s Little Pumpkin

When my children were 4 and 6 years old we rescued two cats.  Pumpkin was supposed to be my daughters cat and we named her Pumpkin because that was what I called my daughter.  The other cat was meant for my son and we named him Boo which was what I called my son.

About a week into having the cats in our home they had each become very attached to my children.  One attached to Brenden and the other attached to Katherine.  The funny thing was that Pumpkin became attached to my son and Boo had become attached to my daughter.

Pumpkin followed my son everywhere.  She mewed constantly as if she were having a conversation with him.  She took such good care of him by constantly grooming him, particularly his face and hair.  She was obsessed with grooming him.  It was not uncommon to walk past his room while he was doing homework and see him hunched over with Pumpkin lounging across the back of his neck and shoulders. When she heard his bus come to drop him off from school she would wake from a sound sleep and rush to the door to greet him.  She would meow until he picked her up and would lick his face with such intensity you would think he had been gone a million years.

When he was at school if I was home I would text him pictures of he waiting for him to come home.  I even did this when he was a senior in High School.  He adored that cat.

Last summer she had a dramatic weight loss.  It was cancer.  We agreed to keep her alive as long as she did not seem to be in despair.  To be honest, Pumpkin loved him so much that she would have endured any amount of pain just to be with him.

One day, last fall, she had a seizure.  She could barely walk afterwards so we made the difficult decision that it was time to let her go.  My son held her in his arms in the car while we drove to the Veterinarian.  She licked his face all the way there.  My son stayed in the room as they put her to sleep because he wanted to be sure that he was the last thing she would see and feel close to her.  She passed away with her last act being licking the face of the boy that she loved more than life itself.

My heart ached for him.  There was now a huge void in his life.  The constant presence of her for 12 years was gone.  He cried and I held him.  There is nothing worse than seeing your child in pain and not being able to fix it.

He is doing much better now….for a long time he didn’t want to even mention her name because it would bring him to tears.

I like to think that she helped him through all the years since the divorce.  She was a second Mother to him and always there for him.

She was my son’s little Pumpkin.

How I Talked to My Children About Drugs

Being the Mom of teenagers, someone asked me recently how I talked to them about drugs.  To be honest it started when my son was an infant, maybe 2 weeks old.  I remember walking with him through the grocery store, him in the carriage, with me talking up a storm to him.  I wasn’t talking about drugs, I was just communicating with him.  He obviously didn’t understand me but, that was the beginning of the ongoing and very open communication I had and still have with my children.  To this day my son, who is 18, makes it a point to talk to me (sometimes for hours) about everything and anything every day.  My daughter is 15 and very into her friends, which is perfectly normal, but we also make time to talk daily.  My kids have conversations daily and have no secrets between them.

I built a foundation of communication that was unconditional.  I always told them that I may not be happy with what they had to say but, I would always listen.  I would always be there for them.  I wouldn’t judge them.  Respect is the key with our communication.  We discuss things in a calm and mutually respectful manner.

If I didn’t do all this and just raised them living parallel lives like so many people do with their teens it would have been a waste of time to one day walk into their room and have a talk about how bad drugs were.  It would have went in one ear and out the other.

When my son was about 14 the big thing in his school was smoking marijuana.  All the kids that I had known since they were in preschool were doing it.  I know this because my son and I had an ongoing dialog about it.  Instead of just telling him not to do it just because I said so we had lengthy discussions about the science of it.  We talked about how the teenage brain is going through tremendous changes and growth.  We talked about how introducing a substance during that time may have the potential the disrupt that growth causing long-term damage or effects.  I told him about how when I was pregnant with him how careful I was about introducing anything that could harm his developing brain.  I didn’t even take Tylenol.  I told him about why I breastfed him exclusively.  After birth being another time of tremendous growth to his brain and how breast milk is what is intended to feed a baby.  It is specifically tailored to their needs and this is basic biology, not a judgment on those who can’t breastfeed.

Our talks were never just me telling him, “Don’t do drugs”.  Our talks were about the science of it, the fact that you truly don’t know what you are buying when you buy street drugs.  We talked about his future and the effects using drugs might have on that.  They were calm, rational discussions.  We looked at scientific studies on the effects of early drug use in teens and how the earlier they start to use, the more likely they might have issues into adulthood.

After my divorce, I became severely depressed.  I went to my Doctor and tried every anti-depressant in the book…nothing worked.  One day I went in and complained about overall pain to my body (which can be a symptom of depression) and she gave me Percocet.  The next visit she gave me Oxycontin.  I abused those drugs for 4 months until I was caught diverting narcotics at work.  My children never knew any of this was going on because I never took anything when they were with me.  I never went through withdrawal and if a Doctor told me to use narcotics for depression now I would think they had lost their mind.  Looking back on it, I know my mind was altered from the depression and I was not thinking clearly.  That would have never happened to me with a clear mind.  I wrote a blog entitled, “The Agony of Ignorance”, detailing that horrific time in my life.

I have always been open about that part of my life with both my children.  In a way it was a great lesson for them.  If it could happen to their responsible, loving, attentive Mom then it could happen to anybody.  It taught them to be aware of how easily the perfect storm could land them into drug abuse or even addiction.

About a year ago, my Brother-in-law died as the result of severe alcoholism.  He was only 43.  My kids see firsthand the effects that his alcoholism and his death had on everyone around him.  He was a great guy.  I loved him like a Brother.  He would do anything for anyone.  He just started drinking in his youth and couldn’t stop.  Both my kids and I have talked frequently about his disease and eventual death.  I tell them to be careful with alcohol because you never know if you are going to be the one who can’t stop drinking.  I tell them that studies show the older you are when you try alcohol the less likely it will become a problem.  Again, we talk about the science of it.

My kids fully understand that addiction is something that can affect anyone.  They understand that it happens to good people.  They understand that it could happen to them.  Addiction does not discriminate as much as everyone thinks it does.

I firmly believe that communication is the key.  Being honest to them about my own situation and how I was one of the lucky ones who overcame it made a huge impact on them.  When they lost their Uncle we talked openly about how if things went differently they could have lost me.  That fact was not lost on them.

So, teaching your kids about drugs is a lifelong process.  They may still experiment but, they have the tools they need to recognize if they are getting in over their heads.  They know i will not be happy but, I will be there for them.  They are both born leaders and make their own decisions when it comes to peer pressure and for that I am grateful.

I tell them that sometimes life is hard and it’s easy to fall into reaching for a crutch to make them forget their problems like I did.  I tell them that when life gets hard to reach for the people who love them to get them through it.

Unconditional love works wonders while raising children……I highly recommend it.

Bachelor of the Week

So, I halfheartedly went on another date.  It is sad when the thought staying home in your fuzzy PJ’s is more appealing than going out for a nice glass of wine or dinner.  I agreed to meet this man at a nice local restaurant.

He was 15 minutes late….not a good sign being as it was a low traffic time of day.  He sat down and we ordered drinks and the conversation was somewhat awkward which is odd for me because I can talk to virtually anyone.  He spoke of his Ex-wife in a bad light and that never sits well with me.  This was the Mom of his children he was talking about.  Strike one.

Being a Nurse is a burden of its own.  I can’t tell you how many times I have had to sit there and listen to every medical malady experienced by the other person.  No, I do not know all the Doctors in Connecticut.  No, I am not an expert is all areas of medicine.  This man was no different.  It turns out he was scheduled for back surgery on 3 discs in 2 weeks.  He was in constant pain and took pain medications…along with beer apparently.  I just kept thinking, why would someone date two weeks prior to major surgery?  It turns out he was also smoking tons of marijuana which I believe has a place in medicine but, he was not doing it under a Doctor’s care.  He also admitted to a pretty severe addiction to oxycontin….not something I want to deal with at this point in my life as, he was in complete denial.   Strike two.

Then came time for the bill.  Now, mind you, I was just there for one glass of wine.  He insisted that I get something for dinner so I did.  When the bill came he hemmed and hawed  and fidgeted.  I didn’t make a move to pay because he was the one who insisted I eat.  He asked me to dinner as far as I was concerned.  If I had asked him I would have paid.  Strike three.

Nexxxxxxxxxxxxxxt!

The Innocent Casualties of Addiction

I remember when Whitney Houston died.  Her daughter Bobbie Christina only 18 years old.  As I watched the news coverage and read the tweets I became deeply disturbed.  People were saying the most horrible things.  I remember thinking that, like any other 18-year-old, her daughter was online reading these things.  I remember thinking any chance that poor girl, who had just lost her beloved Mother, was destroyed further by a bunch of ignorant strangers.

Losing your Mother is difficult enough at 18.  Compound that with all those people hiding behind a computer screen, saying her Mother DESERVED to die because she suffered from addiction, and I knew then her life was going to be an uphill battle at best.

In my mind, all those people with their careless mouths and their uneducated views on drug addiction have a hand in where Bobbie Christina is right now.

The fact that they had to do CPR is not a good sign at all.  I strongly suspect that the family is struggling with a decision to terminate life support. Imagine that.

Imagine that you wrote those tweets or comments that she saw.  You laughed at the jokes made at the expense of her Mother.  Those comments ridiculing the Mother that she loved so deeply.  What do you think that did to her already broken heart?

I think we all know what it did now but, it’s too late…isn’t it?

Dying To Be Free

Excellent article about the inadequate and antiquated treatments for people suffering from the disease of addiction. Things need to change.

All Things Chronic

There’s A Treatment For Heroin Addiction That Actually Works.Why Aren’t We Using It?

http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/dying-to-be-free-heroin-treatment

The last image we have of Patrick Cagey is of his first moments as a free man. He has just walked out of a 30-day drug treatment center in Georgetown, Kentucky, dressed in gym clothes and carrying a Nike duffel bag…

He had been a dominant wrestler in high school… (Thinking about you, Cameron.)

(I’m also thinking about how sports and athletics can injure and maim kids before they even get the chance to become adults.)

In the months before Patrick’s death, Sydney Pangallo, 23, a recent Recovery Works alumna, suffered a fatal overdose. Dan Kerwin, 23, attended a Recovery Works program in the spring, and his sister found him dead of an overdose during the July 4th weekend. Tabatha Roland, 24, suffered a fatal overdose in April — one week after graduating…

View original post 1,252 more words

Addiction From the Perspective of a Nurse

In all the years I have been a Nurse, I have treated every age group from newborn to the elderly.  I have treated people with just about any disease or injury you can think of.  I have treated many people suffering from the disease of addiction.  Those people came from every age group and socioeconomic standing.  I learned early on that it is not a disease that discriminates.  It is estimated that roughly 10% of the population is suffering from addiction.  There is not one person alive who can say that addiction has not touched their lives in one way or another.

Early on in my career I was working in an Emergency Department.  The triage Nurse was admitting a woman who was complaining of severe leg pain.  The triage nurse decided based on nothing except that the woman was complaining of pain, that she was drug seeking.  She came back onto the unit rolling her eyes and telling us of her encounter with the woman.  I heard the woman yell out so, I went to assist her.  I found her on the floor crying in pain.  I put her in a wheelchair and took her back to a room and got her a Doctor.  He was a compassionate man so he began examining her right away.  I had other patients so, we met up to discuss her after his exam.  It turns out she was suffering from Guillian Barre.  Her pain was real and her diagnosis was very serious.  I remember that triage nurse would not meet my eyes upon finding out that she was wrong about this patient.  Trust me, she felt my eyes burning through her.  I was enraged that she would judge someone and dismiss them as a drug seeker and completely miss their true diagnosis potentially causing them harm.

Fast forward to about a year ago.  I have a patient who is a long-term heroin user.  She was then 50 years old and introduced to heroin at 17 by her then boyfriend.  I knew her for 8 years.  Over the years, her health was ravaged by years of drug abuse.  She was in constant pain but, her beautiful blue eyes would light up every time she saw me. She never spoke much to me of her history of drug abuse.   She knew I accepted her and saw who she really was.  She trusted me but, the shame she felt overwhelmed her.  That she trusted me meant the world to me.  I saw a gentle spirit.  A loving daughter.  With all that she had endured in the time I knew her, she always asked about my kids and had a smile for me.  She often told me that she loved me.  I got to know her parents and they took care of her with so much love.  She was Daddy’s little girl.

One day she came in and was crying.  Huge tears fell from her eyes.  Those eyes pleading me to help her.  In all the years I had known her I had never seen her cry so I knew something was very wrong.  I asked her and she told me she was in excruciating pain in her right foot.  She was seeing a Doctor about the pain but, suddenly it had gotten worse.  This was a Friday, so I made a call to that Doctors office to ask that her pain medication dosage be increased.  The response that I got floored me.  The Nurse said no because of her history of substance abuse, judgment tainting her voice.  Even after I explained that I knew her well and this was not drug seeking they refused.  I called another Doctor who was caring for her and got the same response.  I frantically tried to get someone to listen to me but, the answer was always the same.  They assumed she was drug seeking.  I then called her Mother and told her to bring her to the Emergency Room in hopes that they would take action and admit her for intractable pain.  I was honest with her Mother about the roadblocks I had encountered in trying to get her help and apologized.  She told me that she knew what people thought of her daughter, the heroin addict.

On Monday, when I came into work I looked into what had transpired in the Emergency Room and found out she was admitted to a surgical floor.  She was scheduled for a right below the knee amputation that morning.  The circulation in her leg was so bad that they had no choice than to amputate.  Gangrene had set in.  Her pain was real.  I was furious that because she had a history of addiction her diagnosis was being missed.  If I had not listened, and then fought so hard to get someone to listen she would had suffered enormously over the weekend.  Her Mother called and thanked me. and we cried together.

When she came back to me after her amputation she thanked me.  She then went on to complain that it pissed her off that if she were to have the desire to buy new shoes that she would have to pay for two shoes.  I just looked at her and we both burst into a fit of laughter.  That was my girl.

Six months after her amputation her health had worsened.  I was very involved with helping her Mother make the decision to put her in hospice.  The last thing she said to me before she died was, “Awww, Trish…I love you”.

There are so many misconceptions about addiction.  The predominant misconception is that addiction is fun…that the person is making a choice to get high and doesn’t care about anyone or anything but themselves.  There comes a point in drug abuse when all your choices are taken away from you.  Addiction changes the chemistry of your brain.  This has been scientifically proven.  The addict is not using drugs because they don’t love you.  They are using drugs because their body has become physiologically dependent on them and not using the drugs makes them feel sick.  There is no fun in that.  It is not a party anymore.

There is not an addict alive, who in a moment of clarity, enjoys the path their life has taken.  They feel horrible.  The emotional pain they feel is beyond anything that most people ever experience.  Addict are despised by society.  They are shunned.  They fill our prisons because of the misguided idea that if they are punished they will stop.  Treatment is difficult to find and most time insufficient.  When someone would walk into the emergency room because they had made the decision to get help they would often be given a list of phone numbers and sent on their way.  I’m pretty sure that rarely worked out well.  If they had been taken in and placed in a treatment program immediately I have to believe the outcome would have been better.

Things have to change.  We can’t keep doing what we are doing in the treatment of addiction because it is not working.  The shaming and judging have to stop.  If you were to encounter a diabetic with a double lower extremity amputation would you tell them that because they did not eat properly and take their medications that they got what they deserved and knock their wheelchair over?  I doubt anyone would ever do that but, that is what you are doing every time you shame and judge an addict.  You are knocking them over.  You are kicking someone when they are down.  Addiction is just as much a disease as diabetes is according to the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association.

I was having a conversation with some coworkers a few months ago.  They were discussing an addict and even with their education, they were speaking of this person in a derogatory manner.  I was the only voice in the room telling them that they needed to keep their erroneous beliefs to themselves because you never know who in that room was dealing with  addiction somewhere in their lives.  I became rather passionate in my argument but, got through to none of them.  When I walked out of the room another co-worker stopped me.  He told me he heard what I said and with tears in his eyes thanked me.  He explained to me that his older brother had become addicted to heroin and had died of an overdose.  He told me one thing people don’t understand is that an addict is a person.  An addict is a Mother, Father, Sister, Brother, or child of someone.  They are loved by someone.

I will not stop fighting for my addicts.  I will not stop trying to educate people so lost in their ignorance.  If this makes one person rethink how they view addiction, I have won.  I will never stop trying to fight the battle for those who are not able to fight it themselves.

I am a Nurse.

HIV/AIDS From the Perspective of a Nurse

When I was 20 I became a Nurse.  This was 1987.  When I was in Nursing school, we weren’t even taught about HIV/AIDS…it was that new.  These were the days before gloves were even used.  I remember there being only one box on my Med/Surg unit and it was located in the dirty utility room.  All care was given with bare hands.  We got all forms of bodily fluid on our hands daily and just went over to the sink and washed it off.

As I worked, I began to see the hysteria on the news.  It was a “gay man’s”, disease and thought of by most with contempt.  There wasn’t HIV, only AIDS because the tests to detect the virus were not being widely used and were inaccurate at best.  Generally, the first indication of the disease was at the point where it is was a death sentence.  People died within a matter of day of being hospitalized.

As the medical community became more educated, standards of care were beginning to be implemented.  The first of those standards was to wear gloves during any patient care involving bodily fluids.  At that time the method of transmission was still not fully understood.  A tear drop was to be feared.  I distinctly remember the day I walked into work and there was a box of gloves outside of each and every patient room.  As I would walk into a patients room, gloves on, I distinctly remember many times being admonished by the patient….they were insulted to think that I thought they had that “gay mans”, disease.

People who were diagnosed were ostracized, held in contempt and abandoned by family and friends.  They died alone in a hospital bed with even the health care workers afraid to touch them.  If an AIDS patient were on our unit the nurse assigned would give up that patient at any cost.  They would trade two medically complex patient to one AIDS patient.  I saw those patients laying in bed silently, alone and without the care that other patients would receive.  I was so young and inexperienced but, knew I could not let someone die that way so, I began taking on those patients and caring for them as lovingly as I would any other patient.

Looking into the eyes of these patients will haunt me for the rest of my life.  This was the only time in my entire career that I could not comfort a patient.  AIDS was not just a disease, it was thought of as a final determination of a person’s lack of morals.  It was a punishment for what was judged as deviant behavior. To most of society, it was a person getting exactly what they deserved.  To think of that now horrifies me. I can’t imagine dying that way.

As science eventually made strides in identifying modes of transmission, the public was lagging behind in accepting the science.  The fear that had gripped our society held on tight.  One of the modes of transmission that was identified was sharing needles and that group, people suffering from addiction, was just another group who were getting just what they deserved.  Addiction was not even close to being considered by the medical community as a disease.  Now society had another group of people to judge.

Change came slowly but, it did come.  Research began to work at a frenzied pace much to my surprise.  The stigma was so strong that I never imagine that what happened next would have happened.  Suddenly, there was a call to find a cure.  A call so strong that it literally drowned out the voices of those shouting from their moral high ground that these people were getting what they deserved.   From my perspective, that call came from the gay community that had rallied to help their own like nothing I had ever seen in my life.  They became unstoppable.  They demanded research, education and development of treatments.  They raised funds to finance research.  They rose from the ashes and stood proud.  Against all odds, they made things change.

Now, HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence.  It is a chronic disease just like diabetes or hypertension.  The stigma is still there for some but, the world with never completely rid itself of ignorance.  I celebrate that someone can live a long, healthy life with this disease but, still mourn those who were not as fortunate.  Those that died so completely alone in the beginning.

To me, watching this health crisis unfold and evolve is proof that change can come from within our hearts.  That is where this change came from.  The heart of the gay community.  The compassion and strength they showed the world has gone unnoticed to some but, it remains in my heart as a symbol of the power of the human spirit and the power of love.

The Agony of Ignorance

Ten Years ago,  I had just gone through a nasty divorce and was severely depressed.  My Stepmother was going through two cancer surgeries with brutal chemotherapy and my Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer at exactly that same time.  I felt stupid going to them for support during my divorce while they were fighting for their lives.  I was alone in my fear.  After trying many different antidepressants and finding no relief, I complained to my MD that I was experiencing physical pain and she gave me percocet.  Physical pain is a symptom of depression.  I found that the percocet took the edge off.  My next visit she asked me how it was working and I told her it helped a little so, she gave me oxycontin.  Oxycontin is the time release form of oxycodone.  It can last from 8 to 12 hours in your body for pain relief and is a great drug for cancer sufferers….not depressed people.  If my depressed mind were thinking correctly I would have recognized this.  My depressed mind just wanted to feel better.  When depressed, a persons mind is not thinking normally…it is very obvious to me now, that mine was not.

After a while of this, I asked her to stop giving it to me and she never even mentioned getting help for my depression.  I was ok for 3 months and began diverting.  I am a Nurse and diverting means taking narcotics from work.  I never took anything that was meant for a patient.  I did not divert much and got caught almost right away.  My Boss called me at home and told me that I was being investigated by the hospital and the police for diverting narcotics.  I dropped the phone and curled up into a ball and cried.  I was so alone and felt that to the core of my being.  Finding yourself in the fetal position, knowing that your body went there automatically as a response to such deep emotional pain that your mind shuts off is something I never want to experience again.

My union rep told me the best thing to do was go in and fess up to what I had done…..so, I did.  I was secretly recorded and the hospital lawyer told me the police would be in contact with me to have me arrested.  I was devastated.  They acted like they were going to help me but, were only tricking me into confessing so they could destroy what little there was left of me.  I went home that night and sat in my garage with my car running and a full tank of gas.  I knew carbon monoxide was the easiest way to die. You just fall asleep.  The only thing that made me turn off the car was that I knew my kids would be the ones to find me.

I was working at UCONN Medical Center in Farmington, Connecticut.  I sought out treatment and the insurance would only cover one visit with an addiction counselor once a week even though my counselor TRIPLED the amount I used in order to get me into treatment.  The DPH treated me like I was a common criminal and was intent on making my life as much of a living hell as they could.  I could not afford a lawyer for that case or the pending criminal arrest.  Somehow I was steered toward UCONN Law School where they provided free criminal representation provided by the students with the Head of the Criminal Law Department overseeing them.  Luckily for me, he took a special interest in my case.  The investigator for the CT DPH was angry at UCONN for arresting their nurses because they felt it put patients further at risk because a Nurse would be less likely to try and get help if she or he feared arrest.  I was required to provide her with a statement and she advised me to have my lawyer make the statement for me so that it would be considered hearsay.  She knew the state Police were waiting for my statement so they could use it to arrest me.  She called me a week later and told me not to tell anyone she called and that I was NOT going to be arrested because of lack of evidence thanks to her.

During that time, at the lowest point in my life, I also managed to write a letter to the President of UCONN Medical Center asking for a meeting with various state agencies, the CT Nurses Association, the DPH (they all agreed to attend)and a threat to go public in regards to how a Hospital that was doing research on addiction was treating it’s Nurses this way. It was because of me that UCONN stopped arresting it’s impaired Nurses.  I am the type of person that can make things happen when I believe in myself.

I was then put on a 4 year probation by DPH that required weekly random chain of command urines and weekly counseling…for FOUR years!  I was mistreated by my employer and any misstep, my fault or not, was reported to the DPH and I was harassed and degraded on a routine basis.  If I had the sniffles

co-workers would snicker and whisper about how I must be snorting cocaine.  I have not ever used or even seen illegal drug,  My consent order (probation order) was, and still is, online for anyone who looks up my license to see.  Anyone who googled me was brought to that page.  It was humiliating.  My kids were young at the time.  I never used any drugs around them or when they were in my care.  I planned to tell them all about what I had gone through when they were grown and better able to understand it.

One day, during a hand off of the kids with my volatile ex husband he, as usual flew into a fit of rage.  He ended this fit of rage by screaming, “You are nothing but a piece of shit drug addict.”  This was after me not using any drugs for over a year.  My kids were standing right there…..six and nine years old.  I was stunned.  I later found out, that his wife had looked up my license at a party and the entire group of people at the party laughed and ridiculed me.  I shook the shock I felt out of  body and looked over at my children’s beautiful faces and saw such confusion.  I got my bearings and ushered them into the car and was forced to have a conversation with them that I didn’t feel any child should have to hear.  Their father had forced my hand so, I made the best of it, telling them everything, and they were amazing.  They both knew how distraught I was even though I did my best to hide it.  The kindness and love they offered me was probably not the outcome their father was expecting.

I could not live my life without this haunting me.  Nine years later it still haunts me.  If I applied for a job, I would never even get a call because they look up your license.  I actually, have been applying for jobs for years now compiling a list of all the jobs I don’t even get a call for.  My resume is amazing and I am a very experienced and knowledgeable Nurse. Before this happened, I got a call for an interview for virtually every single job I applied for.   On a personal level, my dating life suffered.  I would meet someone and hit it off and everything would go well until they learned my last name and googled me.  They would then never contact me again.  I was not even given the opportunity to explain what had happened.  I lost friends.  People avoided me as if I had murdered someone.  Eventually, my computer savy son made me invisible to search engines (I didn’t ask how).  I love that kid.

I have suffered from, at times,  debilitating anxiety and depression since then.  I was diagnosed with PTSD a few years ago related to that experience.  I still work as a Nurse but, occasionally  take leaves of absence because of my anxiety/depression.  I am forever changed because of this experience.  It was only recently by the director of a substance abuse clinic that I was told that I was NEVER an addict.  I was an abuser.  I never went through withdrawal.  I have no desire to use any type of narcotics.  I have never recovered financially.

They mandated me, at the time, to go to Narcotics anonymous and the other addicts couldn’t understand why I was there.  They all told me I wasn’t an addict.  They told me I got the death penalty for jaywalking.

Now, I know some of you may be reading this thinking I got what I deserved.  I am acutely aware of how negatively people with substance abuse issues or even histories of them are viewed.  I see it every day at work, in the media, in personal conversations with people who do not know my history.

My profession tried to destroy me.  My ex husband tried to destroy me.  All for something that is now considered to be a disease by the World Health Organization and the American Medical Association.

I was not destroyed…just knocked off kilter for a while.

So, if you get anything from this, educate yourself.  It has been proven that the outcomes for overcoming drug or alcohol abuse are greatly improved by treating the addict with kindness.  This whole movement of abusing them further, humiliating, degrading, punishment, and imprisoning them is not working.  That is painfully obvious.  When you are in a room speaking unkindly of people suffering from addiction, remember, I might be in that room standing there silently listening to you assassinating my character without you even knowing you are doing it.

The few people who were kind to me got me through this.  I am now at the point in my life where I don’t care who knows.  It is a part of my distant past that has made me who I am.  It has taught me more about compassion that anything in my life ever has.  I feel lucky for that.

Thank you for giving me courage Michael Lawrence Langan, MD

http://disruptedphysician.com/