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NIR Stories Page
Today I am celebrating 7 years of recovery! I have been a member of this web site for about 6 months. I have not shared a lot. I do receive many gifts from your shares.
I thought today would be appropriate to share my story.
My parents were both active alcoholic's. I was the first born. I have a sister who is 7 1/2 years younger than me. It was the typical family of keeping secrets. Much physical, emotional abuse. There was also incest. I was at a very young age when that happened, and chose to keep the secret. I didn't know anything was wrong. I just wanted to be loved. Much insanity in my childhood.
My mother's other addiction was men. I remember my mom left for a weekend, and I was staying with a friend, and my father demanded I come home. I was physically abused by him which left bruises all over my body. I didn't tell. I just wanted to be loved. When I was 16 I lived with an aunt for about a year. My parents divorced at that time. I thought things had changed and went back to live with my mother. What insanity!!!! That lasted a few months and I lived with a friend of my mothers during my last year at school. During my senior year, I started dating a man that I married about 1 year after I graduated. At this time during my life I was not active in my disease. We married and I chose to bury my childhood under the carpet. I was going to start all over!!! (That was insanity!!!!!!)
I was pregnant with our first child, and my father passed away. My sick thinking was that he died and so I buried the incest with him. My disease kicked in after I went to nursing school. After I had been a nurse for a few years we had a 3rd child. After she was born, my own childhood issues started surfacing and I didn't know what to do. I had broken my foot started taking Rx's and away I went!
About 10 years of active addiction.......My bottom was my intervention at work. I was referred to the State BRN. I didn't know how to live life without the use of drugs.
My 1st year in recovery was a roller coaster!! I am grateful that after 6 months of recovery I was allowed to return to work in the nursery. I am a labor & delivery nurse. The diversion program set a wonderful foundation for my recovery. I have had the same sponsor since I was 90 days clean. I took the suggestions and put them into action. I don't pick up NO MATTER WHAT!!!! ONE DAY AT A TIME..... IT PASSES.
I clung onto my new recovery friends. I started attending unity days, conventions, and the women's spiritual retreat. I also started working the steps and my life started to change!!!! It took me 4 years to complete the diversion program.
After I had 2 years clean I wrote a letter to my mom and severed the sick mother-daughter relationship. She continued to emotionally abuse me on a regular basis. When I had 3 years clean my mom was diagnosed with mouth and throat cancer. I chose to put our differences on the back burner and was there for her. I made healthily boundaries for me.
I tried letting her stay in her apartment for her last days but 3 weeks before she passed away I made the decision to place her in a convalescent home. One of my recovery girlfriends asked me if I was going to let my mother kill me emotionally while she was dying. That's when I made the decision That I couldn't let that happen. She died 3 weeks later. I was not with her, but I know that is the way she wanted it to be. I was told by my therapist that my issues with my mother wouldn't die when she died, but would die when I passed on. I believe that to be true.
More will be revealed.......
Last year I found out through an uncle of mine that the man who I thought was my father was not my genetic father. What an identity crisis I had!!!!! What I came to process is I am who I am today from the process of recovery.
My mother-in- law died after I had 5 years of recovery. That was a spiritual experience for me. We were by her bedside, and gave her permission to let go, and within 10 minutes she was gone.
I am very grateful for the process of recovery. My two oldest children got married 6 weeks apart when I had 5 years clean. I got to be there for my daughter every step of the way!
I will be married for 29 years this year. Our youngest is 16 1/2.
Currently I am working the 9th step. I am doing community service for all the drugs that I stole from work. I am very active in the Women's meetings and am Chair for Public Information in Narcotics Anonymous. I currently have 2 sponsee's. One is a nurse in recovery who shared this web site with me. Thank you for letting me share my story with you.
I was born May 23, 19?? in Tuscon Arizona. My soul died when I was 10 yrs old after yrs of dysfunctional family living, a raging abusive step-father and a codependent Mother. At the age of 10 I decided I did not want to live any longer. But instead of physically killing myself, I emotionally and spiritually killed myself with diet pills, anorexia, bulimia, perfectionism and later sex and cocaine. My first hospitalization was when I was 18 yrs old. I had won an academic award when I was a senior in HS, and my weight was so low that my doctor wanted to put me in the hospital. I promised I would gain weight if I could just go to my graduation. By that time, using my weight as a powerful manipulation was something I had learned very well, with my parents.
My first use of speed was when I started to X-ray school. (I am an x-ray technologist as well as a Nurse). It was then that I discovered amphetamines and sex. During my twenties I did the two things which I knew I could do well, the first was practice my eating disorder (starving, binging, vomiting, screwing every man I could, etc.). The second thing I did well was going to school. Despite my frequent trips to the hospital for dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, and a back street abortion, I managed to get a BSN as well as a Masters degree in Health Services Administration. I was working at a hospital where I had been promoted into middle management, but by the end of my twenties, I could no longer function in the world.
My long, long road to recovery began when I decided that I was professionally burned out, and needed some career counseling. By then my weight had gone completely out of control the other way and I was at the highest weight I have ever been in my life. So, I started using cocaine as a diet aid. But it only took a few hits off a crack pipe for me to feel the most exquisite euphoria that I knew I never wanted to stop. Unfortunately, I lost more than weight. I lost my job of 16 yrs, I lost my dogs, I lost any self-esteem which I got from my job, and I nearly lost my life. From the time I was 29 until my late thirties, I was in and out of drug treatment centers, eating disorder treatment, long term treatment for depression, three professional assistance programs, and even got myself involuntarily committed to two state psych. hospitals, being tube fed. My final treatment center was in Atlanta on an eating disorder/trauma abuse unit. I was IP there for a year, and for some reason, I finally got it. I don't know what the difference was, but finally the hell seemed over.
Since November, 1992, I have been trying to clean up the wreckage of the past. Because I did not have a nursing license, I worked doing volunteer work at the hospital and a local treatment ctr. for women. I had been kicked out of this treatment ctr 3 yrs earlier because I wasn't willing to follow the rules. I also met my future husband in 1992, but we didn't go out on a date until a couple of months later. He was concerned that my track record for staying clean was not good. :-). Anyway, in May, 1993 I received my license back and began looking for a job. I also signed my third contract with my state's Peer Assistance Program. Much to my surprise, no one wanted to hire me. Imagine that!!! So I took a job making home visits for a social services agency. I was only going to do this for 6 months, then go back to "real nursing". Well, I still have not gone back to "real nursing". I took a job as a nurse case manager, obtained a certification in case management, was promoted to Director of the program, and then I was fired. Seems I still had a little issue with authority figures, especially ones who were my boss and were stupid. Anyway, about three months later, I took my present job and am now the Director of Utilization Management and Case Management at a Medicaid MCO in my state.
My recovery has not been as smooth as my professional return. While I attended a lot of meetings, I had some trouble with suggestions like a sponsor, and a higher power. Fortunately I surrounded myself with other people in recovery, and was able not to use, until I started gaining weight (does this sound familiar). I began to secretly take phen-fen. I had to go out of state to get it because it was illegal in my state at the time. Again, I lost a lot of weight. I got married in January, 1997 and stated having the old flashbacks, nightmares, and dissociation problems. This time instead of going back into hell, I elected to see a counselor for assistance with my physical intimacy issues. I stopped taking the phen-fen. Also, I began facilitating a nurse support group for recovering nurses in the PAP. This time, I became willing to do some things differently, and am now working the program, with all of its suggestions.
My life is a miracle and I have never felt so calm, happy, and serene. Thanks to the many people who were willing to love me when I could not love myself, other recovering people in the program (not the least of which is my husband), and a gentle caring higher power, I am now living the life which that 10 yr old little girl gave up way back then.
Thanks for being here and letting me share my story with you.
Hi, my name is Laura and I'm an addict.
I grew up in a "dysfunctional" household, my dad abused us in many ways and I learned when I was 15 that I could drown out some of that pain and endure it better if I was stoned. I drank my first beer and smoked my first joint when I was 15 ½ years old.
I progressed, of course, to many more kinds of drugs over the years.
To make a long story short, I got my Associate Degree in nursing in 1987. I went to work as an intensive care unit nurse and did very well for a long time. I even quit abusing drugs because the man I was living with didn't like it. However, as many of us, who are abused as children do, I picked the wrong man-he abused me too, emotionally. Eventually I picked up the drugs again, only I went the wrong way that time. I started taking drugs from work.
One day when I went to work, they didn't give me any patients; just wanted me to watch the heart monitors. That's not so odd, so I did it. A couple of hours later, my supervisor led me to the boardroom at the hospital where a whole room full of people were waiting on me. They wanted to know what was going on. They were implying that I was abusing drugs. I said, HOW CAN YOU EVEN THINK THAT OF ME! They said that I would probably be fired and that they would turn me into the Board. I asked them what would happen if I said I did it, even though I didn't and they said the same thing. So, of course, I lied. I had nothing to gain either way and I thought at least if I lied maybe I could get out of it. Huge mistake!
So, I lied to my family. I got a lawyer and lied to him. I lied to my friends and the hospital. I lied to the Board. I got another job in another hospital about 6 months later and lied to them. Then the nursing board sent me an agreed order saying that I couldn't give narcotics without supervision and I would be on probation for a while, basically a slap on the wrist. But I wouldn't sign it because I was still trying to lie my way out of it and thought I could get the whole thing dropped. I ignored the agreed order.
But, the nursing board is smarter than that. You know they've heard it all before! I guess I was in denial and basically, even though I didn't think so at the time, everyone was being patient with me. They all saw through me and my lies but I still didn't know that!
Almost as soon as I started working in the second hospital, I started "diverting" narcotics again. I wanted to stop and one day I was sitting there sticking a needle in my arm praying please God, make me stop!
God hears our prayers; even if it's not in the way we want it or expect it. Later that day the supervisor called everyone on the floor for a random drug test. I took it and knew I was going to fail it and that day, I walked out and quit my job. That was the day I couldn't lie to myself or anyone else any longer. I was addicted.
I called a local rehab facility that day and tried to get myself admitted but they said it didn't sound like I needed their services! (Maybe because I didn't have any insurance?). So I did it basically on my own (not a good idea but it worked for me-I did it the hard way!).
I started going to NA meetings, but I wouldn't go in my own hometown. I didn't want anyone who knew me to see me at a meeting! I went around to meetings in many places for a long time and eventually I got tired of all that driving and went to an AA meeting that was right across the street from where I live. The people in my own hometown were the ones who saved me. I love them all.
Now I had two sets of charges against me with the Board. I was so embarrassed that I didn't even go to my second Board hearing. I just told my lawyer to tell them I did it all and to do whatever they wanted with me. They suspended my license for 6 months, I had to go to counseling, get some CEU's on substance abuse, go to meetings, and take random drug tests monthly for 6 months to get it back. I got it back in May of 1997 and haven't been able to get a nursing job since. I'm on probation. If I get a job, I can't give narcotics for the first year, have to have supervision to give them for the second year, can't be a supervisor, can't work in people's homes, and can't work for an agency. I have to call a phone number every morning to see if I have to have a drug test that day. I have passed every one of them for almost 3 years. It's been almost 4 years since this all started.
I broke up with the man I was living with. About a year later I met and fell in love with another man. We got engaged in July of 1997 and were supposed to get married on November 26, 1997. On November 5, he had an accident and was paralyzed from the waist down. We got married in the hospital chapel on November 11 (that was his physical therapy for the day, to go to the chapel instead of doing it in the hospital room!) He's a nice and good man. He wouldn't hurt me for anything in the world and I feel lucky to have him, paralyzed or not!
I had been working in a factory (that's the only job I could get) running a sewing machine and I had to quit that job because of his accident and I stayed home for a little over a year with him. I looked for nursing jobs on and off throughout that time and found nothing. I went for interviews and they were all very nice but they wouldn't hire me. About 3 weeks ago, I went to work in another factory making $6.00/hr.
Financially, I am devastated. I can't even pay the $900 fine I owe the nursing board. But I am happy for the first time in my life. NA/AA saved my life. I eventually would have committed suicide if it weren't for them. I am no longer angry with the hospitals for turning me in or with the nursing board for putting me on probation, or anything else. They were doing their jobs.
Very soon, I can ask the board to drop some of my restrictions (or maybe I'll get really lucky and they'll drop them all). But I've worked hard for that privilege.
If you are in this situation, tell the truth. Find a way to get random drug screens done. Get to a counselor or a treatment center and to meetings. Get someone at the meetings to sign a paper saying that you were there and save it! Sometimes people at meetings don't want to give their last names on a document like that but it's OK just to get a first name and last initial and a phone number if they will put that on there. You can save a lot of time by doing this without being asked and you'll have to do it anyway. Let them see that you acknowledge that maybe you might have a problem (even if you don't believe it yet) and that you are trying to do something about it. Don't make the same stupid mistakes I did! Lying won't work and you only end up hurting yourself by doing it.
Hello, my name is Paula and I am an alcoholic. I am supposed to tell you what it was like, what happened and what it is like today. I was born into a family as a middle child and always felt like the black sheep of the family. No, I don't think it was intentional, today I know it was part of my disease of alcoholism that was telling me how different I was from each of my other siblings. Even when I was a small child I felt alone, lonely and left out, and found myself isolating and playing with dolls and making toys out of just about anything. Hours would go by and I would be in my own, "make believe" world, and I felt comfortable there.
I believe I took my first drink around the age of 13-14. I remember the sneaking that was involved, and the "high" I got from that bottle of Boone's Farm Apple Wine. I don't remember getting in any trouble or getting sick, but I do think it was fun. My drinking was in high school was on weekends whenever I could get away to where the parties were. I had a job, and very controlling parents that kept me from spiraling out of control in those early days. I was totally against drugs, but by the age of 17 I had found codeine and pot. I thought these made me a more popular person, a smarter student, and a much more beautiful girl. As you can see, the disease of alcoholism was already rearing its ugly head at an early age.
I graduated from high school with pretty good grades and decided to go to Nursing school. I had worked as an aide in high school and found my "calling" in the healthcare field. I was totally overwhelmed at college, but immediately found friends in my class who liked to party the way I did. I also found a man and the drug cocaine. My man was abusive and the alcohol and drugs took care of all the pain from the abuse. I partied and studied and somehow graduated from school with a BSN. I look back on those years and wonder how I retained any knowledge with all the chemicals that were put into my system. I know that my self-esteem was on a downhill slide, both from the words of my boyfriend and from the guilt and shame of doing things that totally went against my morals.
After I graduated from Nursing school, I married the abusive man and moved to sunny Southwest Florida and continued the fast life in the world of addiction. It took a couple of years to get a Nursing job, but we found the people who partied like we did. When I finally got a job in the hospital I was immediately put in the position of Charge Nurse and did well for awhile. The addiction took over and I was diverting drugs shortly after getting the job. Many days, I would tell myself I would not take any, and find myself in the narcotic box anyway. Needless to say, I was caught and sent to treatment only to completely refuse to become totally honest.
Eventually I lost my license in Florida and then the addiction really took over. The feelings of uselessness and shame and guilt took over my whole self and I drank to live and lived to drink. I had numerous close calls with the law, yet continued to lead this totally insane life.
I made a geographical move to Ohio to live and work for my sister who is a physician. I worked as a medical assistant and started to find friends up here that partied like I did. Before long though, the addiction took hold stronger and I forged a script. I got caught and did another term in a treatment center. I know today that I was still not done with the chemicals and was totally incapable of accepting the disease. In the next 4 years I lost two jobs and most important I lost myself. In 1994, I got my first OMVI and was devastated yet not able to pray for the help to find a new way of life. At this point, I had to drink every day or I was going to have DT's. I kept thinking that since I was a nurse I should be able to "detox" myself. I still could not admit that this was a powerful disease that was killing me.
I finally hit a bottom in my life after losing my last job. I knew I needed to give up and check into a center or I was going to die. It took five days of "detox" and the safety of an intensive treatment center geared towards Professionals, to get me sober. I know that the insanity of my life finally was revealed to me with the help of my Higher Power and by not drinking or using One Day At A Time!!!
It took 9 months to find a job and I think that was my HP telling me that I needed nothing but meetings, and the program of AA to help me get a grip on my life. I found a sponsor and worked the steps and went to meetings, meetings, and more meetings. I signed a contract with the Ohio Nurses Association even though I did not have a license. My life was beginning to shape up!!! I never believed that I could have a life as good as I have today.
Sobriety has not been "a bed of roses". I have gone through all kinds of things in sobriety, including: kidney stones, miscarriage, soft tissue injury, abnormal PAP smear and cone surgery, infertility and everything else life has given me. The one thing I learned is that I don't have to drink, or go through it alone. The longer I stay sober, the more work I see I need on myself. I know it's a life long journey and I am looking forward to it most days. Today I work as an OB Tech and I kind of like the lack of responsibility!
As far as the Nursing license goes, I am working toward obtaining one from my original state of licensure. It has been a long 3+year struggle to get a license back that I lost nearly 15 years ago due to the disease of alcoholism. Today I know if I don't get it back that I will not die. I like who I am today and know that I am a worthwhile human being with or without a license. I value my sobriety today and hope to live a long and sober life.
I want to say to whoever reads this that I hope it opens your eyes to the insanity of the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction. If you could not relate, don't close your eyes. Keep an open mind to the idea that you may hear what you need from someone else! Thanks for letting me share.
Some people say that an alcoholic begins to drink alcoholically from the first drink. Maybe this was so in my case, but if it was true I certainly didn't notice it nor did anyone around me. My first years of drinking were marked by occasionally getting drunk but usually I was able to control myself. I became an LPN in 1976 at the age of 21 and worked in various hospitals in Arizona and California.
The first sign that something might be wrong came when I was about 25. I was living in San Francisco and began to be obsessed with the idea that I was going crazy. I didn't have any specific symptoms of mental illness, but I had the general feeling that I was on a very bad road which could only lead to disaster. My parents were living in Ft. Worth, Texas at the time, so I moved to Ft. Worth, in what I now recognize as a geographical cure. It would be the first of many such geographical cures. At the time I was far from recognizing the exact nature of my problems. I will say, in favor of geographical cures, that this one worked. At least in the beginning. Getting away from the craziness of San Francisco wasn't the definitive solution but it did buy me a few more years. In Ft. Worth, in a more tranquil environment and surrounded by positive influences I was able to dedicate myself more fully to my career and I finished my studies for my BSN. Of course my alcoholism progressed during this time too, but I was still unaware of it. After I finished my studies I went to New Orleans, and for the first time I found it necessary to quit drinking completely. I didn't admit to alcoholism, but I found myself in enough problems that I would periodically stop drinking entirely for a month or two to "clean out my system." After a year and a half of this I tried another geographical cure and returned to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. For several years I would drink for several days, swear it off for several days, and devote myself obsessively to "positive things" such as creative projects, educational endeavors, social service, religion, etc. Then I would feel like I had done enough to prove that I was a good person after all, so of course I deserved my reward.
I had a number of rules for myself at the time, which I kept changing because they didn't work. Rules such as never to begin drinking before 10 PM except on weekends or holidays, not to go to bars or not to drink at home, only in bars, never to drink cocktails, only beer or wine, and never to drink alone. I would also stop drinking entirely for two or three week periods to "prove I wasn't an alcoholic."
After several years I went to the Rio Grande Valley on a temporary assignment and started drinking more. The social climate in the valley was more favorable to drinking than in Dallas. One morning I went to a restaurant on the Mexican side for breakfast and saw a guy drinking a couple of beers with his breakfast as if it were orange juice. This seemed like a wonderful idea to me. I started to get more relaxed and stopped worrying about whether I was an alcoholic or not. I started to say "I'm halfway to being an alcoholic," or "I'm a weekend alcoholic. Thank God for my job. It keeps me sober." Of course I didn't mention the times I had called in sick because I was drunk or the six pack I drank every night even on weekdays. A six pack is nothing anyway.
I went to Minnesota for six months and then returned to the Rio Grande Valley. My sister-in-law started sending me literature about alcoholism. By this time I had read the big book. I thought it was interesting, but it didn't apply to me. It didn't apply to me because I could still stop after one or two drinks. I never tried to do so, but I knew I could do it. Therefore I could do it, and therefore I wasn't an alcoholic. My sister-in-law was just a busybody who didn't have better things to do than interfere in other people's lives. At this time I was a guitarist at church and one day I went to the choir practice and saw a group of men standing around in the corridor waiting to enter one of the rooms. One of the men asked me, "are you here for the AA meeting?" I was shocked that he might think I was an alcoholic. "No, I'm here for the choir practice." But I was disturbed. I could hardly wait to get out of choir practice to buy a jug of wine and calm my nerves. It bothered me for weeks. How could that man have thought that I was an alcoholic? Many times I came to church early hung over, but I always came on time, and I never even cured my hangover before I got there. Sure I drank a lot, but I was a responsible Christian, not an alcoholic.
A little later I had the opportunity to move to the Mexican side of the river, and it seemed like the last barriers went down. Now I lived to drink, nothing more. I still worked, but I worked only to support my drinking. I had ideas of taking some education classes and teaching in a school of nursing but the only concrete thing I did was discuss the matter with a drunken professor of Mexican History who promised to help me. We made all kinds of plans but we were both always too hung over to do anything about them.
I started to admit that I was an alcoholic, but "a happy alcoholic." With all the millions of alcoholics in the world, what difference did one more make? If I didn't have any pressing obligations I started drinking from the moment I got up. I worked nights. My usual pattern was to drink "moderately until 6 PM when I would have to decide if I could make it to work that night or not. If I decided to work, I would have to limit myself to about two more drinks between 6 and 8 and then start with the coffee, the breath mints, etc. If I slipped and had more than those two more drinks I would have to decide if there was any way I could get in shape by 11 or call in by 8 at the latest. Then I would have to come up with a new excuse. Fortunately the hospital I work at is very lenient with attendance. Most places I would have been fired long before.
In Mexico the AA groups are very much in public view. There are large signs with the AA logo and the meeting times listed. I would frequently pass a group in my car and say, "Let's go in and see if the alcoholics can cure us," or, "one of these days I'm going to have to go see if they can cure me. But today we have beer. Maybe tomorrow I'll go to a meeting." I started telling all kinds of jokes about AA. About this time I met an alcoholic in a bar who had been in AA for a while and he tried to explain the program to me. Of course the message was a little garbled. However I was relieved that he was in worse shape than I was. I still wasn't too far gone yet!
But I had to face the fact that I wasn't even enjoying my drinking anymore. I almost always ended up in depression, self pity, and suicidal ideas. The only way I could keep friends was if I bought the bottle. Otherwise, I was pretty disagreeable company. I always ended up accusing my friends of disrespecting me and then the next day I would have to go and make peace with the same people I had offended the night before, because I couldn't drink alone. The best way to make peace was over a bottle. I suffered chronic gastritis, sexual impotence, and an occasional tremor. I decided the problem was my smoking, and I made numerous attempts to quit smoking. Then I decided that I probably wasn't eating right, so I paid more attention to my diet. Then I decided that my problems were caused by the kind of friends I chose so I made attempts to associate with a better category of drinkers. Instead of drinking with unemployed construction workers I went to bars where there were a lot of alcoholic teachers. I read books about yoga and attempted to practice it when I wasn't too drunk. I took trips to Torreón, Poza Rica, Monterrey, Victoria, and Mexico City, but I hardly saw anything of those places but the insides of the bars.
In 1994 just before the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Dec. 12) I couldn't stand the thought of passing the festival with the common drunks I usually associated with so I took a trip to Mante where I knew a respectable family. I stayed three days without taking a drop of alcohol, although it was always on my mind. I got on the bus to go back to Reynosa and decided to stop in Victoria to look for some friends. After the miracle of self control I had demonstrated in going three days without a drink I felt I deserved one or two beers. The one or two beers became one or two cases and the next morning I was on a bus for Reynosa without the possibility of curing my hangover. When I got to Reynosa at 11 AM I headed straight for a whorehouse, more for the liquor than for any desire for company, but I started talking to the only prostitute left in the bar telling her all the miseries of my existence while she told me all the miseries of hers. Then it struck me the incongruence of coming from the cathedral and the celebration of the patroness of Mexico and ending up in the whorehouse making my confession to a whore. The only solution was to go home and continue drinking. I continued drinking all that week. Then I had to sober up to go back to work. When I got home the next morning my roommate was drunker than I have ever seen anyone. Of course he invited me, but at that moment I was so disgusted I never wanted to drink again. The next day I went to my first AA meeting.
Since I got involved in AA I have completed many dreams. I got married. I went back to school to study medicine. I learned to use computers. But most importantly I found peace with God. Before I would go to church so I could feel that I was a good person and then do what I wanted the rest of the week. In AA I learned what it is to have true friendship with God.
Anonymous
Just over 5 years ago, I met a man that I fell in love with. He is tender and sweet and adventuresome and strong...everything that I needed.
Shortly after we met, his dream of spending 28 months overseas doing volunteer work came true and he prepared to move. I was terribly afraid of losing him, knowing that everything would change in more than two years, but I prepared to wish him well and say good bye.
Two days into his orientation, I received a devastating call, he would be unable to go abroad. I felt his pain, but a part of me was also relieved...I wouldn't lose him after all...but, he was going to settle in a city 9 hours from where I lived...the city where he grew up.
After two years of long distance dating and hundreds of dollars to the phone company, he asked me to marry him. I quit my job, left my friends, and left everything that wouldn't fit into my car and a small uhaul and prepared for my new life. It was going to be wonderful!
At first it was wonderful. Then, one morning, I was surprised when I took a sip of his morning orange juice to find it mixed with vodka. I started to remember some of the things I had forgotten. But, so, he drank, so did I. So did our friends. So we split a bottle of wine and I was looped and he was not...someone had to drive home!
It progressed (as the disease of alcoholism does), to frequent episodes of drinking and passing out. Often I didn't know he had been drinking until he HAD passed out. I comforted and consoled and was miserable.
He was miserable too and asked me to move out. I bought a house and started graduate school. He had found AA now, but still hadn't accepted his powerlessness over alcohol. I had moved out, although we still dated, so I certainly didn't need Al-Anon!
A year passed and nothing had changed until he showed up at my house in a blackout. I voiced my concerns to the nurse practitioner in charge of his recovery plan. He spent the next 5 days in an inpatient treatment facility and I went to my first Al-Anon meeting. That was October 1996. I went to six meetings and then the holidays arrived.
It took me four months before I returned to Al-Anon. And I am **SO** grateful that I did.
Al-Anon has changed my life. It has made me realize that I did not cause, I cannot control and I cannot cure my partners alcoholism. It made me realize that I too am sick in my behaviors, especially denial and enabling. It taught me that I have choices, and can find serenity no matter if my partner is drinking or not. It has given me the permission and the strength to take care of myself and my needs and work my OWN program of recovery that has brought me great peace and hope.
It has given me the clarity to realize that, although I still love this man very much, the relationship is not what I need. I now have my life back. And he and I have a wonderful friendship.
Linda L.
Hello everyone. I'm an alcoholic/addict and my name is Crystal. I am an LPN and I have recently celebrated 5 years sober.
There is always a fear when meeting new people--opening up and sharing. Wondering how others will react and if our stories of what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now will be similar or if what I did was much worse. There are times, even after a thorough 4th step that some shame arises as I share. But to keep it, I have to give it away. So here it is:
For me, being a nurse put me in a position to self-diagnose and self-prescribe. With over the counter medications and eventually by diversion. I could look up every little ache and pain and then decide what might help. Forgetting that I was a nurse, not a doctor.
I grew up in a family of alcoholics--father, grandfathers on both sides, stepfather and his father and brothers as well. My mother has always enjoyed Ativan and will sleep for several days during a major or minor crisis. My family was dysfunctional to say the least. It was also very violent and I learned at a very early age how to disappear, isolate and not rock the boat in any way.
I drank and smoked pot in high school and during nursing school. But my studies never suffered. I remember some of the hangovers, but I assumed that was what everyone went through after a night out. I got married at the age of 20, moved to Shreveport LA because my husband was in the Air Force, and stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base. During this time we had a son and after 5 years we moved back home to Virginia. I can see how my disease was slowly building over these years as I drank more and took a lot of OTC medications. When I could, I would persuade one of the physicians I worked with of some ailment and a get a prescription for narcotics. I never used them exactly as prescribed because I thought I knew what would work best. I thought the alcohol/medications and marijuana helped to reduce the stress of my life and help me to relax.
After my marriage fell apart, my disease escalated. I drank nightly and enjoyed (or thought I did) the fact that I could out-drink a lot of the girls I had begun to run around with. At some point the drinking began to take over and I realized I couldn't go to work after drinking. So I began to divert narcotics from where I worked. I would pop pills and eventually began using IV drugs, during the day and then drink at night. This worked for a while, until I needed more. I was beginning to feel isolated, lonely, and ashamed. I was living a secret life of abusing narcotics and drinking. There was this terrible feeling of impending doom that eventually I was going to get caught. Even during the spring and summer, I would wear long sleeve shirts or keep my lab jacket on to hide the needle tracks and bruises on my arms. This initiated more fear and anxiety, and I used and drank more. This is a vicious cycle that never ends. The anxiety closely bordered on panic. My heart would pound, my hands would be sweaty and they would tremble. I was pretty much using around the clock.
I never hurt or denied any of my patients their medications, I just took out more than necessary so I could have the extra. I was taking large doses and I'm sure I was closer to death than I ever imagined. My family had begun to pull away, I felt I was losing everything including my mind. But I could NOT stop. The search for that feeling of peace and calmness inside always eluded me. I never felt it as a child growing up in an alcoholic home and I can recall finding that feeling in the beginning of my drug use and I could never find it again. I was so obsessed, so insane that it never mattered how much liquor or dope I had, I was always afraid of running out. There never seemed to be enough. I felt like there was this empty hole inside me that I could never fill. I went to work no matter how I felt because that's where my stash came from.
Eventually, people I worked with started to notice the bizarre behavior changes, the crying jags that hit me while I was working, the number of times I disappeared from the floor and the discrepancies in our narcotics count. I knew my time was drawing near, but I was hooked and the denial of this disease is so strong and overwhelming that it's virtually impossible to stop, much less ask for help.
After working my regular 3-11 shift, my director of nurses, administrator, a state police officer and an investigator for the Board of Nursing intervened. They had concrete evidence against me for some missing narcotics. It was a relief, it was finally over. The lying, the stealing, the anxiety, the fear.....
These people that worked my intervention were wonderful. I didn't think so at the time but they saved my life. I was told to get help, that I had a disease, I was sick, but not a bad person. This eased my mind some. I was told of a group in my community called Caduceus--a group of recovering nurses, doctors, pharmacists, anyone in the healthcare field with chemical addictions
It was suggested that I to go to a long term treatment program which was directed at healthcare professionals, but I couldn't afford to go to any facility. My insurance was lost with my job. So I began to attend AA, at first because I was told it would help me to keep my nursing license and hopefully avoid jail time. Later I attended because I knew that's where I belonged. These people felt like I did inside, they knew the shame and loneliness that I felt. These people smiled and laughed and I wanted what they had. So I kept going.
The legal issue I faced was a felony charge for embezzlement of controlled substances--which I was convicted of with a 3 year sentence which was suspended and I was given 2 years probation.
There was a mandatory suspension of my nursing license because of the conviction, then it was put on 2 years probation. This probation period was to include random drug screens, a record of all the 12 step meetings I attended each week, any therapy/counseling I attended, and quarterly reports from my
employer and my sponsor.
This all happened several years ago and I am still sober and clean. I still have my nursing license but while it was on probation I had to jump through a lot of hoops to keep it. Those hoops helped to keep me sober. I am now one of those happy faces I first saw in AA and want to share this experience with others. I want to let another healthcare professionals know this is a disease, you can begin to recover. There are more of us nurses, doctors, pharmacists, etc. in recovery than most realize.
I am re-married now to a wonderful man who is also in recovery. I have my family back and a loving relationship with my son, who lives with his father. The compulsion to drink or drug has left, but that doesn't mean there are days that it's not in the back of my mind. I am an alcoholic/addict and this disease is always waiting for me. It is cunning, baffling and powerful.