WEBVTT

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[music]

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I think nurses are unsung heroes. They
do too much work for too little pay.

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They are people that are willing to go the

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extra mile.

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Hardworking, conscientious.

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That\'s a big personality
characteristic, a sense of altruism.

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[music]

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Dr. Dennings, 100. Dr. Dennings,

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100. The nurse has been a symbol of

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compassion and courage since Florence
Nightingale. Not just anyone becomes a nurse.

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In fact, studies show they are
indeed, a very special breed.

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Many are the firstborn in a family.
They are usually high achievers,

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perfectionists, with
passive personalities. And

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they tend to suffer from low self-esteem.
Often, nurses are

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children of alcoholics or come from
dysfunctional families. And it\'s no coincidence

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that 96% are women. Help giving

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is somehow seen as being very compatible
with women\'s station in society, so

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it\'s not surprising that
they would choose helping

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occupations. So that given constricted
choices and given the way

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in which women have grown up - in at
least North American society - nursing,

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teaching, uh, being secretaries, they\'re
all helping roles in one fashion or

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another.

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[music]

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Nurses are socialized
into believing that they

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care for the world. Um, to
nurse means to nurture, so

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you get people who really have a
sense of wanting to be selfless,

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of giving to others, of
doing for others and so on.

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But if you look at the people who are presently
practicing, you\'ll find a lot of people

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who got into it with the notion of
\"I\'m going to care for other people.\"

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And so you have people who tend,
perhaps, not to look at their own needs

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as much as they, as much as they should because
they\'re so busy caring for everybody else. And

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you\'ll find nurses feeling that, uh, there\'s
always more they ought to be doing.

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No matter how much they do, it\'s never quite enough. So
they\'re looking after their patients, they\'re looking

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after their families, they\'re, uh, trying to go
back to school, they\'re doing a whole lot of

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things. And they seem to
spread themselves very thin.

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Somewhere between the pressures of family
and work, the person who is the nurse can

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easily get lost.

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[music]

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Dr. Dennings, 100. Dr. Dennings, 100. Initially, the drugs and the booze
made me feel better. Inside, I felt like I way dying. I became suicidal.

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I tried to kill myself a
couple of times, all in

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secret.

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[music] During high school basically,

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I was just using, like, pot and, uh, by the end
of my high school years, I really got into

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using, um, mescaline and
acid and, uh, speed.

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Drinking, a lot. I\'d drink in
the morning, and I\'d drink

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at lunchtime. I don\'t know,
I just always had to seek,

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like, reassurance from my friends, and so
doing drugs and, like, starting smoking in

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grade 8 and starting drinking was accepted by
them, and it made me look good, and it made me

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feel good, I guess. Kathy
continued to drink and take

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drugs through both high school and nursing
school. Her marks were high, so no one,

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outside a small circle of friends,
suspected a thing. I kind of got

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good at playing my own game so that nobody would know
I had a problem. I knew I wanted to keep this part

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separate from anyone finding out about, so I would
get really good at, you know, lying and, uh,

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playing games and... a lot of lies.

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Kathy tried to straighten out when
she began nursing full-time, but the

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stress of working on the neurosurgical
floor was overwhelming. So

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at the end of a day, like a hectic day -
which oftentimes it is on a floor like

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that, where you have, uh, head injuries,
car accidents, um, stroke victims, dying

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families, uh, or dying patients and
dealing with their families, uh,

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people with brain tumors. It\'s
stressful, and then, you know,

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to get away from that, when I got home, I thought,
okay, I deserve to do something for myself

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because I\'ve taken care of these people all day.
That\'s the kind of attitude I got. Initially, for the

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first, uh, year or so, my

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performance at work was okay, but my last year was getting to the point
where I knew I couldn\'t use at work because the type of drugs I was

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starting to use my last two years
was cocaine and crack, um,

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freebasing. And that you couldn\'t do
at work. I mean, if you did some, you

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had to, you\'d be gone for the day. Your compulsion,
your desire, would be to be with the coke,

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you know? And so my sick
time, at that point,

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started getting really bad. I would be calling in
sick for a midnight shift, and I\'d go out to a party

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all night, and, uh... I was on my
third warning pretty well, when

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things kind of fell out underneath me.
Um, physically,

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my body was just deteriorating. I went down to
89 pounds because of my heavy use of cocaine

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and, and the crack. I had a lot
of health problems that I was

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aware of, and yet that I would deny, and I
remember one of my last binges being in a hotel

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room using crack and actually doubling
over on the bed, getting chest pain and

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pain down my left arm and thinking, you know, I
know what all these signs are, but, you know,

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not cluing into the fact that
this is getting out of hand.

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Um, I remember after I finally got my breath
back, picking up the pipe again and putting

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another rock on, knowing that, you know, this
might be my last one. And yet, the compulsion to

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use that drug was there, and I couldn\'t stop.
And looking around me, I think at that

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point, and seeing the people in the room had not
even noticed what was happening with me, that

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kind of clued me in to thinking, you know, there\'s a real
problem here and I\'m going to die, and nobody\'s even

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going to notice, you know.

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I\'ve been to hell. I\'m not back from
it yet, but I\'m on my way back, so...

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These women have two things
in common: they\'re nurses,

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and they\'re all recovering from addictions.

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I\'ve had to face so many
things in the last few months.

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[sil.]

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You\'ve got a pocketful of Kleenex. I know.

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And I guess one of things you think when
you stop drinking is that everything will

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be fine. Yeah. But all it
means is that you\'re facing

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everything sober. The problems are still there. And you\'re
really seeing the problem. You\'re really seeing what they

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are. Yeah, I think your story\'s
reminding me a bit of mine, too.

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Um, after I stopped drinking for - I think I spent
the first year after I stopped drinking and taking,

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uh, pills, just getting the
chemicals out of my body and, uh,

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learning to, uh, become a human
being again and not a zombie.

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And, uh, then life really
hit me with a, uh, with a

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bang, because, uh, I
discovered that my marriage

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of 27 years was not as perfect
as I thought it was. As a matter

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of fact, I was finally able to face up to the
fact that it was not perfect at all, and, uh...

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Studies show, in general, nurses
are intelligent, high achievers.

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They want to be perfect. Perfect nurses,
perfect wives, perfect mothers.

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I thought, life should be perfect. A nice little
home in the suburbs, a nice little family,

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children, and... Picket fence. Yeah, that\'s
right. And it was that way for a while.

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[music]

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I, I used alcohol to overcome
shyness, and I don\'t

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believe it caused any problem for me until
I was perhaps in my middle thirties.

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And I started to find a few situations
more stressful than, uh, than

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usual. And, uh, I took to using
alcohol on the odd occasion.

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And I used it to excess every time.
Uh, but the occasions were few and

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far between, so I didn\'t consider it
a problem at the time. A big part of

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addiction is denial. Nurses never think of
themselves as addicts, as people in need

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of care. They are the caregivers. I
think there was a whole combination of

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circumstances that started
to really, really make

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things hard for me and, uh, one of
them was that my parents became

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very ill. My father, uh,
passed away, actually,

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and I was left with the care of my mother,
and the care of my brother, who was a

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retarded person, and, uh, I was trying
to take care of the two of them in

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their home. And, uh, I was also trying to deal
with the situation of my daughter, who had,

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uh become pregnant and then
had her child, and then

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her going back to school again. There was a lot
of things that I felt I had to care for myself.

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Ironically, some of the motives that can lead
people to nursing can also make them vulnerable

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to addiction. They take on problems.
They\'re always there for others.

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And like Elizabeth, they ultimately take on too
much. There was never enough time in the day for

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Elizabeth, with all her family duties,
so she volunteered for the night shift.

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Unfortunately, I had also found I had
a problem sleeping, of course, in

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the daytime, so I discovered that it would be a good thing to
try to take a couple of Nembutals every day to try to take

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home with me so that I could sleep
when I got home. And, uh, so I

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, I found that a very, a very
good thing to know, because I

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then decided I would start taking
Nembutals from the supply we had at work,

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and I was not giving the Nembutals to the people,
the patients who should\'ve had them. I was taking

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them myself, and, uh, so my guilt increased

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because I was then beginning
to steal sleeping pills.

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And I found the situation becoming a whole - it was
become - it was really getting out of hand. I was

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spending all my time trying to hide the fact I was
taking drugs now as well as alcohol, and my whole

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time was spent trying to conceal
what was happening to me.

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Unusual work patterns can create
enormous stress. Working the night shift

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interrupts the body\'s natural rhythms,
like sleeping, and sleep deprivation has

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dire effects on your emotional health. Add the
pressures of the job, and it\'s no coincidence

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that one in twenty nurses are said to
be addicted to alcohol and other drugs.

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Like Elizabeth Sheedy, they rarely
fit our stereotype of an addict.

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It\'s so hard to determine
where I went wrong, you know?

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I was always a high achiever, and...

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Well, maybe you went wrong when you forgot

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that you needed looking after and
to be well-treated by yourself.

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It took me 12 years to see
acceptance, to accept.

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12 years. And my life the past
10 years has been in and out of

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hospitals for bulimia. I had about
four admissions for depression.

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Anything but alcoholic. I\'m an
alcoholic and a drug addict.

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I have to say that to myself many times
every day. That helps with my acceptance.

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That\'s right, that\'s right.
Acceptance, yeah.

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Acceptance of situations, acceptances
of, of your own weaknesses.

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Acceptance of other people\'s
weaknesses, as well.

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Mm-hmm. And trying to get
on with your life, I guess.

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I\'m very glad that I gave up drinking.
I\'m very glad.

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I can\'t say I\'ve been glad every day,

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because there\'ve been lots of days where I would\'ve
loved to have just sat in the corner with a bottle.

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Sure, and just shut it off. And
shut it all off and kill my

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feelings.

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Um, but I really want to get to
know who I am. I really want that.

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And I have to be sober to do that.

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[music] I first started drinking,

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I can almost tell you the exact day,
it\'s not, I can\'t really tell you that.

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My daughter was about a year and a
half old. Uh, I was in a marriage

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that was very lonely. My husband
was not home very often,

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and when he was, he was very
involved in, in his own career.

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Susan felt isolated in their country home.
At first, a few glasses

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of wine in the afternoon helped. But it wasn\'t
long before she was finishing the whole

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bottle. I used it to numb my feelings,
I think, more than anything.

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It, um... and it did that,
when I first started.

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But it always got past the point that, that
instead of numbing my feelings, any feelings

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I was having became more intense,
and my loneliness became greater.

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And then I\'d become angry because
of the way I was feeling.

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I, I thought from time to time
that I could cope with this on my

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own, and if I wanted to stop, I could stop.

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And I would stop for a day or
two, and then start back again

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because all of the feelings
and all of the reasons, um,

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and my low self-esteem is another one of the
reasons, all of those reasons still existed.

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And I had never really learned how to
deal with them and how to make things

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better. Susan\'s marriage to
her high school sweetheart

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was crumbling. Finally, her husband told the family
doctor that he thought Susan was an alcoholic.

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I remember feeling incredible
embarrassment. I was mortified

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that the secret was outside
the house now. And I

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guess, as well as being mortified, I
realized just how serious it was.

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Susan decided to quit cold turkey.
She turned to Project Turnabout,

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a counseling service available at that
time specifically for nurses with

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alcohol and drug problems. Tried
a couple of times to go to AA.

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Just absolutely hated the meetings. Awful.

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I sort of felt out of place,
like I didn\'t belong.

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And then, when I went to Project
Turnabout, and I was with my

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peers, I didn\'t feel so ashamed of being an

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alcoholic. I felt like if this can happen
to other people that are educated,

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supposedly holding down jobs,

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then that\'s, that\'s okay, you know? I was
thinking about, uh, you know, the first

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time I came, I came to Project Turnabout.
Mm-hmm. And, um, it was

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because of my supervisor, the
agency that I work for. Mm-hmm.

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And, um, she gave me the pamphlet and

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I, I decided to come.

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And, uh, I had to have a couple of
beers across the street to bolster

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my courage up somewhat. I\'m going to
Project Turnabout tomorrow, so let\'s drink

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today! Right across is

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freedom! I\'m an alcoholic, what do you

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want from me? So, a and when I came in,

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it was really, really nice. There was

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just, um, oh, I guess when you talk about

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having something lifted, it was just looking
and there were what, about five or six other

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women there and I knew that they were
nursing, in nursing. Mm-hmm. And

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there was just a, a, a tremendous release.

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Because for so long, I had thought,
I\'m the only nurse in the whole room

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that has this problem. That it would
do a thing like that. I know.

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And then, my God, it\'s just, uh, it was

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awful. It really was awful,
because whenever I went to work,

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everybody seems pretty together. I really

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believe that when we do take that step

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toward recovery and, and people know that,

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they are very supportive. And, and nurses
are very supportive of each other. Mm-hmm.

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And it\'s good to speak
up instead of keeping

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it, you know, um, not talking about it.
It\'s like everything

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else. And I\'ve learned that with myself.
Any secrets, well, what I thought were

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secrets, when you talk about them,
they\'re not so bad. You know, why am I

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keeping this? It\'s, it\'s,
it\'s only hurting me.

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[music] Whether you\'re abusing drugs or

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alcohol before taking up nursing or
whether you become addicted on the job,

00:18:55.000 --> 00:18:59.999
the results are inescapable. In the hospital
setting, people do eventually begin to

00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.999
notice. The absenteeism, the
sloppy charting, the judgment

00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:09.999
errors, and the mood swings.
Yes, she\'s confused, but she\'s

00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.999
looking a lot brighter today. Mm-hmm. I think they
had a knowledge that something was happening, but

00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:19.999
nobody, nobody was brave enough
to identify what the problem was.

00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:24.999
I thought my, my nursing colleagues were looking
at me very suspiciously, and of course I

00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:29.999
was becoming very paranoid at that point.
Alcohol will twist your thinking around.

00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:34.999
And I just became excessively paranoid and
felt that they were talking about me and that

00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.999
they were watching me, and in fact they were.
While I believe I was turning up at work in

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.999
a very questionable condition. I was crying a lot
of the times and obviously I smelled of alcohol

00:19:45.000 --> 00:19:49.999
at times. And people, uh, were
reporting me to her. But also,

00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.999
the count of the tranquilizers and sedations was
noticeably going down. I was helping myself to

00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:59.999
everything I could get my hands on.
When the situation becomes, uh,

00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:04.999
intolerable, when it looks like you\'re going to
be caught and the net starts closing in on you,

00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:09.999
you find another job. It\'s
called the geographical cure.

00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:14.999
I obtained a job at a nursing
home here, and, uh, I

00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.999
guess I overdid the taking of the
drugs and the using of the alcohol.

00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.999
And there was a head nurse under
whom I, that, for whom I was

00:20:25.000 --> 00:20:29.999
working, and she was a very conscientious
person, and, uh, she explained to me

00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:34.999
that she was going to report me to
the doctor, who was our medical

00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:39.999
director on the staff of the nursing home.
And I was approached and asked to

00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:44.999
go to a treatment center for help.
Everybody in the whole family was in

00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.999
total denial of the whole situation, and this is very
typical of alcoholic families. The entire family

00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.999
will go into denial. And, uh,
my husband was in denial, and

00:20:55.000 --> 00:20:59.999
as a result, my children just thought, well,
Mom was a bit sick, but this is not really

00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:04.999
a problem. Um, we were all too ashamed to
talk about it. Nobody discussed the problem

00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:09.999
openly. Nobody. And, uh, the
children learned well from us.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:14.999
They took their cues from two professionals, don\'t
forget. Neither of us wanted to give up our usage,

00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:19.999
so we weren\'t about to
talk about it openly.

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:24.999
I think I came out of the treatment center and it didn\'t
take me long before we, - my husband and I, both decided

00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:29.999
it would be fine for me to have a drink on
a Saturday evening, and enjoy our Saturday

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.999
evening together. And the two of us were drinking
buddies. The two of us would finish off the bottle

00:21:35.000 --> 00:21:39.999
of scotch, and usually it meant two bottles
of scotch before the night was out.

00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:44.999
Going home to an alcoholic made
recovery pretty well impossible.

00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:49.999
The binges quickly became more frequent. Feeling
more guilt and depression, Elizabeth again turned to

00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:54.999
prescription drugs. Again, she was
caught in a cycle. But finally, the

00:21:55.000 --> 00:21:59.999
last job, it was the one that caught me.
That was two years ago, and I

00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.999
arrived at work in the morning and I had had a
very bad night the night before, and I arrived

00:22:05.000 --> 00:22:09.999
at work not feeling well at all. And I was
dispensing medication, so I just went

00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:14.999
right into the medication cupboard and
took a couple of sleeping pills because I

00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:19.999
felt extremely tense. And, uh, I was
suffering withdrawal symptoms at the time

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:24.999
from stopping alcohol the
night before, and I was

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:29.999
observed by residents and staff to be staggering
down the hall. I just couldn\'t walk even,

00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:34.999
I was so poisoned. So I was pulled
over to the side, and, uh, I

00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:39.999
was asked to go home. I was sent home
in a taxi, and I was told that my job

00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:44.999
was over there. Something finally clicked
in my head. I thought, this time, it\'s

00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.999
up. This time, I\'m in real trouble,
and this time, I need help.

00:22:50.000 --> 00:22:54.999
I look back, and I know what
I, what happened to me.

00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.999
It won\'t go away. It never will
go away, but, but I know I\'m also

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:04.999
recovering, and that\'s good. That\'s
a good feeling. My self-esteem is

00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:09.999
coming up and up, very gradually.
It\'s actually reaching a

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:14.999
point that I never had in self-esteem before.
I never felt this good when I was growing

00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:19.999
up. Now I feel like a different
person, and it\'s like

00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.999
life has started all over again for me. So if it
keeps on this way, it\'s going to be, life is going

00:23:25.000 --> 00:23:29.999
to be wonderful. It is now.

00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:34.999
Because Susan is what\'s called
a \"low-level alcoholic,\"

00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:39.999
she didn\'t need to go to a treatment
center. The support groups were her

00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:44.999
lifeline. He was great. And
he\'s not an awful guy.

00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:49.999
But I walked in his shadow for so long that

00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.999
the only... But trying to recover from alcoholism
and a broken marriage was too much to handle.

00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:59.999
Susan checked herself into a psychiatric ward
twice. The only thing that was good about you

00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.999
was that you were with him. That I was with
him, and he had chosen me. And that was

00:24:05.000 --> 00:24:09.999
the only thing that was
really any good about me.

00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:14.999
But I\'m finding out there are other
things that are good about me.

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:19.999
I had been in hospital in May for a
couple of days. Did not stay because I am

00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.999
a healthcare professional, and to be admitted
to a psychiatric floor is, uh, that\'s

00:24:25.000 --> 00:24:29.999
just not what you do. You should be able to take care of yourself
because you\'re a nurse. And you know all the things you should be

00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:34.999
doing, and why aren\'t you doing them?
So I only stayed a couple of days.

00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:39.999
I\'m very glad this time - I was in for three
weeks - and I\'m very glad that I\'ve taken

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:44.999
the time and interestingly, on that psychiatric
floor, there were four nurses as patients while I was

00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:49.999
there. So maybe some other people are
starting to smarten up, as well, and

00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:54.999
taking the time. Susan coped alone.
But Kathy\'s family, her

00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
brother and sisters all nurses, quickly rallied
around. The first thing they did was enlist the

00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:04.999
hospital\'s help. The administrators at the Hotel-Dieu
Hospital in Windsor had suspected something

00:25:05.000 --> 00:25:09.999
was wrong. They were relieved that Kathy
was finally admitting she needed help.

00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:14.999
They said they would stay by me, you know, as
regards to sick time and that, you know, or

00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:19.999
sick leave. Um, that everything would be kept confidential,
which was important to me at that point because

00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:24.999
I had no self-worth or anything. I thought, you
know, what\'s so-and-so going to think or, you know,

00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:29.999
what\'s everybody going to say or, like, the gossip around
the hospital. Those are all things that worried me at

00:25:30.000 --> 00:25:34.999
that point. And, uh, they were just very,
very professional, very confidential

00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:39.999
about the whole issue. What they all thought
would be one month of recovery turned

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.999
into eight months of counseling and treatment
in Toronto, followed with a support

00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:49.999
group in Windsor. Again,
they were very supportive.

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
I drew up a contract with my health, health
professional group in Toronto as far as

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
what my needs were. When I came back to
work, I required a three-month period of

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
being on the day shift. A, a
slight, um, like a week of

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
orientation. That I would not be administering
any narcotics for the first three months.

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
That they could ask me for a urine sample at any
time. I would go for a weekly urine sample, and

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
then at any time if they suspected
because of my behavior or mood swings or

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
anything at work, they could
come up to me at any time, uh,

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
certain people, that is, like my head nurse, or the
supervisor. And, uh, so these were all kind of

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
safeguards for me. Nurses with drugs and alcohol
problems don\'t always get this kind of support.

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
But when they do, it pays off for everyone.
I enjoy my job more than I ever

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
have in my life. And, uh,
that\'s another thing, I mean,

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
the hospital put out for me for eight, eight months,
but they\'ve gotten an employee back, you know, who

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
has, like, hardly any sick time now.
I mean, I don\'t dare call in sick.

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
They\'ve gotten somebody who\'s
really, really enjoys their job.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
Uh, you know, I wouldn\'t get out of it now.

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
The day Elizabeth was fired, she was also reported
to the College of Nurses. Her nursing license

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
was suspended and she was told to get a
lawyer. A hearing would be held later to

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
discuss whether or not to revoke her license completely.
Walking into the hearing at the College of Nurses

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
was terrifying. I thought I was
going to die. It looked like it,

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:29.999
it was a whole table full of people.
I had obtained a very good lawyer,

00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.999
a wonderful woman who said to me, \"Now, you won\'t
be asked to talk. There\'s nothing to this,

00:27:35.000 --> 00:27:39.999
believe me. It\'ll just be a few people sitting around
with notes. And you\'ll be fine. I will do all the

00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:44.999
talking, and you will have to just sit there.\"
So I walked into this room, and there

00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:49.999
must\'ve been 20 people sitting around this huge,
round table. It looked like the United Nations

00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.999
to me. And far from not having to talk,
every one of those people asked me

00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:59.999
a question. And each one of them
questioned me for about three minutes.

00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:04.999
And I, it was very, very intimidating.
But they were all genuine,

00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:09.999
sincere people who, who really
wanted to help me, and by the time I

00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.999
finished, I felt they were all very
empathetic. I was really impressed.

00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:19.999
Really impressed. At first,
I hated them for what they

00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:24.999
were doing to me. Now, I, U have a different
attitude. I feel like, uh, we\'re both

00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.999
sharing my recovery. Clearly, from
these case histories, no one -

00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:34.999
not employers or employees - want
to talk about substance abuse.

00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:39.999
Yet when the problem is finally exposed, there\'s a
sigh of relief. Suddenly everyone wants to talk,

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:44.999
and the healing process begins. When the
detection and intervention is not too late,

00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:49.999
the hospital gets back a good nurse,
and the nurse gets back her life.

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:54.999
I think many modern organizations still

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
like to blame the victims, and they
don\'t see the roots of the problem

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
in the way in which work is
organized and designed. And yet, if

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
you look at where the pressures come from, the
pressures are not so much that you\'ve got a

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
vulnerable individual, but you\'ve got a
work situation with is really impossible

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
for an average person with a huge set
of demands on them to constantly, uh,

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
respond to effectively. It often takes a
group of nurses to assist a colleague

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:29.999
with her problem because of that fact
the denial is so strong. And I think

00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:34.999
this is where the professional nursing
associations have been so helpful in that those

00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:39.999
colleagues need a place to go. They need to know, how do we get
organized? How do we do this? It\'s not just something you can sort of

00:29:40.000 --> 00:29:44.999
pull out of a hat and say, well, we\'re going to
tell Sally today that she\'s a drunk and we don\'t

00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:49.999
want her working here any longer. You have to
have some really organized plan of providing

00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:54.999
the right kind of assistance, and
I think that each individual

00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.999
professional association across the country
needs to have somebody in their office

00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.999
that people can talk to about substance abuse
problems. Even if it\'s only a straight

00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:09.999
referral to another counselor in the
town, uh, there needs to be some network

00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:14.999
within nursing, - within the nursing
profession to recognize this as a problem

00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:19.999
and to deal with it. I think
it\'s really interesting that

00:30:20.000 --> 00:30:24.999
as healthcare professionals, we have to
deal with people who have addictions.

00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:29.999
But generally, as a whole,

00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.999
we\'re so much less likely to
be accepting of someone just

00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:39.999
like ourselves, who is a healthcare
professional and has an addiction.

00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:44.999
And I think that if we ever hope to help anybody out there
that we better start in our own homes and in our own

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.999
workplaces, and start to recognize that

00:30:50.000 --> 00:30:54.999
we succumb just as easily to anyone else.
That we have all the stresses and, and

00:30:55.000 --> 00:30:59.999
responsibilities, and maybe even more
because we deal in life and death.

00:31:00.000 --> 00:31:04.999
We have all those same responsibilities and stresses
that, that everyone else that falls into addiction has.

00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:09.999
And if the workplaces, hospitals,

00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:14.999
or, or the types of places I
work, if they can be more

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:19.999
open about it and let people
know that, that it\'s okay.

00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:24.999
That they support you through your recovery. That you\'re
not going to lose your job if they find out that you\'re

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:29.999
an alcoholic or a drug addict or that
type of thing. But that if you truly

00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:34.999
commit yourself to the recovery
process, that they will support

00:31:35.000 --> 00:31:39.999
you and that your job is still waiting
there for you when you come back.

00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:44.999
We all get such identities from our jobs.
They make us feel like whole people,

00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:49.999
that I think that if that kind of support can
be there, that\'s probably the biggest step

00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:54.999
that the health profession can make.

00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:00.000
[music]