I was a nurse in a busy emergency room and then became a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. My practice was at a large metropolitan hospital, a Level I trauma center and a Level III OB center, in the midwest for 8 years. My addiction to opioids was a result of chronic pain associated with spondylolisthesis, a spinal deformity. After having successful back surgery, my pain was under control, but I struggled with my addiction and attempts to achieve recovery. After several relapses and 2 admissions for treatment of my disease of addiction, I have remained abstinent and in recovery for over 14 years. The 12 Steps have been an integral part of achieving and maintaining my recovery. The experience, strength, and hope shared in the fellowship of 12 Step recovery groups has been a major reason I've weathered many a storm in my personal and profesional life. It became clear to me that continuing to practice anesthesia would be a risky proposition both for my recovery and my life. Having the 12 Steps to help me work through these difficult times and decisions was quite literally a God send.
Today, I am the Chair of the Peer Assistance Committee and Senior Peer Advisor for the Ohio State Association of Nurse Anesthetists. I recently founded Peer Advocacy for Impaired Nurses, LLC to assist nurses struggling with substance abuse and chemical dependence.
Even though addiction has been accepted as a disease by most major health care organizations, the individual practitioners still lack the knowledge gained through research over the past 30 years.
Doctors and nurses aren't immune to this disease, yet many clinicians are lost when they or a colleague begin to struggle with substance abuse and addiction. It has become my mission to change that scenario. I firmly believe if doctors and nurses become educated about the biology of this disease process, they will be able to not only assist their colleagues, but also improve the care provided for every patient they come in contact with during their practice. Substance abuse and chemical dependence are major public health problems. They are affecting our children at younger ages, and they create a huge burden on our health care system and society at large. We MUST change the way we approach this disease in order to effectively treat addiction and return these individuals to a healthy, productive life.
I offer several services including:
Addiction is a chronic, progressive, ultimately fatal disease of the brain. It is determined by genetics, the environment, and personal coping mechanisms developed through life experiences. But something that seems to get lost when discussing this disease is that it can be treated successfully. Long term remission is not only possible, it is to be expected IF we approach it in the same way medicine has approached other chronic, progressive, potentially fatal disease like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. The problem I see today is we DON'T approach this disease the way we do others.
With cancer, diabetes and other diseases, early recognition of the signs and symptoms combined with early and appropriate treatments, many of these once lethal diseases can be successfully stopped, many times reversed, and long term remission and a full life can be enjoyed.
With addiction (which includes alcoholism), we don't believe treatment will succeed. We believe the hogwash that we must wait until the addict hits some mysterious "bottom" and actually wants to recover. When in reality, an addict isn't really going to make that decision on their own precisely because they have the DISEASE called addiction. Addiction by it's very nature renders the addict incapable of making appropriate decisions regarding their need for treatment.
What I have discovered over my 19 years of dealing with my own addiction, the last 14 in continuous recovery, is I loved my family and really didn't want to hurt them, but when I tried to quit on my own I couldn't. It took 2 brushes with death for me to finally enter treatment. It took me several relapses and the loss of my career as a nurse anesthetist for me to finally "get it".
Today, my mission is to bring what science has discovered regarding the disease and it's effects on the human brain and make it understandable for those without a background in science or medicine. A focus of my efforts has been on educating nurses about the disease and how to intervene as early as possible in order to protect the patients as well as assist the impaired nurse the proper treatment BEFORE they injure a patient or themselves. I also want to help them prevent the damage to their families, and to possibly save their career as well. There is a nursing shortage that is getting worse, and the nursing profession is losing some of it's best and brightest practitioners. I firmly believe a recovering nurse, with a strong recovery program and support from their colleagues, can provide exceptional care to their patients because of their experience of dealing with a potentially fatal illness.
When recovering individuals reach out to another addict whose disease is active we call that sharing our experience, strength and hope. It's one of the best tools in our recovery program because we not only help the addict get clean and sober, we also strengthen our own recovery.
Left untreated, addiction will always end in death. An unnecessary death. This disease IS treatable. Long term recovery IS possible if.......IF we intervene early and get them into an evidence based treatment program.
Addicts aren't bad people trying to become good. We have a chronic, progressive illness and we're trying to become well.
Addiction can be successfully treated with long term remission (recovery) as a reasonable expectation. But this will only happen when we stop using the "3 Ms" (Myth, Misbelief, and Misunderstanding), as the way to approach this disease.
Alcoholism IS addiction. The chemical just happens to be alcohol which can be legally obtained. Alcoholism is just as lethal as addiction to cocaine, methamphetamine or heroin. Thinking it's less dangerous only allows the disease to progress, making treatment more difficult.
Treating an impaired nurse (or anyone with this disease) is difficult, but not impossible. The choices for acting are varied. The only choice that is completely wrong is to do nothing. do nothing.
Jack Stem, CEO
Peer Advocacy for Impaired Nurses, LLC
http://www.peeradvocacyforimpairednurses.com
Cincinnati, Ohio 45230
513-833-4584
jack@jackstem.com