Cindy West
The Gadsden Times

Nursing student faces consequences of addiction

"Mary" is full of life at 28 years old, but four years ago she was full of death.

Years of intravenous drug use with dirty needles had cause cellulitis, an infection, in her arm. She was so high on crystal methamphetamine that she didn't care about the condition of her body.
She carried 78 pounds on a frame that looks slim with 125.

When she eventually got treatment, doctors wanted to amputate her arm. She talked them out of it. Now instead of wearing a stub, she wears a scar to show where the doctors cut open her arm to let the infection drain.

When she got out of the hospital, she went back to her drug of choice - back to dirty needles.
Now recovering from her addiction, Mary is working in the health care industry and studying to be a nurse. She doesn't want her real name used because she is afraid it will hurt her career.
Mary's situation isn't unique, however.

Genell Lee, executive officer for the Alabama Board of Nursing, said the board currently monitors 350 nurses, and about 300 of those are because of drug and alcohol addiction.

Nurses with addictions are monitored for five years, which includes random drugs screens and attendance at 12-step meetings. "We used to monitor for three years, but found some nurses would relapse soon after monitoring ended," Lee said. "The nurses asked that we extend that period to five years."

The ones prone to relapse are the ones who quit working on their recovery process. Because of the monitoring, the board can tell when a nurse's recovery behavior starts to change - he stops attending 12-step meetings, for instance -- and intervene to help that nurse stay in the recovery process.

After returning to work, a nurse won't be allowed to dispense narcotics for at least six months.
Sharon Douglas has been recovering from alcohol addiction for 16 years. She understands Mary's fears and those of other nurses who don't want to tell their stories in public, but said she has been clean for so long it doesn't bother her to talk about it.

Douglas, a registered nurse, lives in Cullman and works for the UAB Addiction Recovery Program in Birmingham. She also teaches classes on the subject of addiction among nurses.

"I can just speak for UAB, but UAB hires recovering nurses all the time," Douglas said. An employer can feel comfortable hiring a recovering nurse because he knows that nurse is being monitored by the state nursing board and is subject to random drug tests, she said.

"People who feel they shouldn't hire recovering addicts or alcoholics are people who have drug or alcohol issues in their own lives that they haven't dealt with or who don't have the facts," Douglas said.

When she applies for her nursing license, Mary will have to answer questions about any criminal trouble. "If she lies about it and they find out, she will be in serious trouble," Douglas said.
"Mary," like many addicts, became acquainted with trouble at an early age. Born in Marshall County, she was 12 or 13 years old and living in Etowah County the first time she tried alcohol and marijuana. Her parents had divorced, and her mother was working seven days a week. "I was left at home (alone) starting when I was, like, 11," Mary said. "When she started dating, I was left alone at night."

She found some older friends to hang out with and did drugs with them. "It was kind of a fitting-in thing to begin with," she said. In high school she occasionally tried cocaine and LSD, but drugs were pretty much a weekend thing until she was 19, when she tried crystal methamphetamine for the first time.

"The first time I did meth I loved it," she said. "I thought, 'This is so much fun.' I had all this energy; I thought I was smarter. It made me so happy. I never thought in the first couple of months that it would take everything from me, that I'd give everything to it."

Drug arrests brought Mary into court-ordered treatment. She has been clean for nine months. It took a total of five outpatient and seven inpatient drug rehab programs to get her to this point.
Mary loves her job in the health-care industry in Blount County. "It's the first job I've ever had," she said. "When you're on that meth, you're not gonna work. It takes up too much of your using time. And you're so out of it, you're not going to go to work."
Like many recovering substance abusers, Mary depends on support to stay clean. She attends 12-step meetings five days a week as part of her recovery process. "I pray a lot and work the steps," she said.

Douglas said that nurses have a better-than-average chance of staying clean because they have so much at stake -- their nursing license -- if they relapse. She believes that Mary has a good chance of finding a job in spite of her addiction because of a shortage of nurses.

"A study done in the last few years showed that the general population believes nurses need to have a second chance if they stay clean," Douglas said.