A Pharmacist’s Journey Through Addiction, Recovery & Self-Discovery

In this deeply personal episode of Success in Doses, I sit down with pharmacist, advocate, and healthcare leader Jerilyn Arneson for one of the most honest conversations we've ever had on the podcast.

Jerilyn shares her journey through chronic pain, prescription medication dependence, substance use disorder, mental health challenges, and the difficult decision to seek treatment and pursue sobriety. What began as treatment for a legitimate medical condition evolved into a decades-long struggle hidden behind a successful career, leadership roles, and professional accomplishments. 

Together, we discuss addiction, bipolar disorder, grief, perfectionism, recovery, stigma in healthcare, and why choosing yourself may be the hardest and most important decision you'll ever make. 

This conversation is for healthcare professionals, patients, family members, and anyone who has ever struggled silently while appearing successful on the outside.

If you're looking for a story about courage, honesty, healing, and hope, this episode is for you.

Thank you for supporting the show. Follow @successindosespod

career advancement, negotiation skills, pharmacists, personal development, confidence, asking for what you want, mindset shifts, professional growth, self-advocacy, boldness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Success in Doses. I'm your host, Saleh. This podcast is about the real journeys behind meaningful careers, the pivots, the risks, the moments of doubt, and the lessons that shape who we become. Each episode, I sit down with people who are building impactful lives and careers, and we break down the experiences that help them get there. Because success rarely happens overnight, it happens in doses. Let's dive in on becoming on purpose. Good morning, everybody. To say that I am excited to have the conversation I'm going to have today is a gross understatement. Because the person I am talking to this morning is literally one of my pharmacy superheroes. As you get to listen to this episode today, I hope that you are listening with an open heart, an open mind, and a perspective of not just grace, but of learning. Because I think what you're going to learn today or what you're going to hear today will change your perspective on how you see people that you talk to and interact with every day, whether or not you are aware or unaware of what their realities are. To that end, this season is about becoming on purpose. This episode particularly focuses on choosing the hard path to become, who you're meant to be and who you are making a decision to be. It will be centered on the courage it takes to choose a different path, especially when that path requires you to let go of either habits, environments, or identities that no longer serve you. It's not going to be a surface-level conversation about success. It's about ownership, identity, and the quiet and consistent choices that transform the life of any individual over time. And I am so excited to have you. Welcome to the show, Gerilyn. Thank you. You make me tear up. Really? My gosh. I'm I I mean every word of it because I think that before like I was exposed to you on LinkedIn, I had no idea that like you could be so profoundly impacted by someone's energy and never have met them. And and it's a it's it's a place of real admiration and um respect. And today, you saying yes to be here to come share your story here on this platform, I could never express how much it means to me because I think everybody listening is gonna learn in a second about your journey. And so I'd like us to start right there because I intentionally didn't read an intro for you, because I think it's important for them to hear directly from you about what you want them to know about who you are. And we'll start right there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah, I think it's always been important for me to talk with sincerity and to not hold back or whitewash things as politically correct, you know, like to make people uncomfortable purposely, like on LinkedIn with my advocacy work. Like, hey, does anybody know what's going on around here? Um, you know, it's like there's a lot of a lot of lip service about I'm here for the patients. And it's what are you doing? Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, so it was a little hard for me to talk about this at first, but I had a pretty bad prescription drug habit. And I went to rehab last February, and so I've been sober a little bit over a year. My God has been super exciting and almost kind of unbelievable because my the last 20 years of my life has been so habitual, you know, and like I just was a liar. I was a liar, and you know, that was really hard to accept.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

But I think um it started with chronic pain because when I was 27 and in the air force, I fractured my back with and I had a spondylolithesis, and I had to get a um laminectomy done, and then four months later had to have a three-level lumbar fusion. And that I felt like I had gotten hit by a MAC truck, and the neurosur surgeon who did it just wrote one prescription for Percocet and bike it in after another. I mean, I was I started eating like probably 12 to 16 tablets a day. I just couldn't keep the pain under control. And then I moved to Washington State. I got out of the Air Force, moved to Washington State to get married to my ex-husband, and I went to a pain management doctor, and he actually put me on methadone as well as like a bunch of other like Topamax and Cymbalta, I think. Yeah, it was Cymbalta and Topamax. So, you know, those things helped, and I was able to keep my methadone dose to five milligrams three times a day, but I'm not gonna lie, because I did I started to abuse it, and it was because my marriage was not going very well. It was like I'd gotten out of the air force for this guy, yeah, and moved all the way up there, and then things weren't as I expected them to be.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

And so I used it a lot to kind of like get through certain situations and just yeah, make it easier for me to cope. So I think that was the transition. But then I moved to Virginia and I went to a physiatrist and I got a spinal cord stimulator implanted.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

And I was able to get off of the methadone that way. However, then I this was yeah, 2000. So I went to work in a pharmacy for the Air Force as a civilian, and there was a lot of tramadol that me. And to be completely honest, I was stealing tramadol right and left. And I did that until probably 2014, I think, when the tramadol then became a controlled substance. And so that to put a stop to that. And so then I was working at a hospital pharmacy, and you know, it was it was very fast-paced and strenuous, and there was a pharmacy technician who was like very vocal about her being on Adderall. And so I asked her, I just asked her for one, and I took one and I was like, holy cow, this is like a game changer, you know? And I went to then I went to a psychiatric nurse practitioner, which I think I've said in the past to me is the most empathetic member of the healthcare team, provider and nurse. Yeah. And so I really played on her emotion, and I just I think I became an expert in how to lie because I and how to be a um a good patient at the pharmacy so that nobody affected me. You know, I knew don't jump pharmacies, don't go to multiple pharmacies, don't do early refills. Yeah you know, that kind of stuff. And you know, even if you have a way where you're you're not refilling early doesn't mean you can't abuse it. Like I could use it one day and then I could like kind of starve myself from it for another day or two. And then also I'll just say I have bipolar two disorder. So with that, I was diagnosed in 2012. And when you have bipolar two, people are the psychiatric community is so fearful of you going into mania or hypomania that they just throw all sorts of benzos at you. Yeah, and I was just like eating it up, you know. And that was another way for me to cope with my bad marriage. And then the last thing, oh, I probably should have talked about this first. I started everything with ambient. Ambient is by far my favorite drug in the world. Wow. Everybody thinks you can't abuse Ambient. Yeah. You don't have to deal with anything in life when you're on Ambient, and you can absolutely take it and just stay up, and then you're just kind of like in this. I guess like if you were to take like verset or something, it's right non-conscious way of existing. And so that was actually in 2003 when I was still in the Air Force and it had just come out, and one of the oncologists would just write constantly for it. So that's really okay. So then um, so that was the benzos, and then when I moved to Washington State, um, I was referred to an pain management and addiction specialist. And he actually talked to me about having opioid use disorder because I was like so depressed and just felt sluggish and whatever. Couldn't think clearly. And so he again started me on methadone, but a very high dose, it was like six milligrams.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

And so, but to be honest, you know, what I tell everybody is without opioids, you have this huge dopamine deficiency, and you you cannot, it's so hard to function without it, you know, because you're just so used to it. And so then when you have methadone, then it is like now you're equal, you know, now everything is level. And so I started on that, but then I kept finding reasons to escalate it. And he continued, he's an addiction specialist that continued my benzos, my ambient, and my vibants. Now looks back thinking that this was a way to hook me as a patient.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Wow, that's interesting because I'm thinking the addiction specialist's arrival in your journey would have been the biggest corner you turned, and they would have immediately gone after the benzos first. Like right away, it would have been this is the plan, and this is the group that has got to come off first, and we'll work our way. And so it's super interesting to learn that that wasn't your experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

You know, there are addiction specialists who were known to, you know, I was a cash paying patient, and that was just because he didn't accept my insurance. Gotcha. So I'm like, nah, I was a pharmacist, I was a reliable cash paying patient. Absolutely. Since I've moved to St. Louis and I don't have him anymore, you know, it's it's good because even after rehab, he went, he started me back on methadone again. So that time or this time I had I had I just took it as prescribed. I didn't, but um, and then I tried to switch to Suboxone four times, and each time I got horrible mouth sores, it did not control the chronic pain because if you think about it, methadone's a full agonist. It's a partial agonist. So when you make that switch, the withdrawal symptoms are awful, and there's no way you're ever gonna control your pain with it. You're always gonna have some pain you have to live with. So yeah, that's but now I'm off benzos, I'm off ambient, I'm off by methadone, and then I just switched to suboxone again this week, but they switched me to subsolve, which you know, it does not cause the mouth.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Mouth sores, yeah. First of all, I am I am really happy to hear that you are a year plus out since the journey of recovery began for you. That makes me really, really happy. And I'm so proud of you. And I know it's just it's a it's an incredibly difficult thing. And I think for me, until I started working in corrections and seeing what substance use disorder as a whole functional area can do to people and do to lives, right? I never really think I fully appreciated even when people say it's a chronic disease. I'm like, okay, sure, it's a chronic, okay, sure. Because it's kind of like that's the stigma around it and how you grow up is people are making a choice to use something. But in in your situation, after everything you just described, you had a legitimate medical indication and something traumatic that you went through that you needed medication. And the thing that always I think is a reality check when this conversation is please note that everything she just talked about were all prescription medications.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah, I was never, I never went three. I never, but I will say when my brother was so my first of all, my dad was an alcoholic and he was in and out of rehab 15 times by the time I turned 18, maybe 12. And when he probably when I was like in eighth grade, I would be like, why doesn't he just quit? I don't, you know, I I don't understand why he keeps doing this to himself. I totally did not buy the whole like addiction is a disease, you know. So I even still struggle with that, but I think maybe I saw it a little differently because the same thing happened to my brother, he had the same back injury as me and ended up being like a genetic thing. Oh wow, but nobody would do the surgery on him, and they started him on oxycontin when he was like 22. Wow. And so he had probably that same addiction for what was it almost 20 years, I think. Yeah, almost 20 years, and then but he was going to the streets because like in 2000 and I don't know what it was, 2000, so he was cut off, like the pendulum swung on chronic pain in at some point, and he was a victim of that. They would not even give him tramadol for his back pain, they would do facet injections and whatever, but they would not give him anything else. And so naturally he went to the streets and he bought, you know, um, opioids, adderall, uh yeah, opioids, adderall, benzos. I won't when was it 2018? I was I was working full-time as the pharmacy ops manager of five infusion centers. So I was a very functional addict, first of all. I didn't make a ton of errors, I wasn't ever reported to the board of pharmacy. You know, nobody knew what was going on with me. I didn't share it with anybody, nobody. And so in 2018 is like when I started my advocacy work with patient assistant programs, and I was up writing appeal letters till like 2 a.m. And so I could not, I started to not be able to make my supply last until my next refill. So I would have my brother send me stuff to supplement it. And then my brother ended up, it wasn't an overdose, it was a fentanyl poisoning. So he was getting this this weird, like I find it weird oxycodone immediate release, 30 milligrams.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Because you don't really see in a common denomination of kept.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

And so I was like, John, like be careful with that because that is a weird, that's a weird trend to have. And then to find out that, and I found this out through looking through his cell phone after he died, that uh he had gone to a different dealer. And it was so sad to read that he had driven like almost an hour across town in Denver to get a half, one half of an oxycodone IR30. And it was that that was laced with fentanyl, and he died from that.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Oh, Gerald, I'm so sorry about your loss.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Yeah. So that was that was really, I took that really, really hard. Really hard. Yeah, I can't imagine. And even that at that time was not enough for me to be like, I need to clean up my acting. I think if anything, my abuse got worse. And that was the actually died on my birthday in 2020. Oh, Gerilyn. So every year on my birthday is a constant reminder.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Reminder. I am so sorry that you have to live with that, but I have a feeling that he is incredibly proud of you and where you are right now because I can't I cannot imagine the type of courage and strength and fortitude that it takes to first of all decide that you are going to get help and then continue on that journey of committing every single day. Like when you talk to anyone, they tell you it's a daily thing. Oh, it is. Talk to us about like what that's like. I think for people that have zero experience living with anything chronic, they don't understand. I think when you explain that like it's present the moment I open my eyes, I know that that like my body is different, uh, my mind is different. Talk to us about like what that's like for you. The decision of choosing sobriety every single day.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

So, first, I want to say that 60% of bipolar two patients have a coexisting substance use disorder. That's so we really use it to regulate our moods. You know, you have some really bad um depression, even if you're controlled on medication, you still will uh eventually hit some sort of dip. And so, you know, I treated that with a lot of vivance and Adderall. And um, so I think the other thing too is when you have bipolar two, there's a lot of suicidal ideations that are constant, you know, constant, that you're constantly battling. And so I think it was, yeah, so it was 2025, like right before I went to rehab, I was really struggling with that. And I made a couple of attempts that, you know, trying to take more than what was prescribed. And it, you know, it surprised me how high my tolerance was. But I think I got to a point where I was like, I can't do this to my family after what happened to my brother. So I have been thinking about going to rehab for a while, and it was just like one day during the week, I just was I just looked up rehabs in California for some reason. I came across the rehab I went to and I called and I got the intake coordinator. I didn't expect I just expected to get some information about it and think about it. These intake coordinator coordinators are so good at you and um, you know, telling you how good life can be. It doesn't have to be like this. And then they're calling you the whole time when you're so that's the other thing is I booked my own flight, drove myself to the airport. You did. Drove myself to the area. So nobody had to force me to go. And they call you the whole way, like, where are you at? Are you still coming? You know, until you get there. And so the rehab was was really great. I can't complain about any of it. But so I was there for weeks. When I went there, I won't say that I was all that like into it. Thing that happens gradually as you're there. And I think it's also the community. Like I'm with a group of people who understand exactly what I'm dealing with, you know. And there's no other pharmacist there, but there was like a lawyer and a nurse and you know, some other professionals who also, well, a lot of them struggled with alcohol.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Prescription drugs. So yeah, it was a really, really tough decision, but I just was at the end of my rope. I was just like, I cannot, I cannot imagine doing this for like another year, five, ten years. I was tired of being a liar. That was a big part of it.

unknown 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

I just liar.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Because you're lying to absolutely everybody.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

And you're holding it in and keeping it secret. You know, I think being a pharmacist is really tough. But, you know, they say 10 to 15% of pharmacists have a substance use disorder. And I think that's grossly underreported.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

I think so too, Gerilyn. I think so too. I think that the impact that being in healthcare can have on your health and the various ways people seek to cope with those pressures. I think that it really does deserve a little bit of interrogation to understand the extent of how much people are giving in order to be able to show up for their patients every day. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

Yeah. I mean, my use definitely escalated in phases, but I would say, you know, I started in 2014 dabbling in Adderall and whatnot. And then in 2016, I became the pick at that oncology pharmacy. And then in 2018, I became the pharmacy ops manager for all those infusion centers. It escalated like my stimulant use was out of control. Like I don't even know how I didn't have a hypertensive crisis with this idea. And so when you do that, now you need something to come back down.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

That's right. And I'm like, I'm like, Gerald, did you sleep?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

And only with the help of a lot of clonazepam and whatever my brother supplemented me with, and then a lot of an ambient. I had the 10 milligram or the 12.5 milligram tab. I could take four or five of those.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Really?

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah. I could take easily could take four or five of those. I could take like eight milligrams of clonazepam. I mean my tolerance is just insane. Just insane.

SPEAKER_03 25:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

But yeah, I mean, I think it's tough to choose yourself. I chose myself over my career.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Can we talk about that for a second? Because I think that for a person listening to this thinking, how could you put your entire career at risk like this? How could you do that? Like, how could you make such a reckless decision for over 20 years? You are obviously succeeding. You're ascending your PIC, your manager, you're you're having an excellent career, and you are in engaging in this other thing that could jeopardize that. Like, how could you do that? And I think I I'd like you to really talk about the self component of this and how career versus self, like, what was that battle, if at all, like for you?

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah. It was definitely a battle. And I felt like the drug use escalated as my responsibilities escalated. It was harder and harder for me to keep up with the workload. And also to, you know, it's I know it sounds odd, but the more drugs I took, the more what I considered normal that I could act.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

You know, like especially the stimulants. I mean, those were just a key part of, you know, of my daily regimen. And so, but I think it's hard because you really are choosing your career because you don't want anybody to know. At that time, I did not consider myself an addict.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Right? Yeah. Yeah. Cause there's that. I think there's that too. Even though the choices and the decisions you're making and the reasons you're making them probably fit the definition of having substance use disorder years ago. But you probably mentally were not there.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

No. I I was not like I've never really been in tune with my body because I've been an athlete since I was like nine years old. And so everything was focused towards keeping me playing whatever sport I was in. And you know, that sometimes that meant, you know, taking, you know, opioids or whatever from the pain of all of that. But, you know, it just, yeah, I didn't consider myself to be an addict until I decided to go to rehab.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Wow. So even as you are taking charge and saying, I want to change, you're still not really defining yourself as an addict. That's it's the definition of denial. That's so profound. That's really profound, I think, because you're looking up resources, which means that you're realizing you want the help, like you're finally ready for the help, but help for what? You're still not saying that you have wow.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Well, my family, they started to give me a hard time. And, you know, I had also gone through a really tough divorce. I mean, tough divorce. It, I mean, I still struggle with what happened in my divorce, you know, it was and it happened like six weeks. Um, you know, my ex-husband had all these different lives that I was not aware of. And I found out six weeks after my brother died. So it was like back-to-back loss. And so when I moved to Washington State, I guess I was like in such a horrible place. My mom went with me and she lived with me for a couple of years. And it was through her being around me all the time. I mean, if you see my countertop, it's all you probably see, you probably would have seen 20 different prescription bottles. So my mom started to see, you know, what was going on. And it was through her that her and my sisters started to give me a hard time. And I would be like, I don't have a problem. These are all prescribed to me.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah. I have a doctor that follows me that has decided that I need to be on these. Like, who are you to tell me, right? Addiction specialist writing these to me, you know.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Exactly. So I don't think it was till you know I tried those suicide attempts that I was just like, I can't, I can't go through this anymore. I just can't. Um, you know, it's still, it was still not uh me having difficulties in my career. I never reached that point.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

Never reached that. Impressive. That is that is phenomenal. Like, because I think that the the direct line, it's not even a dotted line. The direct line is that as your abuse became worse, and the more control that your substance use disorder has over you, the less control you have about your professional, like things fall apart professionally very quickly. And I think like to your point, like you're a classic example of like this thing is complicated, this thing is convoluted, and this thing looks really, really different for everybody. And I think that for me, if it were not for my exposure in the correctional setting, as I've told you so many times, I would have never had a good appreciation for how different it looks in everyone and the degrees to which people can make certain choices and decisions to support their habits, right? Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

And you're you're probably the only person I've talked to that has a good understanding of that, especially a pharmacist. Right. You know, I was really I I posted about my rehab experience on Facebook. No, everybody was shocked. Yeah. Shocked. Yeah. But I got a ton of support. I had like 200 people post on that on that post, and it made me feel so much better. Like I can talk about this. You can, you know, and then I was reluctant to talk about methadone. Um, and then I just thought, like, I feel like people need to hear this. Like, you know, and that's why I think like the whole pharmacist suffering from this is higher than 10 to 15 percent. It is because I, you know, you think about how stressful, especially these retail jobs are. You know, I had met up with my ex-boyfriend a couple years ago, and he was so coped out. I don't think he knew that I knew, but it was so obvious, so obvious to me. And so I really feel bad about that. You know, I think that's one of the reasons I do want to speak up about it is like, hey, to not be perfect. Yes. Oh my gosh. Like it's so many years of my life trying to be perfect between being a perfect athlete and being a perfect student, being a perfect employee, yeah, being a perfect manager, yeah. All of it, you know, was just in that that's I think how I chose my career over myself, you know. Yeah. And so that was really the first time going to re decide and go to rehab that I chose myself. And ever since then, I'm no longer the manager. I could care less about being a manager. Yeah. Um, you know, I don't care what people think about me.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

So the only thing that's important to me is my sobriety. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

And and I don't think anyone in their right mind would categorize that as you're not prioritizing appropriately. Think that I would want, like anyone who really cares about you would want nothing more than supporting you in that endeavor and making sure that yes, yes, your your sobriety really is the most important thing at this moment. I'm I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about the what you on this other side now, more than a year sober, is unbelievable. Again, I can't say that enough. But as you continue this new journey that you're on in your sobriety and persisting in that, what are some resources that you wish existed as a person that has now gone through it? Some ways you wish that this journey, maybe you'd identify it could have been a little less challenging because I don't think there's anything easy about what you're going through.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah. So interestingly, when I was at rehab, I mean, we were on a lot of medication, like a lot of supportive medication between quonidine and methocarbamol, and God, I can't remember everything we would take, trying to like deal with withdrawal symptoms and stuff. But I was like, where's the pharmacist in all of this? Yeah. Like dispensing all this crap to us. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I was like, some of this stuff we should not be like, I knew that, but nobody else knew it. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I was like, where's the pharmacist in all this? And after I went to rehab, I had to do intensive outpatient programming. I was only able to do that because I had good insurance, I had private insurance. And I think they did they did do rehab for Medicaid and patients who didn't have insurance because a lot of people, their their bottom was a lot lower than mine, you know. And they would lose their jobs and their families. And then I was able to do intensive outpatient programming for 12 weeks.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

You are a white female in America talking about struggling to allocate resources you need to get better. And when we place that in the context of who we know substance use disorder predominantly affects, this is a public health issue. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

You know, I it's awful to say, but I'm definitely privileged. Yeah. I'm definitely privileged. It's even more difficult for African Americans to access the same resources on the outside, like assistant or assisted recovery centers of America that have some community resources. When I go in there, I don't routinely see African Americans.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

You brought up a really important point. Underlying behavioral health diseases and issues continue to coexist with substance use disorder. And we think that the substance use disorder just starts to like appear out of nowhere when often we realize like there is a mental health issue that it has gone unaddressed for years. And that has subjected this person to certain lived experiences where substances had to come in to help them cope with that trauma or that life event. But again, this is not even a mentality and a way of thinking I possessed two years ago.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Yeah. Yeah, right. It's not have to go through it, or you know somebody that's gone through it, or you work with people who are going through it.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Are going through it. And I think like it's why I'm a huge advocate and very grateful that you are sharing your story. And for me, I have a lot of young professionals and young learners that listen to this podcast. And I'm hoping that what they are hearing you say today gives them perspective when they are going on rotation and they meet patients. So talk a little bit about how you would like pharmacy to go with respect to this particular chronic disease state. What are some opportunities, both as a pharmacist now and patients, that you believe exist for real impact as a pharmacist to happen here?

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Well, I think, first of all, I came to this conclusion about speaking out about this because I didn't want to hide what I truly went through because that would have been the ultimate act of privilege. It's true. Yeah. It really would have been like, I went to rehab and now I'm like better than everybody else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

You have such a special way of like putting things, but that's exactly it. That's exactly it. That would be exactly like I went through that. That was a thing. I went through it, but I'm over that now. I'm on this other side. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

I think I as far as opioid use disorder and the opioid crisis. I think what pharmacists have come up with, and this is only because they don't know what else to do, because you don't learn any of this in college is dispense in a loxone.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Okay, so real quick, if you're enjoying this conversation, go ahead and rate and review the podcast. It helps more people find the show and keeps the conversation going. Okay, so let's get back to the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Like I always said, if a pharmacist actually called me or pulled me aside and would have said, look, with your refill history and your escalating doses, this is a problem. Whether you're not, this is a problem. And so I think like it would have been a reality check for me.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

I think it's so important that you give us some advice. And the question I have uh that I would love for you to help close us out with is what is one dose of advice you would give to the person right now that is conflicted about whether or not they should pursue sobriety.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

Just get yourself there. Just get yourself there. Even if you don't believe it's gonna help, even if you feel like you're not ready for it, I'm gonna waste my time going, just get yourself there. And then you don't know what's gonna happen. Maybe you'll leave in a couple of days, but you might, you know, you're giving yourself a chance. Because I know that even though I was high functioning, it would have gotten to the point eventually it was affecting my job performance. Or it would have, I mean, it was already affecting my relationships with my family. So, and that was not the case for a long time. That didn't happen until after my brother died in the divorce that it started affecting my family. So, yeah, it would have gotten there. So if it's already there for somebody, just know I know how hard it is. I know the internal battle you're gonna have with yourself. Like, because what one of the things I said is I'm giving up my best friend. Oh I'm giving up my absolute because these things are there for me no matter what.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

Please talk about that. I know we said we were gonna be done, but that's so profound. You feel because it it ties into the advice, right? If if the decision to pursue sobriety actually feel to you like you are going to lose your best friend, I can't imagine how terrifying of a thought that is.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Yeah, it's terrifying and because it would be it would have been at some point such a well it was, it was a devastating loss for me. I could not function without them. Like if a prescriber suddenly stopped prescribing them to me, I would have been SOL, you know? So yeah, they were always there for me. If uh it was a bad day, if it was a good day, um, I was trying to achieve something, whatever. And so it was uh it stayed a loss for me for like probably the first month I was in rehab. I didn't know what to do with myself when you're in rehab, now you're alone. Everything is raw because you have to experience everything without substances, yeah, with no assistance from your besties. Yeah, and so you're just like a big raw nerve, and you're thinking the whole time, like, I want to leave because I have to get reunited with these things. I don't know how and so that was like that's why that IOP was essential for me. Because if I would have walked out of the re rehab at six weeks, I would have gone right back. I know I would have.

SPEAKER_03 43:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:14

So um, so yeah, I think for people who are are conflicted about going to rehab, I would say it is normal to feel like that. Like everybody in rehab was like that. Like they don't this the substance use had gone on so long they didn't know how to without it. It's okay to feel like that. I think that's the other thing, is you you're gonna have this range of emotions, and that's okay. I never thought that that was okay. And so when I got to rehab, I learned everybody else is going through this, and and also like the counselors, they were past addicts when they were sober for five years, ten years, and just really great examples. That it could be different.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Yeah, I tell people like, don't underestimate the power of the example you can set for someone else. Don't, because some people they'll read about what's possible for a really long time, but they're constantly think figuring out ways to say how, well, they had a college education or well, they came from a wealthy family. Well, they are this and they are that. But then if they see someone else do it, and that somehow normalizes this whole thing for them and encourages them. The transparency and the honesty with which you share, it's very, very admirable. And I know that you do it because you genuinely are hoping that somebody else hears this and it is a turning point for them to know that you are seen and what you are going through is hard stuff. It's real stuff and it's not easy, but you can do it. And I think that people draw tremendous strength from watching other people do difficult things.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

So, first of all, I want to say that this would be the most this is the most ideal place that I want the format that I would want to share this information with. And that is simply because you are not judgmental and you understand this. The rest of the pharmacist community does not. And even if they maybe had an addict in their family, I don't feel like it prevents them from being judgmental. Absolutely. Of you know, people in general, but me as a pharmacist, definitely. Yeah. And one thing also the other thing I want to talk about is the safe harbor programs at the board of pharmacy. Uh-huh. So I really research that because if you enroll in a safe harbor program and then something happens at work because you were impaired, the board of pharmacy can't take action against you. So then when you enroll in this program, the problem is you are subject to constant urine drug screens and they reduce your hours at work. I can't afford that. You know, I can't afford to work hours. So most patients or most pharmacists don't. And so if anything, I I really want to create like an organization that where you could be candid and talk to pharmacists, and it's not gonna affect you professionally.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

I had no idea that Safe Harbor that Wally provided that protection, you work at reduced hours. Like some pharmacists have to work at base hours plus more to provide for their families. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

So I think the easiest way to contact me would be LinkedIn. You can always find me on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Yeah, because people genuinely want to know more. And I think, like, yes, there are the people that are just, we're not gonna worry about them. But majority of people that are in healthcare, they want to know and they want to understand all of the complexities involved in living with, working with, caring for somebody that is facing this challenge. And I think that if we are to move forward as a community, as a civilization around this problem, the way we think about it, the way we see it, the way we treat people that have it, that are struggling with it, that are recovering from it, it all has to change.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Otherwise, we're going nowhere very fast. Exactly. This whole opiate crisis is just gonna continue forever. Forever. You never know when, but it could probably happen to you. It totally could. Yeah. That's fantastic. Again, I would not have been so blunt about everything if it was not for your forum to give you that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

That means the world to me. That really does. I am so happy for you to know that you are doing well. It is not perfect, but that you are committed to the process and you are choosing yourself because we need your voice in this space to continue to be as loud and assertive and clear and and you know, just powerful the way I know and respect. Thank you. If this episode gave you something to think about, something to hold on to, or even something to act on, I want to ask you for one more thing. Take a moment to write and review the podcast. It feels really small, but it's actually one of the biggest ways you can support this show. It helps more people find these conversations and become part of this community. We're building right here on Success and DOS.