Nurse Amy: Looking for a Logical Solution to an Illogical Problem

Amy is a registered nurse turned peer assistance advocate who spiraled from ‘normal life’ into IV drug use, hitting bottom with job loss and suicidal despair. She credits her recovery to 12-step immersion and the power of connection over isolation.

Transcript

Welcome to Recovery Realms

Mark 0:07

Welcome to Recovery Rounds, Healers Helping Healers, One Story at a Time. I'm your co-host, Dr. Mark Winsburg, a former emergency medicine physician and current addiction medicine specialist with more than 23 years in recovery. And I'm joined by my co-host, Marcy, a retired ICU nurse with over 48 years of bedtide experience and more than 10 years in recovery herself. Each month we sit down with someone from the healthcare world who's willing to share their own story about addiction and recovery, disconnection and reconnection, and the path back to reclaiming both the love for themselves and their profession. Our goal is simple but ambitious. By openly telling our stories, we hope to lessen and maybe even eliminate some of the stigma and shame that so often surround the disease of addiction. Shame keeps us silent, silence keeps us sick, and too often that delay in getting help comes at a very high cost. So again, welcome, and let's get started.

Meet Amy the Nurse

Mark 1:25

Today we have Amy, who's been nice enough to volunteer to come tell her story, and I'll let her take it from here. Hi, Amy.

SPEAKER_04 1:35

Hi, I'm Amy and I'm a registered nurse. Right now I work as a nurse advocator and educator in a statewide peer assistance for nursing program, which is the peer assistance arm of our professional assistance program. But I've done all different kinds of nursing. I started on a step-down unit and then I went to med surge float, critical care flow. I've worked as a school nurse and I worked in emergency medicine. Let's see, I've worked in addiction medicine and in psychiatric, and I also was a case manager with one of our local HMO organizations and did elder care, home care with them. So I've done all different types of nursing and I just consider myself a nurse among nurses.

Why Share the Story

Mark 2:25

So what made you decide to come here and share your story with us?

SPEAKER_04 2:30

Any platform to talk about myself? I'm excited. I'll jump on that opportunity. Is that an alcoholic or not?

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Mimi.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

I just think every opportunity that I have to share my story, I think as human beings, we have a desire, a deep desire to do storytelling and to share our stories, to be seen, to be heard. And being in recovery in in other rooms and in in this platform, it's an opportunity to share. And every time I share, it helps reduce the shame, the stigma that I that my past behaviors and actions carry. And so I just think about Brene Brown said, excruciating vulnerability undermines shame. And any opportunity to be excruciatingly vulnerable, I'll jump at because I want to let go of that shame and just be a human among humans.

Mark 3:26

Okay, Marcy, let's start the interrogation. Okay, go.

Marcy 3:30

Where were you on the night

Childhood and Early Signs

Marcy 3:31

of so tell us a little bit about like how things were when you were growing up? How many siblings and animals and stuff?

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Oh boy. Okay, I'm the I was born outside of Chicago. I'm the oldest of three. We moved here when I was two and a half, and my brother was just born. My dad got a job with coding, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. And this was before phones and internet, and we had no family here. She had no friends, and then my brother and sister are 13 months apart. We we were isolated here and moved away from family. And then my parents bought a home in the 10th ward, and I went to city schools, which is the 10th ward is by Kodak Park. I don't I drove through the area the other day with some people who were visiting, and I don't think Kodak Park is what it used to be. But at the time it was it was big and exciting. And my mom's a teacher, my dad's an engineer, and I had, like many people say, everything that I needed and a lot of what I wanted. I took piano lessons and horseback riding, and my parents got us involved in club swimming. I mean, we took big elaborate trips every summer and saw the national parks and a lot of privilege. And yeah, but I still remember always feeling like just having to lie about things, having a proclivity for stealing things, taking things that didn't belong to me, whether it be up from my dad's wallet, or it's just like I had this deep desire to have people like me. And and I didn't think me, Amy as myself was enough. So I remember like stealing from grocery stores like little trinkets and stuff to give to my friends because I must I just didn't feel like I was

Choosing Nursing

SPEAKER_04 5:15

enough.

Marcy 5:15

What dread you into nursing?

SPEAKER_04 5:17

Oh, nursing is something I've grown into. It's like a arranged marriage. And yeah, exactly. Honestly, I was young when I had my first child, and my second for that matter, and I knew that I had to straighten up and get my act together. And school was easy for me. And and I got good grades in school, and I needed a way to support these children. And I thought about some other paths in healthcare, a physician assistant, or even I have a number of family members in medicine, different areas of medicine. But I thought, oh, nursing, I can get a job and I don't even have to spend that much time in school, and then I can support myself and these children. Honestly, that's how I came to nursing, and it's been something that I've really grown to love and just so grateful that it's the path that has unfolded before

First Drinks and Drugs

SPEAKER_04 6:09

me.

Marcy 6:09

So when did alcohol and other substances, if that was part of your story, when did those come creeping in?

SPEAKER_04 6:16

I've heard people say, and I can relate to this, that I was born nervous and it got worse from there. Why? I don't know. Some real, some perceived events. And the first time that I got drunk, I was that I can remember getting drunk actually was with a family member, and they were I was 10 years old and they were in school in a local university in a nursing program. And I was at the dorm and they brought me there and they gave me a bunch of Budweiser, and I remember feeling like I was one of the big kids, and I could relax in my body, and I wasn't worried about all those feelings that I talked about earlier not being enough and just having to prove something like I could just be. And and then with that same family member, when my grandmother died, I was 15, and she brought me into my grandmother's garage and pulled out a joint. And that was the first time that I smoked marijuana. And I get the message that, like, oh, this is how we deal with anything of any sort of intensity. And as someone who has a proclivity to that, I didn't realize that I don't have breaks on that ride. I didn't really I didn't really drink when I was having my children and going to school. But once I reached all those milestones that I wanted to reach, I remember going out after work. I worked a lot of night shifts and we would go out. There's a bar that opens at 8 a.m. and we would go out there. And it wasn't all the time, but I remember when I would go, I didn't know if I was gonna come home after one drink or if I was gonna come home at noon with one hand over one eye and pour myself

Restlessness and Escapes

SPEAKER_04 7:58

into bed.

Marcy 7:58

So was it gradual that it became a problem that had you instead of you having it?

SPEAKER_04 8:05

Gradual. I I mean the consequences definitely got worse. I'd say and let me back up. So after I had my children and and I had I had this career that I was happy with.

Mark 8:18

How old were you at that point?

SPEAKER_04 8:20

Twenty six, twenty-seven. So I had this career that I was happy with. For me, I didn't I didn't have a desire to go on for any more education. And I had this husband and we bought our house, and and I had a cute little corgi. I see all these cute puppies on the wall, and three healthy children. And I remember sitting in a break room at the hospital I was working at and just saying, is this it? Is this all there is? Like I gotta just keep doing this forever. Like, this sucks. Cause I had chased all those external boxes that I wanted to chase, and I was left with me. So I started to look for ways to get away from me, and I didn't realize that's what I was doing. And some of those were education. I have, or not education, excuse me, exercise. I have used video games. I used to play video games in an obsessive, compulsive manner, and relationships. I started having relationships outside of my marriage, and then I started thinking, believing that I needed different mood and mind altering medications.

Tramadol Takes Hold

SPEAKER_04 9:26

And one of them that I started when my daughter was probably about two years old was I remembered I had taken some tramadol a few years before, and I really liked the way it made me feel. So I told my doctor that I hurt my back, and this was before it was a controlled substance, and they were happy to give it out to me. And I remember at first, maybe I took one, but I don't even think I needed it. I just was going for the way that it changed my mood and my mind. And I believed that this was my medication. And and then I would blow in no time. I was blowing through a whole bottle of it a day or two after I got my script.

Mark 10:00

Just so you know, you're not the only one that was taken down by Tramadol. I'll be telling my story at some point in these episodes. But yeah, Tramadol came out. Drug reps were delivering grocery bags full of samples to the ED, to doctors' offices. And yep, you weren't the only one that got caught by that one.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

Yeah, I've heard your story and it was passed off as like ibuprofen. This is harmless. But I was like, okay. And then I wanted to believe it, but I knew that I was taking it in a way that I didn't want to share with other people. I've I've heard that we can do anything in sobriety but keep secrets. So if I'm feeling like I don't want to share this with someone, that's a red flag that maybe I'm acting in a way that's unsafe. And I don't want someone to call me out on it. Yeah, yeah, just escalated from there. I don't know where you were in your questions, so you can go back to your questioning interrogation.

From Use to Diversion

Marcy 10:53

No, at some point it got to be taking over your life. And tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_04 10:59

Yeah, for sure. So uh I can remember, I don't know who the patient was. It was someone who was on a lot of medication. I was working overnights, and they were getting it around the clock, and they came home with some oxycodone in my pocket. And and I remember looking at it and thinking, oh, I should keep this because I never know if I'm gonna get hurt and I should have something just in case. And I put it in my sock drawer for six months, a year, I don't know. Then I at one point I was sick and I think I had like the flu or bad head cold or something. And then it got me when my defenses were down, and it was like, oh, you got that oxycodone up in your soccer, you better go take it.

Mark 11:42

It's probably good for colds and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 11:44

Yeah. That started a pattern of diverting medications. It was slow at first. I would take my patient's medications and I would save it for a birthday or anniversary or something special. I was able to do that initially. Then the nature of this thing is it's progressive. I was just saying to a friend I met with a friend this morning. I just was saying, like, there came a point where, you know, I began using my patients morphine and delauded intervenously while I was caring for them. And at the end, my guess today where I said is it would be if they got their medication, they probably didn't get their medication most of the time. I can't remember clearly all those times, but but I it becomes transactional. And uh as someone said over the weekend, I have to pay King Alcohol or my my creditor, my my addiction, my disease, and I've got to pay them no matter what. No matter who stands in the way, my children, my patients, it doesn't matter.

Mark 12:51

How did you pull that off? Was there a Pixas system or I don't know what the other names of this?

SPEAKER_04 12:56

There's a will, there's a way.

Mark 12:57

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Yeah. Yeah. There's Pixas, there's scanning and all that.

Marcy 13:03

But if you have coworkers that trust you, then you are too busy to waste in front of them. And so they'll just sign it out and and then you're left with half a dose.

SPEAKER_04 13:13

Right.

Marcy 13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:14

Yeah. I I think there are many ways to divert medications. And like I said, when I needed to get loaded, nothing could stand in my way. And it it breaks my heart to talk about that the ways that I acted. And I didn't ever go into nursing. And even at the time, like I didn't want to hurt anyone. I had to answer to my disease. And it had me under its thumb. It's not like I ever was like, oh, screw these patients. I wanted to do better. I just didn't know

Fear and Family Fallout

SPEAKER_04 13:46

how.

Marcy 13:46

What were you most afraid about that people would find out?

SPEAKER_04 13:50

That people would find out. My whole life was like like a house of cards. And I felt this terror of people finding out what I was doing, of me not being intoxicated and looking at what I had been doing. That was probably my number one fear was sitting with myself. Yes, I was scared of other people. At this point, I was running from myself. And that was probably my biggest fear.

Mark 14:20

Did anybody else in your life notice what was going on or try to get your attention?

SPEAKER_04 14:25

I hung out with people who liked to like binge drink after work, who like to smoke marijuana. And I surrounded myself with people who were on a similar path, maybe not quite as dramatic.

Mark 14:39

What about your husband, your parents? God, my poor parents.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

They really tried. Like they're good people. At least they have a couple of good kids. No, I'm just kidding.

Mark 14:50

You don't count yourself among them?

SPEAKER_03 14:51

No. I've come around. I've come around. But for a while, it's just, oh, especially now I have uh I have young adults in my life, and I think, oh my god, how did my parents do it?

SPEAKER_04 15:01

Yeah. My parents definitely were always concerned with my behavior. And yes, this kind of my ex-husband caught on to this, and and we ended up getting divorced. And my parents did a lot to help me financially with the divorce and uh keep the house, keep the kids. And i I had a lot of luxuries where people were trying to be helpful, and it just really perpetuated I was able to keep going for that much longer, whereas other people may have hit a bottom.

Turning Point and Sobriety

Mark 15:35

This episode is produced and sponsored by Mark Winsburg, MD Medical Services PLLC, my private addiction medicine practice here in Rochester, New York. I provide confidential, individualized care for people with substance use issues, especially professionals who value their privacy and prefer care independent of hospital systems and insurance company involvement. Learn more at my website, winsburgmd.com. That's W-I-N-S-B-E-R-G-M D.com.

Marcy 16:12

So what do you think was the turning point where you finally reached out for help and where did you go?

SPEAKER_04 16:18

So I have what I would call is treatment resistant addiction. And I was looking over something that I wrote a while ago, and I talked about my relapses as due to the insidious, aggressive nature of my addiction. And it was. I tried therapies and medications and rehabs and inpatients and detoxes. And I've even had it, I've had the opportunity to experience our legal consequences and just all types of pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. Every time I said, Okay, I'm really gonna do better this time. And I just was like not sure what I was missing. Like, what am I doing wrong? And I thought I could figure this out. I thought I was tough. I gave birth to my middle son, my 10-pound son at home alone. I'm like, I can do this. I just gotta figure out how. And it just I was looking for a logical solution to an illogical problem. And my sobriety date, God willing, is March 25th of 2020.

Marcy 17:30

Oh man. In the middle of the pandemic.

SPEAKER_04 17:33

Yeah, so some people say that, oh, you got sober on Zoom. And like for me, I do I'm super involved in, as you both know, in 12-step recovery. That's the path that works for me. I think there are many paths to being in right relation with self and right relation with others. This is what I've found that works for me. 12-step recovery does not have a monopoly on leading a life that's healthy, happy, and whole. But it's been what I found. In one of our books, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, in the first paragraph of the first step, it says, Only an act of providence can remove it from us, talking about this deadly obsession. And sometimes people say that, oh, you got sober on Zoom. I said, No, I got sober by an act of providence, like in a universal intervention. I have a friend who has more time sober than I do alive, and she says, if you're meant to get sober, you'll get sober in a tree.

Mark 18:26

That's great.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

Yeah, that day, March 24th, my last use date. I was using intervenous illicit drugs at that time, and I had a grandma seizure. It wasn't my first because I think I had been having these intense migraines when I would take the whole bottle of Tramadol. I don't think those were migraines. Like I couldn't see. I was like, what are these migraines? Like seizure activity.

Mark 18:50

But and we're good self-diagnosticians. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

Yeah, I say all the time, self cannot objectively evaluate self in that. I can't see myself.

Marcy 19:00

It's the you can't see the whole picture from inside the frame. Yeah. It's a one a very telling thing to me that I really don't know what the whole picture is, no matter how much I think I'm aware of everything around me, that there's always something off to the side that if I step back, I can see it better.

SPEAKER_04 19:16

Yeah.

Nursing Consequences Begin

Mark 19:17

Can we back up just a little bit? When did nursing fall by the wayside or how did it end up?

SPEAKER_04 19:22

Oh, I had some legal trouble.

Mark 19:24

So somebody found out you were dipping into the cookie jar?

SPEAKER_04 19:28

No, actually, I s somehow skirted around that one. I did not get in trouble for diverting medication, although I think people were on to me. My first experience when I was getting divorced about 15 years ago, I my ex-husband, let me back up. So I was getting divorced, and I definitely was taking like tremidol in ways that were not FDA approved or prescribed, and doing who knows what else. But I remember the weekend before that I had gone and I had smoked marijuana, and that was not a regular occurrence for me. But I was working at one of the hospitals and they pulled me downstairs and they were like, We've got some complaints about you. Will you give us a urine drug screen? So I just quit at that time. And then I went to outpatient. And when I went to outpatient, I was going out to Westfall and they sent me to span to statewide peer assistance for nursing. I was really, even at Westfall, I still was like looking at ways to manipulate the system. I just, I really did want to do better, but the idea like of living a life completely abstinent just blew my mind. Like, how are people doing that? No weed. Like, they're not going home and making a whiskey sour, are you sure? And and I got called into the office of professional discipline. This must have been like 15 years ago through New York State. And I talked my way out of it. And my sister has said this about me. She says you present well.

Mark 20:56

And clean up nice.

Opiates Take Over

SPEAKER_04 20:58

That's not necessarily a good thing, but I can I can clean up and I can sound coherent sometimes, maybe not as much anymore. I'm fried, but I definitely used to be. And I went to the office of professions. I just told them I had smoked some marijuana the weekend before I was going, I was getting divorced, and they just like dismissed the whole thing. And then I was like off to the races. That is when I really started to get into the opiates pretty bad. Before that, it was just like here and there, but then it became a more regular thing.

Caught Stealing Fallout

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Then when I really stepped away from nursing, it was 2018, and I was at this point my opiate addiction was pretty expensive because I was buying it on the streets. So I was stealing to compensate for that. And I got caught at Wegman's stealing. So I had a petty larceny charge and I went to the courts in Greece, and uh they said we'll give you community service. You've never had any criminal charges before. This is the misdemeanor. We'll just And I said, I got a problem. I don't know where that came from. But I said to this judge, I got a problem. I need help. So she sent me to drug court and because I had this criminal charge, they put me on leave right away from work. And I had a bunch of other incidents happen. So I think they were just looking for a way to get rid of me because I was unwell for sure. And not a good employee, just a drain. Yeah, that's when I stepped away from nursing was 2018.

Two Years of Chaos

Mark 22:25

And your sober date was in 2020, right? Correct. So there's a two-year interval. I'm curious what happened during that time.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

Demoralization. I spent some time touring Monroe County jail for a few months. And then in and out of detoxes and rehabs and switching, I thought I just stay away from the opiates. That's my problem. I'm sure I can do some lines of cocaine and smoke marijuana. That'll work. And I've never had a problem drinking. I'm not an alcoholic. You know, I shouldn't laugh. Self can't objectively evaluate self. And I should say too, I was lurking and loitering, auditing 12-stop meetings, not convinced that it was like the solution. People would share their stories, and I was pretty sure they were sober, but I was like, man, if Xanax and a Beamer can't help me, like, how is this sponsor? Like, this lady doesn't even have a degree. What is she gonna do for me? And so I made coffee like one time and it didn't work.

Mark 23:32

You gave it your all. I sure did.

SPEAKER_04 23:34

Perfect. I sure did. That was all

Hitting the Abyss

SPEAKER_04 23:36

I had there. But yeah, I'm lucky to be alive, and that's the truth of it. I really couldn't care for myself. I couldn't care for my children. And I just was so far from myself. And how did I get here? How did I get here? In like days, months, it was like, should I kill myself today? Because I didn't know what else to do, or should I get loaded? And I was like, I'll just get loaded today and I'll kill myself tomorrow. It's just such a lonely place to be, such a painful place to be. Sometimes when I talk about it, I feel like I'm talking about someone else. And sometimes I feel like the grief could just swallow me, just swallow me whole. Just it just takes my breath away for the things that addiction will have you experience the loss. And Ilanon, they have a book called Opening Our Hearts, Transforming Our Losses. And it says that addiction leaves mourners in its wake. It's a disease of losses. And it's just painful. And I'm just like, it just takes my breath away that I'm alive, that I have the life that I have today. I was talking with a friend last night, Marcy. I think she's older than you, but she's finally retiring from family med next month. And she says, Amy, isn't that laggy? You go from not having your nursing license to this administrative position where you're going around the state. I was like, Yep, I live in extremes. What can I tell you? Yeah. Yep.

Finding a Sponsor

Marcy 25:03

But so tell me about when you finally accepted that this is what you're gonna have to do. When did 12 steps become something you could do?

SPEAKER_04 25:11

I was going to the meeting right over here because I could walk to it because I couldn't drive or anything. And they thank God New York State took my driving privileges, among other things. And I would walk to this meeting over here at Allen's Creek, and I remember there's some readings that we do in the beginning of the meetings. And I remember at one point, like I was so loaded during the meeting. I was reading how it works and I I nodded off in the middle of reading how it works. And this lady came up to me, she's like, Did you get a sponsor? And like, how does she know? What's up with this lady? And her suggestion was to go to a women's meeting and make an announcement right in the beginning. Don't wait for the end when people are out the door. Do it right. Are there any announcements? Raise your hand and say, I need a sponsor. Don't wait till the end. And so I did that. I went to a women's meeting and they all put their numbers on. And I love my sponsor. I have the same sponsor today. She's not my higher power, but she's a mother-sister friend. A lot of times, my higher power, the god of my understanding, will speak through her. And I'm just really grateful. Now I want to back up and say too, she doesn't have a story anything like mine. I don't think she's ever been to detox. I don't think she's ever done hard drugs, never had any sort of consequences or anything like that. But she is a woman who has what I want, like her way of being, the way she carries herself, the way she is with her with others, with her family, with her employer. I aspire to be a woman like that. I want what she has. And I was attracted to her program as a lived expression, not necessarily by how long she had it. I could care less, but her expression, her lived expression of the program was attractive to me. That was probably February of 2020, and I continued to get loaded, and I went to detox in March of 2020, and it was someone from AA who brought me. My loved ones were like beside themselves, and rightly they were distancing themselves from me because I was not safe to be around. And it was someone from AA who brought me to detox.

Marcy 27:24

What was your question? I just wondered how you finally accepted that you needed to start doing the 12 steps. Oh, I didn't accept anything, Marcy.

Mark 27:32

She fought all the way to the end.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

Yes, God did for me what I can't do for myself.

Marcy 27:38

And so I guess what I've heard you say before in the past that has stuck with me as okay, this stuff is stupid, but I'm gonna do it. Yeah. And that made me think, yeah, it doesn't have to make any sense, but somehow it works. And I can't explain it after the years I've been here.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

Yeah, back to that, how did I it come to a place of acceptance?

Seizure and Surrender

SPEAKER_04 27:59

On the day of my last use, God willing, we'll see about tomorrow. I think today is because I write it down every day. Part of my self-care is I pray or set an intention or manifest. I meditate every day and I'm a writer. I do a written gratitude list and a written ungratitude list because the data is inconclusive and it's an ongoing research project. That's part of my tenth step. That inventory, and I just have a kind of a free form journal that I write in every day. The first thing that I write in that journal is how many days sober I have. And I've been doing that for I believe today is day two thousand two hundred and twenty-four because I just hit all two, two, two, twos on oh, that was yesterday because it was the twelfth. So I think I'm 23. 2223. And because that day blows me each day. It's I remember like putting together three and four days, and and that's significant to me each day, because it's one day at a time, not one year at a time. So yeah, I didn't accept anything. I had a seizure, and when I came to something I can't explain what happened to me that day. So sometimes people talk about spiritual experiences and 12-step recovery, and there were no police involved that day. I wasn't with anyone strange and anything devastating or traumatic or violent, any of the other harrowing times in my past was it was not like that on that day. I had a seizure, and when I came to, I had this very clear thought that I can't do this anymore. And I just remember it was like, oh, I can't do this anymore. And it was like I had drugs. My partner is a normie and has a wine cellar and liquor and things like that. And I had I had everything I I could have needed to get loaded for as long as I would have liked. And this very clear thought that I can't do this anymore. And I didn't want to kill myself, which was unusual because that was always like get loaded or kill myself. That was my tool list. That was my toolbox. Column A and column B. Yeah. And I remember then my next thought was, oh, maybe I can just do a you've never really done an A. You've always audited. Why don't you become like a full-time matriculated student and just treat those steps like prerequisites that have nothing to do with your degree. Just do them. Just do them. Just say yes. Just call those women. Just meet them for coffee. You don't even have to like them. Get a service position. Get a home group. Speak up. And like you said, it was on Zoom. It was COVID time. What I say is I had my camera on. I spoke up. I attended regular meetings. People knew me. I was unemployable. I didn't have my children. I went to four meetings a day because I couldn't be left alone with my thoughts and I felt safe in those rooms and with that community. And I also said yes to exploring outside help. I did it. I just did everything. I remember I had oh let me back up.

Daily Tools That Stick

SPEAKER_04 30:49

So I had the weeks over my sponsor saying, I want you to start praying and meditating. I thought, I don't believe in higher power and I'm not, I don't want anything to do with God. And she said, I'm not asking you to believe in anything. I'm asking you to take some action. And I continue to take action. And I was just having a discussion with someone about meditation. And I don't once in a while I have these sort of, I don't know what you would call them, enlightening experiences when I'm meditating. But most of the time I think about it like spiritual crunches. I'm never like psyched to do crunches. I never want to do that. But I do crunches because they make me strong, strong core, strong back. I don't want injuries in the future because life is going to happen. I'm going to pick something up that's heavy. And I meditate to do a sort of spiritual crunches and just to help me with that pause, to help me get some space from myself, from my thoughts, because life is coming. Something heavy's coming down, coming down. And I don't want to go back to my old toolbox. That's for sure. It's just a practice that I've continued to do along with the writing and the praying or the manifesting, whatever language feels most accessible.

Life Rebuilt in Recovery

Mark 31:58

So how has your outside life outside of AA, how has that changed in recovery?

SPEAKER_04 32:04

Oh, out outside life.

Marcy 32:08

No, but I just love your smile because you are smiling. You're not like, oh man, now that I can't enjoy myself in life anymore. You clearly are enjoying your life right now.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Yeah. No, that's funny, like all the stuff. And that's the question that got me talking about the oh God. Talking about the the painful things, that just the abyss that the addiction brings me to.

SPEAKER_04 32:31

It just I'm able to talk about that with some distance or whatever. But when the gratitude that I have for my life today, I don't think there's any word and any language anywhere billowing enough for the gratitude that I feel. And can you repeat the question? Because I did have something specific I wanted to say.

Mark 32:53

How has your outside life, meaning outside of AA, just your family life, your work, or what sort of things have changed? And how have you been able to put yourself into them when before you were talking about constantly hiding from self?

SPEAKER_04 33:12

Oh yes. What I would say the gift of of working a program of action, of doing the steps, of becoming familiar with my story, of doing things like this, is that I get the opportunity to become an integrated woman and I am the same. I don't have to play different characters in different scenes. I I am Amy in in all areas of my life. And I all the losses that I've experienced, I've gotten all those things back. I I had to work harder to get my nursing license back than to get it the first time. I ran into hurdles with different agencies within New York State system, the professional office of profession system, the office of professional discipline and the professional assistance program. And I've had experience with all of those. Also, all of those have to do with education law, which is a very niche form of litigation. And I had the learning opportunity of attorneys giving me bad advice or not being familiar with that. And it was quite the process for me to get my nursing license back. It was quite the process for me to return into the lives of my children. And I did it one day at a time with the community that surrounded, continues to surround me in the in 12-step rooms. I feel at home within myself. And I would have these elaborate stories in my head that I would tell myself. And these are like fantasy stories or whatever. And and now, I don't know if this has anything to do with the question that you asked, but particularly now, this time of year is a very special time of year for me because where we are in upstate New York, the deer drop their antlers. I spend hours out in the gray in the mud, like following the deer trails, just winding with my dogs, just out there in the middle of nowhere, just praying, going through my prayer list, just listing all the people in my life. And over the past almost six years, that list has become very long.

Mark 35:38

Unfortunately, we're getting towards the end of our time here.

SPEAKER_04 35:42

Okay, I don't know if this is anything you can use, but thanks for listening.

Advice for Healthcare Pros

Mark 35:46

Do you have any, I would say, words of wisdom or just pearls or support for anyone, any nurse, any other person, particularly in the medical profession, that they might be able to use?

SPEAKER_04 36:02

Oh, I have a friend who I went to nursing school with and she got her doctorate recently. She called me up. She said, Amy, I need advice. I said, Oh no, I don't got any advice. Buckle up. Good luck. No, I think we don't have to do it alone. Whatever it is, even if it's not addiction or alcoholism, there's beauty in community. There's joy in reaching out for help. Even if you don't have that in your family of origin, finding a tribe of like I say to m about my sponsor, mother, sister friends, and coming to know self. Who am I? We're so much more than than our degrees and our healthcare professions. And there's a humanness underneath that. Just because we're doctors and nurses and CRNAs, we haven't transcended the human experience. And yeah, but I don't know.

Marcy 36:56

I don't have any advice. I think that's good advice. To not have any advice, you don't have to have all the answers. And you don't have to have everything coming out of your mouth doesn't have to be a pearl, and yet it often is. And Amy has come to me and allowed me to join the New York State addiction stuff that will allow me to facilitate and help nurses who are coming out of all the things that you had to go through to get your license back. And it's a gift to me that I can share this my experience, strength, and hope with people that are still at the bedside working. And you know, that all those years I was at the bedside and all those years I was addicted to alcohol, that I have something to give to people, and you've given me the opportunity to give back, and I'm I love it.

Mark 37:43

So thank you. I think you epitomize the definition of addiction as a disease of isolation, and that the cure is connection. That's been my experience coming out of the isolation of addiction, and everything you've shared today exemplifies. And that's true. Yeah. Amy, thank you so much.

Marcy 38:05

You're welcome. It's been wonderful talking to you and hearing you. Yeah.

Mark 38:09

Good luck with this new job. And as you said, if it gets to be a pain in the ass, go do something else.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

That's right. That's

Closing Resources and Outro

SPEAKER_03 38:17

right.

Mark 38:23

As we close today's episode, I want to say something important. Recovery Rounds is not about promoting any single path to sobriety. Many of us have found tremendous help in Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs, but there are multiple evidence-based and peer-supported pathways to recovery. What matters most is finding the approach that helps you move forward safely and sustainably. If you're a healthcare professional in the Rochester area, I want you to know about Healers Helping Healers, a confidential 12-step-based meeting for medical professionals in recovery for contemplating recovery. That includes physicians, nurses, best practitioners, PAs, therapists, EMS personnel, and others in clinical care. We meet Tuesdays at 6.30 p.m. at my office, 95 Allen's Creek Road, Building 1, Suite 104. Remember that what is said in this meeting and whom you see in this meeting stays in this meeting. You can find monthly episodes of Recovery Rounds, listener comments and suggestions, community resources, and more at recoveryrounds.com. That's all one word. If you have your own story of addiction and recovery and feel ready to tell it, let us know what to sign up to on our website. Recovery Rounds is hosted by me, Dr. Mark Lindzburg, and is underwritten by my practice, MarkWindsburg MD Medical Services, where I provide private, discrete treatment for professionals seeking help for substance use disorders. Thank you for listening. Until next time, keep showing up, keep reaching out, and remember, recovery is possible.