An almost 25-year-old study by the American Nursing Association estimated that nearly 10% of registered nurses were dependent on drugs and alcohol. Local experts fear that number has increased during the pandemic.

A Capital Region nurse, who we will refer to as Betty, has seen her colleagues struggle emotionally over the past two years.

Betty has been in recovery for almost five years. She wished to remain anonymous because she works with population of patients that requires a lot of follow-up. She fears the stigma of addiction would interfere with their care.

She admitted the pandemic has been stressful for medical professionals, saying, “Looking back, too, it scares me what would have happened had I not been in recovery and how much worse it might have gotten had I not found recovery at that point.”

Betty was first introduced to prescription drugs after a wisdom tooth surgery when she was a teenager. She never relied on the pills, but admitted to doctor shopping.

Things turned worse when she had a surgery as an adult. Already a nurse, she felt she had an endless supply of Percocet.

“There was one night when I was working and we had a trauma, and it can be very…when those things happen, meds are just going. I accidentally went home with a vial of fentanyl in my pocket,” said Betty.

Her employer caught on several years later and Betty remained clean for a period of time. She then found herself in a similar situation where she was again left in possession of a vial of fentanyl.

She began using. This time, it only took her employer a few months to recognize the problem.

“You almost start to just identify as a nurse. I didn’t identify as a person,” said Betty. “So this fear of taking that license away from me that I worked so hard for and that is mine to, that’s how I feed my family. It was really hard to come forward.”

Betty obtained help from several groups and thanks to Statewide Peer Assistance for Nurses, she did not have her license taken away. SPAN provides confidential education, support and advocacy programs for all licensed New York nurses.

According to its website, “the SPAN program operates on the belief that every nurse deserves access to treatment, help in preserving his or her license and employment status, and ongoing support throughout the recovery process.”

Betty worries not enough of her fellow nurses know about the program.

“There’s all this help out there. Nobody has to go through what I went through or what anybody else goes through,” Betty said. “You could seek out help and get the help you need and protect your license and not have to get all the consequences and discipline, but when you don’t know it exists, you kind of go into that mode where you have to protect everything.”

Betty said besides the heavy workload, the pandemic has put new professional pressures on nurses. While the phrase “health care heroes” is flattering, Betty said it comes with a lot of weight.

“It goes back to when I said I identify as a nurse, not as a person. When they say things like that, ‘you’re a hero,’ ‘you’re the most trustworthy profession,’ all of this stuff, you have to live up to that. I think society forgets when we take off our scrubs, we are human,” said Betty.

She hopes any struggling nurses will reach out and get the help they need before it’s too late. She also wants the stigma around addiction to change.

“At the end of the day we all want the same thing. We want the public to be safe. I just feel like when we look at it that way, we should be encouraging, we should be applauding anybody who comes forward, not just nurses,” Betty said.

SPAN can be contacted by calling 1-800-45-SPAN-1 or 518-782-9400, ext. 265.