From WXXI news.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in an operating room when a doctor was confronted by his colleagues about his drinking and his addiction.

The doctor is named Ed, and Ed thought he had created a plan to control his drinking, and sometimes to hide it from others.

Ed says doctors and medical professionals deal with very stressful things by compartmentalizing, but sometimes they act like they have a superpower to compartmentalize, which can cause its own kinds of problems.

Ed's drinking became more severe when he was in medical practice.

When he felt more stress, he drank more and more often.

He started to hide his drinking.

He even tried meditation to stop drinking.

But ultimately he went back to alcohol and it spiraled out of control.

Ed tells this story in an episode of Recovery Rounds, a new podcast series featuring medical professionals who are opening up about their own struggles with addiction and the benefits of recovery.

Ed's episode is titled A Surgeon Leading a Double Life.

Let's listen to part of it.

Started drinking again and this time didn't want my wife or family to know.

Ultimately, my bottom, so to speak, was when my drinking was called out by someone at work.

I would drink before work.

I had three different breathalyzers and I would consult all three to make sure that I was sober before I would go to the operating room.

And in that way, I thought I was in control, when obviously I was not.

I was merely finding a way to live this double life without, I thought, encountering consequences.

And I was wrong.

And thank God it was wrong.

Every two weeks, recovery rounds sits down with someone like Ed, someone who works in health care and is willing to share their own story of addiction and recovery by openly telling their stories, they hope to lessen or eliminate stigma and the shame associated with addiction.

Now, here on Connections, we've had a lot of conversations about addiction, but never with the medical professionals who are treating others, talking about their own challenges.

And that changes today.

And let me welcome our guests in.

Studio includes doctor Mark Winsberg, who is an addiction medicine specialist and host of Recovery Rounds.

Doctor Winsberg, welcome.

Thank you for being with us and thanks for having me.

Next to Mark is Chuck Montante, who is now retired.

He's the former president and CEO of Westfall Associates.

And he's going to talk about healing the healers.

Chuck, welcome.

Thank you for being here.

I have it across the table.

Welcome to Amy Vitkus, who's a regional coordinator for Western New York for the Statewide Peer Assistance for nurses program.

That's the Span program.

Welcome to you.

Thanks for having me.

And welcome to Marcy Owens, who is a former ICU nurse.

She's an RNN.

And this is an anniversary for you.

Yes.

Yeah.

Today is actually my 11 year sober anniversary.

Happy anniversary.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

So I think this started with Mark.

Doctor Winsberg, the notion of doing a recovery Rounds podcast and letting doctors and nurses and medical professionals tell their stories came about how it's not easy to talk about this for anybody who's been through addiction and recovery, but often especially for doctors who are either worried about stigma, as you guys talk about on the podcast, Losing jobs, the way that some patients might view you, why did you decide to do this?

Well, I went to I would regularly go to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, conferences.

The national conferences.

And we had a group there that were we were all, addiction medicine specialists in recovery.

And it just occurred to me that we were fine with telling our stories to each other.

And I just thought, wouldn't that be a good way, getting those stories out there to let other doctors who might be suffering from this disease actively, suffering from the disease?

Hear that?

There are others of us that have been there and done that, and we're doing okay.

Well, there, there are a number of conversations now, about a dozen, in recovery around we're going to link to the website.

So, listeners, if you want to see and if you want to hear some of the conversations, they're really good.

I mean, we listened to a lot of podcasts, and that's what we do here.

But they're doing a great job with this because these are not easy conversations.

And, Mark even tells his own story.

You decided to tell your own story of addiction recovery all the way back to your roots in Florida.

Yeah.

I didn't come from a family of alcoholics or, people who use drugs, but as an ear doc, I found myself in the cohort of doctors who are more likely to have trouble with with addiction.

And about year 12 of my emergency medicine career.

That's where I found myself.

What was the moment where you knew it was a problem?

That's kind of a a, interesting question, because I was about 3 or 4 years into regular pill using and, some drinking, and it had not occurred to me that there was something wrong until I had a seizure in front of my wife and two daughters and my parents in a restaurant in Montreal.

And up to that point, it didn't it didn't register that I was dealing with something very serious that was out of my control.

This is where I think your listeners of the podcast will think, how is someone as smart as you, although you're very humble in your episode where you talk about the pressures and you know, how can people compare themselves to others when they're going through med school or what their careers might be?

And you strike me as someone who's very humble, but you're clearly a very smart person, and people are going to listen to a podcast and say, you're an ER doctor.

You're responsible for for the well-being of others and some of their most, you know, precarious moments.

How do you not recognize in yourself something that is threatening yourself for years?

Well, for one thing, denial is a big part of the disease of addiction.

And for another, I think I said in the episode that I had this little voice going in my head practically from the word go, that I'm not as good as I'm not as smart as I'm not.

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

And that combined with the pressures of working in an emergency room for.

Oh, I was about 12 years into it when I encountered the problem.

Yeah.

How do I still don't have an answer of how I could do that and not see it as a problem.

Now?

I mean, I think, you know, we'll talk to Chuck coming up here about the way that denial can can play a big role here.

But I wasn't even I don't think familiar with the pills.

Tramadol.

Yeah.

What's tramadol.

Tramadol is a a pain reliever that was introduced on the market in the mid 90s.

And it was introduced as a non addictive analgesic.

And the company would send out its representatives to doctor's offices.

The emergency rooms with literally grocery bags full of sample pills that we would then give a few to the patients and then write the prescription, which is how the company makes money.

So it turns out that, I wasn't the only genius that became addicted to tramadol.

It it turns out it binds to opiate receptors in the brain, and it also has SSRI, SSRI effects, antidepressant like effects.

So I must have tried it.

You know, one day when I was having an acre of pain and it was not a good pain reliever, but I just found my 12 and 14 hour ear shifts were much easier, and I was kind of floating above it.

And that that kind of set off the, you know, the problem.

But in on the subject of denial, what I really wanted to ask you about what tramadol was this.

So you spent years taking it in your mind, especially at the beginning.

It's just helping you deal with a long shift, do you?

I don't know if you ever thought about it this directly, but is it like saying, hey, in the morning I got it, I got to have my coffee.

What coffee?

To caffeine to drug.

You know, and many of us rely on that in the morning to get going.

We wouldn't put ourselves in a we're and, you know, struggling with addiction or needing recovery.

Did you kind of categorize it the same way, like, hey, look, this is just helping me through the day in the same way that someone wakes up and needs a cup of coffee.

I don't even think.

I think I didn't think about that directly.

Yeah, I thought it was just something you did.

But, with addiction, what happens is I was taking it for a reason.

It helped me get through my shifts and seemed to be helping with life in general.

It quieted that little voice of you're not good enough and all that stuff.

But it's the problem with any addictive drug, including alcohol, is that.

Yeah, it it serves a function, but you cross a line where it's not, you're not taking it because you want to.

You're taking it because you have to.

And because tramadol had opioid effects, it also has opioid withdrawal effects.

If you don't take it so it becomes a necessity.

How has your recovery been?

Because I know it's important to all of our guests today that we focus not only on their stories, but also the benefits of recovery and the positive aspects of the success that they've had and working through some of these challenges.

How are you doing these days?

I'm doing great.

I'm semi-retired now, but and doing this podcast for fun.

And I have a small private practice in addiction medicine that I'm doing for fun.

That doesn't sound like a very effective retirement mark.

You're not very good at retirement.

Well, we're going to Brooklyn to see my grandson.

That's, in a week or so, but, it was life changing, and the fact that I was kind of forced into treatment by that, having that seizure and forced to confront what was going on, it was it was life changing.

And while I don't recommend, becoming, you know, dependent on substances, for me, it it was a very useful experience.

And I thought I was going to be an er, doctor to the end of my medical career.

And then midway through, you know, I changed direction and happened in the addiction medicine.

Do you find that you feel more credible?

I don't want to ask this in a way that casts doubt on the credibility of addiction specialists, who are themselves not dealing with recovery or have not dealt with addiction.

But do you find yourself more credible, or at least more able to relate to people who are working toward recovery because of your own story?

Yeah, the short and long answer is yes, and I don't share my, story with every patient that I see.

But it is a useful tool that I have.

And, you know, in my quiver that, I can pull out.

And also my patients usually catch on.

They, they understand whether I say it or not, that I, I really know this disease from inside and out, because you can speak with such a facility about.

Yeah, maybe what they're working through.

Well and if somebody, you know a patient is lying to me, that's not a surprise.

You know, I lied to my wife, I lied, you know, that's part of addiction.

So I can I can take it with a grain of salt, and I, I don't take it personally because I understand what's motivating that person.

Do you find that your personal relationships are stronger and better since you were able, post seizure and into recovery?

Definitely.

Yeah.

I why?

Well, I'm learning how to accept myself.

And that's what recovery is all about, is learning who you are and becoming, able to accept who you were, what you did, and who you are now.

And I'm not the same person I was, however, many years ago, 24 years ago, when I first got into recovery and very different.

And I think I'm much more accepting of who I am.

That little voice inside saying you're not good enough doesn't play nearly as often, and that leads to better relationships.

So, I want to also give you a lot of credit, Mark, because, Doctor Winsberg, as the host of Recovery rounds, I think you do a very good job talking to people about their stories.

And we played the clip from Ed.

I mean, it is an extraordinary thing to hear someone talk about before they go into an operating room using three different breathalyzers to make sure that they are sober enough to work because Ed and in his podcast is recognizing, yes, he was lying to people, but he knew enough about what was going on, that he had to feel comfortable enough to operate or to work on people.

And then he concludes by saying, I was wrong about how much control I had over and thank God I was wrong.

Thank God someone confronted me.

What did you make of that part where Ed is saying I was wrong?

But I'm glad that I got caught as such.

I'm glad I got confronted.

I, totally relate to that in that, I afterwards, in retrospect, am glad I had the seizure when I did, where I did, who was there because it forced me to confront what was really going on and become honest with my wife and seek treatment.

The difference between me and Ed is that alcohol is I couldn't I couldn't have operated drinking alcohol.

And Ed knew that as well.

The problem with opioid like drugs is you can go a long time and function very well while you're getting further and further, into the addiction so it doesn't show up in the workplace as quickly as the, alcohol would.

Well, and so as we get ready for our first and very short break here, I'm going to occasionally mention some of the data on this, but I thought it was interesting that, the data I'm seeing, roughly 1 in 10 to 1 in 7 physicians struggle with alcohol or drug addiction at some point during their careers, and that is a little bit higher than the general public.

So it's a higher prevalence than the general public, although I'm sure Chuck will talk about that.

Alcohol is the most common.

And that's true, I think, in addiction across the board.

But physicians are five times more likely to misuse prescription drugs.

Some of it's just the access that that Doctor Winsberg has been talking about.

But these are problems that are maybe more common and left me wondering, as I listen to the series about doctors, nurses, physicians in the field of health care, professionals in the field, if either the stigma or shame they're feeling will be lessened because of the work of recovery.

Right.

And I think it will.

It's really, really good.

We're going to link in our show notes.

I think the websites recovery rounds.com.

You can find the podcast at recovery rounds.com/podcast.

After we take this on the break, we're going to talk to Chuck a little bit about the story we just heard.

But Doctor Winsberg, Mark and Amy have a lot to share and we're excited to talk to them.

And we're talking about the positives of recovery and the remarkable stories of these professionals who are sharing their stories.

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This afternoon at four.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

You just heard doctor Mark Winsberg story.

He's an addiction medicine specialist.

He's ostensibly in retirement, and he's the host of Recovery Rooms.

He spent how many years working in an emergency department?

17, 17 years in an emergency department.

These are your doctors, your nurses, your health care professionals, and they're telling their own stories of addiction and recovery.

And in the episode with Mark, Marcy Owens had to do the interviewing because Mark couldn't interview himself.

You did a great job.

Thank you.

As you listen to his story on this camera, on this show, what what was coming to mind for you?

Just the whole the fact that we should know what we don't know about addiction.

I know for Mark, he was pretending he was doing okay.

And I have worked.

I worked at the bedside for eight years, and I lived in a little.

A little isolated cocoon of the ICU.

So I didn't really know when out in the real world.

So when I got to drinking more than I should, and I knew I was in deep trouble.

But I had no idea how it gets treated out in the world.

So what I did was I stopped going to my doctor for routine stuff because I didn't want him to lie about how much I was drinking, and I just ignored things.

And just isolated.

There's a there is something kind of, amazing about hearing that, Marcy, because, again, I think the general public looks at all of you as kind of these paragons of medical wisdom.

And yet what you're describing is like, wait a second.

For various reasons, people avoid going to the doctor for various reasons.

People are too nervous.

And it's not always addiction related, but people have different reasons for not wanting to to go see a specialist.

And here you are telling your story and it's like, wait a second, Marcy, no, you can't not go to the doctor.

Mercy, right.

And I ended up going to the doctor more because I my blood pressure got ridiculously out of control, up to like 180, 200 was my blood pressure when I and I went to the doctor to deal with that.

And then started kind of talking about maybe I was drinking too much.

Did you know?

I mean, at that point, did you know that you were obviously drinking too much, or were you deceiving yourself as well?

No, I knew I was drinking too much, and I and I would wake up in the morning feeling so sick and so hungover and just feeling awful, and I'd be like, this is the stupidest thing going on.

I need to stop this.

This is it.

I'm done.

But then by like noon, you start feeling a little better, and then by the middle of the afternoon and you're like, well, one drink would be okay.

And then you just end up drinking to oblivion that night again.

And the next morning you'd wake up and go, oh my God, this is so stupid.

And I but I had no idea what I did.

What where do I go?

What do I do?

I didn't know where.

I mean, I guess I could have started with my doctor, but again, I wasn't.

I was thinking I was avoiding him so I wouldn't have to lie.

And you had hiding places for bottles in your house?

Oh my God.

Yes.

Where did you hide them?

I hid them on the back porch.

I hid them in the laundry basket.

I had places in the basement where I would stick them.

It's really funny how I was maybe six months sober and going to 12 step meetings, and someone mentioned getting rid of the empties, and I realized I had this huge, convoluted thing I would have to do to get the bottles out of the house so my husband wouldn't know about it.

You know, if you're trying to get rid, you can't put two large bottles of vodka in several bottles of, wine and, you know, bottle of rum into your one week recycling bin.

So you gotta try and get rid of it some other.

And I love how everyone's laughing, because this is what happens in the 12 step meetings.

We start laughing about the things that we do because.

Because all alcoholics didn't go to different liquor stores, so they don't know how much you're buying.

And like, it's this whole thing that you think you're brilliant about, like you're coming up with these solutions so you don't even have to lie as much as you did.

But then you get in the rooms and you're like, oh, everybody does.

That's what we do.

Helpful to be among people sharing similar stories.

Right.

So in the 12 step rooms, it is everybody that's in the room has done the same stupid stuff you were doing.

And they all either avoided their doctors or they lied to their you know, I always thought of myself as a fairly honest person, but the lies and the sneaking in that I did shocked me how much I could do that.

I was bringing in a bag of of I don't know what it was in the bag, but from a liquor store.

And my husband started to come out on the back porch.

So I set the bag in the, the sunflower bed that was on the back pack behind our back porch so he wouldn't know it was bringing stuff in the house, and then went out and retrieved it later.

Like, that's a normal thing to do.

You hid the alcohol in the flowers?

Yeah.

And at that point, are you thinking this is out of control or are you just thinking, okay, he didn't see it.

I knew that it wasn't normal, but I didn't know what to do.

And like you said, I've been a nurse for 40 years, but I lived in that little cocoon in the hospital, in the ICU, and I don't even, like, know what happened.

Out on the floor is how people got better to go home.

All I knew is we got them through the their critical illness, and then we sent them off to the floors.

And that wasn't part of my practice.

I didn't really know, you know, like if I had to discharge a patient from the ICU, it was like the worst day of my career to try and figure out how to do all the paperwork for discharging someone, because we never did that.

I, we didn't teach people how to go home and take their meds and all the paperwork involved in that, because I know your reputation, your patients have loved you and you've been a beloved person.

But what part of what you seem to be saying is you would have been better served in your own personal life if you had a fuller idea about what recovery would look like, right?

And it was another nurse that I worked with who we had this conversation, and she told me she had just gotten a one year coin.

And I said, I think I need to stop drinking.

And she is the one that took me to my first meeting and kind of got me on this road to recovery.

How are you doing these days?

Today I'm great.

I mean, yes, today's my anniversary, but I don't I don't live for my anniversaries anymore.

I, I found a meeting that happens at 630 in the morning, and I that, because I worked as a nurse, I worked at 7 a.m., so that was like the perfect time.

I could get up at the same time every day and either go to work or go to a meeting.

And, now that I'm retired, I go to a meeting every morning at 630.

So I start out my day working on my recovery in terms of talking with people or listening to their problems and how other people in the rooms help them solve their problems.

And if I have a problem, I bring it to the group and they help me solve it, or just pat me on the back and say, that's really hard, you're going through it.

And, so I start out every day with my, my daily dose of AA vitamin alcohol.

They me 12 step, thing.

And and then I don't think about it the rest of the day.

The rest of my day is planning.

Do I need to do grocery shopping?

You know, which bathroom needs to be cleaned?

And those are the things I'm thinking about today, not about, drinking.

And can I ask you also, if you think your personal relationships are better?

The reason I asked Mark this in you is that in listening to the podcast, I heard a lot of conversations about how you deceive yourselves or sometimes deceive others.

And that cannot be a good feeling to know the people that you love, having to feel like you have to deceive them.

How are your personal relationships?

My marriage is just so much better than it ever was.

I think my husband is, is an adult child of alcoholics, but he is not an alcoholic himself.

And when I first came forward with telling him that this was what was going on with me, his response was, I didn't have a choice when I was growing up about living in an alcoholic home, but I have that choice now, which initially I thought, well, that's a kind, supportive thing to say.

But the truth is, it brought up things for him that he hadn't thought about in decades.

And so it was really hard for him.

But he has now been my greatest support.

Our house has been dry since I came forward with this.

When we have family get togethers, everybody can bring stuff with them.

They can bring alcohol or beer or wine or whatever they want.

It's just everything.

He has to leave the house when they're done.

And so that's just become our normal family get togethers.

And I, I'm sure that Ken would love to have a beer after him on the lawn on a hot summer day, but he feels like, why would we have it in the house?

What's the point?

Because he's not alcoholic, so he doesn't need to have that beer after him salon.

And so he has been the greatest support for me.

And, I think that initial reaction was not didn't really represent how he has helped me since then.

I'm so glad to hear that.

Chuck Montante is a former president CEO of Westfall Associates, and I want to bring Chuck in here because, you know, the episode with Chuck is a little different for the series.

It's more of a, the look of how the healer is healing the healers.

Right.

You want to tell people a little bit about what you did before your retirement?

You know, Westwood associates was a practice for, 38 years, and we specialized in, both alcohol and other drugs and mental illness.

That was kind of the reason for the creation of the practice.

It was actually started by nine psychiatrists and the business partner and myself.

The way the practice evolved, we wound up having a lot of professionals, and, I want to go back to the prevalence data.

I don't think that the prevalence in the medical community is any greater than the general community.

Okay.

So if you look at epidemiology, about 12% of our population has a chemical use disorder that's diagnosable as a chronic illness.

There's another 20%, though, that on occasions they drink or use other drugs excessively.

So it may only be when there's bills, home games or emotional stress.

But it's it's a sizable part of our population.

And the difference between the people that have the chronic illness is the issue of shame.

Shame keeps people sealed into problem drinking and other drug usage.

We were talking earlier about the the discrimination between guilt and shame.

Guilt.

As for what we do, it's a judgment that what we're doing is wrong.

Shame is different in that it's known what you did.

You do those things, but you're a lesser person because you did it.

And and doctors are not supposed to be fallible.

One of the things that I think increases the risk for medical professionals is you have to be right every time, all the time.

And that perfectionism is a terrible burden for people.

Other things that might be more prevalent in the medical community is very often people got into medicine for the wrong reasons.

The need to prove oneself, the need for control and to not be questioned is very often, but also the compulsive need to help others.

So we over the course of of my career, patients are called patients because they're very patient in teaching us how to help them.

It took me, 55 years to, to reach the peak of my performance.

And then I retired.

So, I deeply appreciative of the patients that that taught me the, the the difference between guilt and shame and helping them work through guilt.

Let me just ask two other questions.

You said, I think, in your episode that even though a lot of the doctors and the the medical professionals on the podcast recovery rounds that we're talking about it to, it's a podcast that you can find a recovery around scam.

And it features doctors, nurses, medical professionals telling their own stories of recovery and their challenges with addiction.

Utterly unique and really, I think, important.

And to check, there's a lot of folks in the medical professional who think, you know, hey, we're probably the hardest to treat.

You know, I think Ed talked about that for various reasons, are very good at hiding.

We know how to get good at compartmentalizing.

So as doctors or engineers, the hardest ones to treat, no question.

Engineers.

What's the short answer for why it's engineers.

Oh, and when I greet a new patient and one of the first things I'd ask people to kind of disarm them.

It's a what do you do for a living?

If they were an engineer, I just knew that I was going to have a headache in an hour.

It's the the the incessant use of logic as opposed to feeling that makes it a challenge to, to treat engineers.

Not that I wasn't effective with engineers.

No, no.

And if you're an engineer and you're listening, this is actually praising you.

You're a very logical, impressive thinker.

Yeah.

Design that airplane.

To to it to perfection.

We we down there.

Absolutely.

Indeed.

Here.

The other thing the before we break.

And then we're going to talk to Amy about her story, is just briefly, can you describe how powerful the idea of denial is?

I mean, and not every story is the same to state the obvious.

I mean, in this podcast series we've been talking this hour about, you know, Mark was even really thinking directly about the drug that he was taking and becoming more addicted to, whereas Ed was taking Breathalyzers before going into an operating room because he knew.

And then outside of that circumstance in his life, is either lying to others or denying to himself that he was, you know, in or out of control.

How how powerful is denial?

Well, linguistically, denial and denying are really very different from one another.

Consciously denying one's problem, that's called lying.

But denial, the the ego defensive denial is an unconscious process.

So, Mark, when you talked about what what you experience in mercy denial sets in and gradually robs people of the ability to see themselves clearly.

And it's the confronting of that denial that.

Generates recovery, the ability for other people to see what is not apparent to one is where recovery starts.

Commonly.

That's one factor that you have to have.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let me read an email from David.

Who's listening?

He says several years ago, a good friend of mine who was a nurse at Vancouver's Insite supervised drug use facility died suddenly of a fentanyl overdose herself.

Somehow, she had become addicted to heroin, and even her husband didn't know her death was a complete shock to all of us.

David, I'm sorry about your loss.

And, you know that story of not knowing, some some of the stories that you hear on, recovery rounds were a shock to people.

In either in families or in work settings.

And sometimes everybody knows but the person with addiction.

So it's a different story for everybody.

After we take this very short break, we're going to get Amy's story.

Amy is regional coordinator for Western New York for the Statewide Peer Assistance for nurses program that span.

And, we'll talk to Amy on the other side of this break.

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This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

So Amy Vitkus is a registered nurse, turn to peer assistance advocate, and I want to give you some space to tell your own story first.

And then we'll talk about how maybe your story either dovetails or not with some of what we've been hearing from your colleagues here.

Okay.

Thanks, Devon.

And, so I just wanted to say, you know, just what everyone's been saying.

I always say that, self cannot objectively evaluate self, and the is design not to see itself.

You know, the rationalization and justification.

I, I it's always like, oh, I'll deal with that later.

You know, I'll deal with that tomorrow.

And what recovery has given me is, is I've become an integrated woman, and I am at home within myself and, in the same character in all the scenes.

You know, that that feeling of, having to act and be someone else and pretend, and not being enough, what recovery has given me is the ability to lead and examine the life so that I can be in right relation with myself and right relation with others.

And not to say that I'm not and I'm human, you know, I fall short all the time, but, you know, I, I don't, I can get back on the horse.

I don't have to march myself off to the slaughter.

So, like what was shared?

I'm the regional coordinator for the Statewide Peer Assistance for nursing program.

I'm a registered nurse.

And I'm a person in recovery.

The statewide peer assistance for nursing program is, we're a free non regulatory program for all New York state nurses.

Regardless of licensure status or employment status.

And we, are available at, at any point in someone's career and we're free so that we don't have those financial barriers.

But, for me, I can relate to the tramadol.

My, you know, I always had a proclivity when I was, younger, to smoke too much, to drink too much.

Why, you know, is it nature?

Is it nurture?

Who knows?

And I can't.

Me.

Both of my parents have graduate degrees.

I had, everything that I needed.

A lot of what I wanted, a lot of the luxuries of a middle class life.

And, And I still had this proclivity.

You know, to, want to escape myself.

You talking teenage years, 20s, teenage, you know, teenagers.

It started in my teenage years.

But, you know, I, it maybe from the time I was a child, you know, just always, you know, into, escaping through stories and and reading and, and fantasy and, and so, when I found drugs and alcohol, you know, it, it gave me a path to, escape myself, and escape those feelings that were plaguing me.

A lot of those fears that some were, real and many, imagined, And then I became a nurse, you know, and, and I had checked all the boxes that I wanted to check, you know, I had, you know, my career and a family, a young family, and, and, a beautiful home and a cute little dog, and, and then I, I two, you know, fell victim of, of tramadol.

And it was, not a controlled substance at the time and is since become a controlled substance, but, you know, there was a part of me that knew I was not taking it in ways that were prescribed.

Well, why did you start?

I started with an injury, and, and a doctor prescribed it, and I was like, oh, you know, I this makes me feel great, you know?

And it.

What form was the drug?

It was, a pill.

It was pill.

Yeah.

And, you know, it it made me feel, like, I just was happier, easygoing, you know, I had energy to, do the chores.

I felt, comfortable in my skin and, like, I could show up for, all the different roles and responsibilities in my life, but that, you know, that that's a lie, you know?

And that's part of the, the seduction of drugs and alcohol, is that it?

That it does give those feelings of, of, being enough and, and connection.

And so the seduction is very real for some of us.

And, but but it's, you know, a total delusion.

So, you know, over the course of several years, I, being a nurse, I started, it started accidentally, actually, you know, we work long shifts.

And I was working night shift, and I came home, accidentally with, narcotic in my pocket, and, and I saved it for about six months, and then, about six months after that, you know, I had, like, a head cold or something, and I thought, oh, yeah, I have that oxycodone upstairs.

I should try that.

Good thing I saved it.

Yeah.

Just, you know, and again, like, I didn't see that, I didn't have the pause, the ability to have any sort of reflection or examination, and that, you know, I too am involved in the 12 step model, you know, on top of what I do for work, you know, but personally, I'm involved in the 12 step model, and that allows me to continue to lead and examine life.

And, you know, I stay close to the people, in my circle because, my mind has the ability to rationalize anything.

You know, just an aside, I was at Costco a couple weeks ago, and I was in the sparkling water section and I saw, mood enhancement water with ashwagandha.

I said, oh, that's right.

You know, it's just so subtle like that.

Who doesn't want their mood in hand, you know, and it's like, no, no, no, no.

Yeah.

So, so that day that you realized you had the oxy.

Yes.

Until the day your recovery started was how long?

Oh, boy.

That was nine years.

Nine years.

Yeah.

What was the worst of it?

So you know, I, my, I started diverting when it when, health care professional take some medications that don't belong to them, that belong to the hospital system or the institution or a patient.

You know, that's called diversion.

And so I started diverting medication and start slowly.

It's a progressive illness.

And, you know, the rationalization, this feeling that I had everything under the control that, you know, it was going to why it was okay this time today, it's it speaks to me with great authority.

And, and so, you know, I, I had a lot of dramatic consequences, related to, to my use because, the, the progressive nature of it, you know, I started using intravenous medications at work first and then, you know, I was physically addicted, and that turned into buying things off the street.

And it led to a lot of consequences, including, jail.

You know, I spent time in the Monroe County jail and, many treatments, and I was, in and out of 12 step recovery.

And I thought, there is f Xanax and a Beemer.

Can't fix me.

Like, how the heck are these 12 steps?

Like, going to be helpful or applicable to me?

But were they they they have changed my life, you know, and I had to be backed into a corner out of options.

And, you know, I always say I stopped auditing, 12 step program.

And I became a matriculated student.

And, you know, like that.

And I thought, you know, I'm just going to do these stupid prerequisites, these 12 steps that have nothing to do with this, you know, degree of sobriety.

But I, and it's not there's no degree, you know, it's it's, for me, it's it's a it's a daily reprieve.

So, yeah, I, I was, I had that what often is referred to as a moment of, of grace or a moment of clarity, where I, the good news is I ran out of people to blame.

And the bad news is I ran out of people to blame, and, and so I became willing to, you know, I say the 12 steps.

I became willing to get weird.

And, my, the title of the podcast that I did on recovery rounds is, I was always my father is an engineer.

You know, I have my brothers, an engineer, and, you know, I have a lot of, highly decorated people in my family, and, and so, you know, I was looking for a logical solution to an illogical problem.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, and so I thought, you know what?

I, I don't know what to do.

I'm just going to get weird and do these, these steps.

So.

And how are you doing these days?

Amazing.

So, like, I started off sharing.

I'm an I'm an integrated woman.

You know, I don't have to, worry.

About, you know, my behavior or who I might run into or, I don't have to.

I don't have secrets.

That's got to be so freeing.

Yes.

You know, I was.

I once heard that, we can do anything in recovery except keep secrets.

And so, you know, and and that's, for all areas of my life, you know, I, And so, like, what Mark was shared.

I don't always, speak about my, you know, self disclose in, in my work.

But it but it is a useful tool, you know, and it is this disarming you know, when you have, you know, I, I help support nurses.

You know, New York State is a recovery friendly state.

And, there are guardrails in place to keep everyone safe, but there are pathways to return to work with reduced or removed disciplinary action.

And, the statewide peer assistance for nursing is a huge part of that.

So, you know, I get to walk nurses in beside nurses and just say, hey, you know what?

It's a it's going to be okay if you're willing to do some work.

If you're willing do some things different.

If you're willing to get weird, like, you know it, it's going to be okay.

What a story, what a story.

If you can believe it, we're not that far away from the end of the hour.

And I'm going to ask all four of our guests if they'll take about a minute apiece.

And just their work is, in so many ways now designed to help others.

And so I just want to give them the floor and spend about a minute apiece.

What what they want to leave with you as we talk about addiction and recovery.

And I'll start with Doctor Winsberg.

You know, I was when you asked about how is my life changed?

It's changed in that I no longer think about myself and how I'm feeling, how the world is affecting me.

And all the time I'm now able to think about other people, especially my wife and, you know, amazingly, if I get out of my head and look at what does she need, she's working.

Maybe I'll do the laundry or I'll do the shopping, or I'll do whatever those.

It seems like such a minuscule change, but it's huge.

Awesome.

Final thoughts from Chuck Montante.

We went at it and with, what works?

Well.

There was 004 of us are clinicians and use the bio psychosocial model.

That's Rochester is the bastion of various social medicine.

Biological interventions.

We're at a time in history when there's medications that can help people with, substance use disorders and mental illness.

But they they don't stand alone.

The psychological side of recovery is, is the freedom that comes along with not having to lie in it.

It's a lot of work to hide bottles in the bushes and have to evenly distribute your bottles in your neighbors.

And you take up, but social interventions are critically important, starting with the family.

So it's interesting, Mark, that you talked about how central, Diane was to recognizing that there was a problem.

And then, in being there with you through the process, people are often reluctant to involve family, and we find that that's a good place.

And the, whether it's spanned or the, the, the Medical society of the State of New York, has a program for physicians in recovery.

And people's institutions may have employee assistance programs to get people started.

Well said.

Let's have, let's have Marcy and Amy.

Okay.

Marcy, about 35 seconds.

Go ahead.

I you when people the ways we feel like we're lucky to be in recovery is because the program that I go to, the 12 step program starts out with getting you sober.

But after that, it's.

Why did you drink?

Why?

What things bothered you?

What things can we help you look at differently that will allow you to get your life in order and be better, a better person than you were.

It's not just about getting sober, it's about improving your life.

And the group gives that to you every time you go in.

And so now we just give it back.

Amy, you know, I just want to say, like, substances perpetuated the delusion that I was connecting with others while keeping me wrapped up in self and, you know, I have, found real connections, meaningful connections in, in recovery.

And I just want to end with, you know, never give up.

It's always too soon to give up.

And you don't have to do this alone.

Just reach out to someone, anyone.

There are many paths.

Well, let me just read, Jack's email.

Jack's trying to find the show.

He said, hey, recovery rounds.org.

It's dot com.

It's dot com.

And he said it says the recovery runs.

That org doesn't work.

It's dot com recovery round.com.

If I misspoke I apologize.

Recovery rounds.com and recovery rounds.com/podcast.

Although Jack said he's already found it on Apple Podcasts.

So you'll find out where you find your podcast.

You can find it online.

We'll link to it in our show notes.

And the team involved with it is doing such great work.

You're going to hear when you when you go to recovery rounds.

Doctor Mark Winsberg, who's an addiction medicine specialist and host.

Thank you for sharing your story.

Thanks for being here.

Well, thanks for having us.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Chuck Montante, former president, CEO of West Fall Associates.

Great having you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you very much to Marcy Owens, a former ICU nurse.

Thank happy anniversary.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your story, Amy Vitkus, regional coordinator for for span, the Span program.

Thank you for sharing your story.

Thank you.

It's been an honor.

Well, it's great having all of you.

And from all of us at Connections.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for listening or finding us.

Wherever you find us.

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