Sam as her friends call her is an RN who works full-time at a local NJ hospital in the oncology department. Sam was one of the unlucky ones. After a minor surgery she was placed on OxyContin for pain. Sam has been very stressed out at work she was working a lot of overtime as her department was very short-staffed. These long hours didn’t help her failing and sometimes abusive relationship of 4 years.
After her first couple of days of pain management using opioids Sam began to feel more relaxed, less stressed and even seemed to have more energy. She continued using this medication long after her pain had subsided. Sam Doctor hopped. She knew what to say as she is a nurse and when those resources ran out, she got them on the street.
Early one Tuesday morning Sam was met with a union representative and was chosen to be randomly drug tested and came back with opioids and no prescription to back it up. They sent Sam to a 30-day inpatient rehab where she was placed on Suboxone. After, 40 days “clean” the nurses’ union passed an addendum that Nurses were no longer to work while on Suboxone. Suboxone is an opioid and can and is abused to get high and now has a street value.
Sam entered a 14-day detox (the correct amount of time to get off the potent opioid based medication) and received a non-opioid based implant which lasts from 3-6 months and engaged with the program making significant life changes over the course of the year-long treatment. Sam now is happily single, enrolled in school to get her nurse practitioner degree and has been clean for 14 months! With our program you, too, can Be like Sam!
