There is a lot of chatter around the areas of emotional intelligence these days. I had to look up what the components of emotional intelligence were for something else and it got me thinking. The five components of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. In a way, I wish I had read a little bit more about this a while ago. Part of me knows, however, that I would not have been in a place to see what I am seeing now. While I certainly had empathy (to a fault) to offer and generally decent socials skills, I was (and probably still am) lacking in the area of self- awareness and self-regulation. Motivation is one that is slowly returning and I think I have the career shift to thank for that. Let's break this down.

EMPATHY: The ability to be understand other people's emotions. Yup. I can do that. I think in the past 5 years I found out the level of empathy I have. While it is a source of strength, it was likely my biggest downfall in attempting to be a counselor in the field. The emotions I experienced in my own addiction and subsequent recovery were intense. No other way to say it than that: Intense. Intense enough to attempt to take my own life to make it all stop. Intense enough to drink a liter of alcohol a day, every day, non-stop for almost 10 years. My despair was so intense at the end of my active use that I had lost hope. Hope is a funny thing to me. I say it all the time. I hope people are well and had a great day. I hope that I can be a decent human being. I hope you are enjoying my blog. What does that mean? For me, it means "future" and "desire". When I lost hope that I could not possibly live outside of my addiction, my world almost ended. There was no sunshine. I didn't care if you had a good day. I didn't care about anything other than finding a way out. Hope is powerful. Hope is the foundation of tomorrow. When dealing with active addiction in other people's lives, what I grabbed onto most was their sense of hope. I don't want people to ever feel what it is like to live without a sense of hope or promise of a new day. I would sense on a scale of 1-100 where a person was in their hope for change or for themselves. If they were in the 10-20s , I would struggle to find a way for them not to feel that way. If there were at 100, I had a good day too. That's the struggle in working directly with people. We need to have some empathy, sympathy even. The whole counseling thing just really showed me something about my ability to empathize with people. I can do it, but I have to be careful too. I haven't figured out how to keep free of taking on the problems as my own. Deep down, I just don't want you to ever feel the way that I felt all those years ago. I was scared, ready to leave the earth and void of anything that matter. I would give my heart for another person not to experience this. Because of this, I needed to return to nursing (more on that in a bit).

MOTIVATION: To be willing to make the effort to remain well informed and work for continuous improvement. Everything I mentioned in the previous section zapped all of this out of my life. I was no longer interested in getting better at anything. I was struggling to just stay afloat. What I didn't like about myself in the past year or so was going back into seclusion. I broke plans with others. I crawled into bed every night the minute I got home. I was late for work. I was unmotivated to do anything on weekends. I wish I had known that I was not going to be able to moderate my empathy back when I started this journey into counseling. My motivation can wax and wane on its own without a lot of intervention. One day I am slug, the next day, my house has never been cleaner. One day I am ready to write a book, the next thing I know, I hadn't written a blog entry in over 4 months. Under prolonged stress, my motivation is the first causality. Toward the end of my time in counseling, I was just struggling to find the motivation to get out of bed. I've been there before. I am not interested in being back there. I have too much good in my life to watch it pass by from the confines of my bed.

SELF-AWARENESS: Hmmmm....I would say that I am a solid half and half on this one. I can read a room. I can sense how others are processing information. I know that I can be loud and crass. I know that I will avoid like the plague if something is making me uncomfortable. So, a good portion of the time, I think I have reasonable self awareness. The kicker, though, is that I am also incredibly impulsive. Despite having some self awareness, I just push right through that "now is a good time to hold your tongue" thing and state my opinion. Part of my motivation for certain action is based in my emotional responses to the situation. In most situations, I will just engage and be aware of how I am holding myself and what my physical responses are. It's not nice to yawn in someone's face, for instance, even if the topic is of little interest. It is obviously a source of passion for this person and I want s/he to have the space to talk about it. On the flip side of that, hit me with certain topics and I am suddenly a tornado of dynamite coming your way. I have been known to be explosive at times, aggressive, passive aggressive (an upper mid-western trait amplified by 100) and, at times, kinda stupid. The struggle for me is that I am not quite sure what those triggers are all of the time. I know a few hot button topics for myself. Other times, I am just as surprised as you are that I am losing my mind about something. In conclusion, I am self-aware enough to know that I am not self-aware enough to keep in all together. I have to imagine I am in some sort of normal category here.

SELF-REGULATION: Ummm....can we skip this one? Ugh. Self-regulation is difficult for me. It has been a struggle in sobriety for sure. The first year of my recovery, I was angry. I was mad. I was annoyed. This whole "live sober" stuff was bullshit in my eyes. "If I am going to feel this way, I should just drink." It was around 6 month marker of sobriety that I started DBT. You know what makes an angry person even more irritable? To be told that they lack the ability to self-regulate and are defensive/angry. I remember when my therapist then and my current therapist told me that I was defensive and argumentative. "I AM NOT! HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT? [Insert random insult here]" Oh, wait. I suppose that is what you are talking about huh? My current therapist was shocked when I stood up and walked out when he said that about a year ago. "I wasn't sure you were coming back. I was right though." Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was right. My reaction, though, is that emotional regulation piece that has been so challenging for the past couple of years. When I lack the motivation to get out of bed, what strength do I have to regulate my emotional state? I had little to give. I pulled together what I could to be regulated in front of my clients. At any other given moment, my emotional state was going to be right on my sleeve, in the raw, unpleasant form that will be evident as soon as I open my mouth. Even when I told myself, "no getting into this or that, be kind and gracious today," it rarely happened. I think I will always lack in this area. DBT help me come a long way in terms of calming down for a second or two before I react to something. Under prolonged stress and an ill-fitted work environment, I am rendered incapable, on any level, of regulating my emotional state. I feel like I am crawling back to a more normal state, though, with keeping my emotions in check now.

SOCIAL SKILLS: I tell people often that I can play both sides of the fence and can be quite charming. In the career world, I have used this to my advantage frequently. I have quickly been identified for promotions and positions because of it. What I have talked about in previous blog entries, though, is that playing both sides of the fence starts a process of me losing myself in playing the game and forgetting I had an opinion to begin with. I don't feel this happens as strongly now as it used to. I am a good person to take to any social event. I can strike up conversations with just about anyone. I am not shy. I can make conversation about many different things. I try to use my powers for good and not evil. I can handle most personalities. I may be screaming inside "SHUT UP" but will continue to converse and remain social and engaged. The benefit of having social flexibility is that I meet all sorts of people in all sorts of different ways. I am genuinely interested other people's experiences. I think people, in general, are really interesting. I have always love multicultural classes and discussions. I like to see different viewpoints and experiences. I want to know why people think the way that they do. So, social skills, I am set here. Yeah me. Go team.

With all of this said, January has been quite the roller coaster. My therapist warned me that my initial excitement about making a transition will fade at some point and some more hostile emotions may start to surface about my experiences over the past 5 years. My response was, can these hostile emotions be any worse than what I was already experiences while I was there? He responded, "resentments". Well, thank goodness I have a whole entire 12 step program to deal with those. I won't be able to see him as often as I was for the past year so, I will be engaging in more community based supports. The timing is good for that. Anyway, he is right, I am started to feel some of my resentments surfacing. 

I am content with my new job. I have been well received. I have used most of my emotional intelligence as defined here to seamlessly engage in a nursing department. Here are a few things I have noticed since returning to nursing in behavioral health field. 1. I can take feedback. I am in training right now and I am not doing everything perfectly. Yet, I get the feedback, say "great, will do" and move on. I was so defensive and angry before, I wasn't sure if I could take feedback (good or poor) anymore. I fear rejection more than anything. My mind will tell me that "feedback = rejection" so I bob and weave to avoid it if I can. It's a fear that has legitimately held me back from my full potential. I am working on it though. Now, fortunately, I am having the experiences in which I can take constructive feedback, use it and move on. Whew. This is relieving for me. 2. I have a defined role with perimeters that are more clearly focused. This is a really fancy way of saying "I leave my job there." I have a series of tasks to complete. I have the skills to address issues outside of those tasks. At 10:30pm, I hand the keys to the next shift and call it good. I am not on for 4 days now and I am not going to be thinking about work. Finally. 3. My nursing side is a bit more cold and clinical and I like it this way. It is not that I don't engage with people warmly. It's not that I don't care. In any given moment, I am there to assess and determine an intervention to address the situation. The patient is sitting in front of me because they need or want something. They may not get what they want, however, they were given the explanation for the response and I am done. I have firm boundaries. I care but only to a certain point. I took more abusive behaviors from my counseling patients than I ever have from my nursing patients. I think because I was so emotionally fragile towards the end of my time in counseling, I just straight up believed that I deserved the disrespect I was getting. The confidence I have in nursing allows me to understand and enforce my limits. I never felt like I could do that in counseling without being accused of not being person centered, compassionate or "cold". 

My number one resentment is this at the moment: I haven't been in direct nursing since 2009. I stepped into my current position with a 10 year lapse in doing what I am doing today. I have trained for 6 shifts and they are ready to release me on my own. I feel comfortable with that too. I felt like I had a natural affinity for counseling. I thought I was pretty good at it. Yet, here I am, in a totally different capacity, thriving and feeling good about where things are at in less than 2 weeks. Why could I not find this confidence and comfort in something I actually pretty decent at? Why did I feel so broken for so long? Did I let my job/management get the best of me? I was repeatedly told by my superiors that there was something wrong with me because I clearly couldn't deal with the stress of my job. Was it really me? Did I fail? Am I really too empathetic? Am I really that emotionally dis-regulated? As I am writing this, I feel like a 5 year old kid on the playground seeking acceptance from my peers while secretly hoping they say what I thinking. "No, you are fine! It wasn't you, it was "[insert any excuse here]". 

In the world of 12 steps and dealing with resentments, I have to be clear about what my resentment is. I have to define the role of the other person AND my role in it. My defensive, angry side does not appreciate this part of the assignment at all. You should have watched me go through this when talking about my divorce! Wow....you mean there ARE two sides and I played a role too? Never. I was perfect. Anyway, I have also have to decide if I am willing to resolve this resentment. The answer is a clear "no" for me right now. I am not willing, yet, to do the work around it. I need some time to sit with my changes for a bit longer. I need to get a bit more distance between myself and what happened over the past couple of years. I plan to talk at my next session about secondary trauma and how this plays out in a person's life. I believe that I absorbed a lot of trauma from my experience in counseling. What I felt like I took home night after night was trauma. My boss told me at one point that the way I presented cases in staffing was traumatizing staff and re-traumatizing myself. In reality, I was just talking about what happened. Sadly, I was also seeking support that this was a typical response from my management there. "You have issues with their experiences. If you can't deal with it, something is wrong with your self-care/you." So, this resentment is pretty strong right now. However, with time and space, I will work through it. 

Wow, this has become a long entry. If you are still reading, thank you.
​Julie

I have always told people that the name of my first book is going to be "Hugging a Tornado". I planned to talk about my story and what it must be like to love an addict like me. I moved at 200 mph, wrecked a hole bunch of stuff and people still stuck around knowing that I might strike again at any time. I was thinking about that today as I was running around getting some stuff done today. I feel like 2020 has been kind of like a tornado, but not quite. More of a whirlwind of changes and motions that has me quite amazed with only being 13 days into the new year.

I started the orientation for my new job. It's an orientation that I have been through many times: ethics, boundaries, payroll, etc. The room had a good energy even though I was the only one in my room that was completing orientation for my specific site and I was the only nurse starting. During orientation, I found out that they have a contract with Rasmussen and offer 10-20% off of tuition. Wow. That's huge. I just have to send in a copy of my first pay stub and the discount starts immediately. I wasn't expecting that! I was talking with the HR rep about the location I am going to and she said that people rarely leave that facility. She was excited that I was willing to take a part-time position. She knows the staff well and felt like I was going to be a great match for them. They may be expecting a retirement down the line. Regardless, it says something about the facility when people rarely leave! Yeah!

Right before the Christmas Holiday, I was approached about possibly serving on the board for a local treatment facility. I was totally shocked. I have known the owner of the facility for about 7 years now. He was actually one of my first supervisors when I was interning. We have always had a lot of mutual respect for each other and it has now led to me serving on the board. I feel very honored to bring my expertise to the team. They are really excited I can type and volunteered to take notes at the meetings going forward. Ha! The board was excited about my experiences both with nursing and behavioral health. I have a lot of knowledge about treatment, insurance, aging populations and I love public speaking. I am honored to be considered and accepted tonight at the meeting. 

I started looking at a contract position with a local case management company. I was super excited on Friday after speaking with the CEO of the company. I got word today that they could not take me for the position because it requires an RN (vs LPN) per state statue. Regardless of anything, the CEO was super excited about me and told me to call him if I was still interested when I was done with my degree. In the meanwhile, he is attempting to apply for a waiver to see if they could work with LPN staff in the long-term. Even though it didn't work out, I am still really excited about the potential opportunities that are out there once I am done. There will be no shortage of nursing needs in the behavioral health setting. I am taking this as one of those moments: "It wasn't mean to be. For a good reason." I hope to get a better handle on things right now with all of these changes, so maybe I just didn't need this right now.

I am plugging away at school. I am working through testing out of Algebra. I have successfully passed 3 of 6 modules. I have a total of 45 days to get the whole thing done. I hope to knock it out in the next two weeks. I am taking a compressed Chemistry class. I have a very solid C+. I asked my mom this weekend if it was too early to start screaming "Cs gets degrees". She was supportive :) I don't care about a 4.0; some of these classes I just need to pass. Here's hoping! I have to start working on anatomy and physiology soon. There are 16 modules and I have done 2. I haven't started the lab yet despite the delivery of my animal to dissect. I know I will get it done. I am staying organized. 

In 6 weeks, I am going to be heading out on a cruise with one of my very best friends. I almost haven't had time to think about it with all the chaos going on, yet here it is coming up very fast. Miami in Feb? Sign me up. What I am most excited about is the fact that I CAN have fun. I will have some stress with school, but I don't believe I will be carrying much stress from my work life. While transplant can be stressful in the moment, I truly can walk away from it and not be terribly consumed by the stress on any long-term basis. That is what I never found in the field of counseling. I never quite figured out how to walk away. With being able to leave everything behind (stress, worries, school, etc), I can be truly present and enjoy each minute of this trip. 

I stopped in to a nursing uniform shop today (that is just way too much fun....). I was talking with the worker there and was telling her that I was rejoining the nursing field and needed something to wear. Since I was the only one in the store, she spent a lot of time with me and I am now the owner of some new fabulous pieces. She asked me what I had been doing prior and I talked about my experiences as a counselor. She talked about how her daughter was working as a social worker. "She looks like she is getting eaten alive. She can't talk about anything else because there is nothing else in her life. I worry about her." Oh God, did that ever hit home. Yes. I know how that is. Everything gets related back to work. The only thing I have to offer in a conversation is work related. It is so much clearer to me how burned out I was and to the degree it was interfering with every aspect of my life.

I logged into LinkedIn this evening. In general, I don't pay much attention to my professional profile. Honestly, it hadn't changed much in the last 5 years. I have received a lot of "Congrats on your new role" messages which are generally generic. I had a few people reach out to me to ask about the change from counseling to nursing as my main focus. It generated some interesting conversations. Apparently, there is a lot of burn out running around the field and people are generally asking if it is better to go back to nursing. I can't say if it is the right decision for them. I am very clear now it was the right decision for me. That is not to say that I won't return again some day. Who knows! I am also getting the added benefit of making some new connections.

Mentally, I made a commitment at the end of 2019 to do a lot of things differently. While I am not going to the gym or making a radical changes to my diet, I want to take care of me in a very different way. "Follow your bliss...." is a phrase I have heard in the past. So, I am doing that right now. I get twinges of "I should have done this [RN school] instead of getting a degree in counseling all those years ago." Interestingly, as I was leaving the uniform store today, the woman said, "It's a good thing you did that path though, now there will be no wondering or having the 'what-ifs'. Let's be real, learning to be good to people at their weakest will always serve you well." She's right. I got to know my population on a deeper level and I am a better person for it. 

Julie 

Wow.....12 weeks ago, I had no idea what to do. A song lyric kept running through my head "It's indecision when you know you ain't got nothing left." Could I leave my job? Could I afford to? Can I walk away from my family and friends at this job? What I did know was that I was done. On a whim, I started looking around and things started changing. I went from "what am I going to do?" 12 weeks ago to today.

Today was my last day. Seven weeks ago, I thought this day wasn't going to come because it was so slow. The last 2 weeks flew by and I think I never really felt like I was going to be done. I cleaned out my office (it was really dusty by the way). I boxed up my things. I said good-bye to probably over 50 people in person and more by email. While I was feeling great excitement and happiness, my heart is sad this afternoon. Change is hard. I listened as people told me how much I would be missed. I started really understanding the impact that I had on others I worked with. My office was the touchdown spot for a lot of people. I loved my co-workers.

Over the past seven weeks, I have gone back and forth about this decision. Of course, I am fully, 100% on board with this decision and know that no mistake was made with regards to leaving. That doesn't mean it doesn't suck too. Here is that whole place of "black and white coexisting together" that I don't like. I feel a little guilty for being so happy to run out the door with my last box while people were getting a last farewell in. I saw tears of sadness and unhappiness of my departure. I will come to terms with all of this, it is just hard knowing the awesomeness I left behind today.

And....here is the happier part, you guys. I feel so different. I feel anger lifting from my being. I feel excitement again. I am currently enrolled in 3 online classes. I went out and bought scrubs. I worked a stupid amount of hours in last December to make sure I could play a little bit in the month of January. I am working on Chemistry which I don't understand at all. I am testing out of Algebra which is making me wonder if I ever paid attention to anything in high school. I received my anatomy & physiology lab kit last week. I am now a proud owner of a pig to dissect in the comfort of my own home. (OMG) This is my happy place. I love learning. I may not get it all, but I am going to try! 12 weeks ago, I couldn't imagine any of this. I thought I was stuck. I wrote about being upset with having pigeon-holed myself into counseling. Crap, I didn't like it, now what? I was in such an unhappy place, I didn't think I could find my motivation to go back to school. I didn't think I could make a change this big. I didn't know that the "crazy woman" Julie that takes on way to much is is infinitely happier for it was still in here. Yeah, I may be getting older now, but I got a lot of life left me in. 12 weeks ago, I didn't know that.

I will start my position with the treatment center near my home on Monday. I have heard nothing but positive things about this place and all of my interactions thus far have been positive. I will be working there for about 16 hours per week. I will continue with transplant and start picking up again in February when I have my life a little more figured out. I will also be going to school part-time for the next 3 quarters. I had a phone interview today on my way home for a nursing care coordinator. They are looking for a nurse for 8 hours per week to meet with clients who are engaged in behavioral health services to ensure that all needs are currently being addressed. I spoke with the director for about an hour today. He explained the position to me. He was put in contact with me from the psychologist at my now former employer. "Dr. H. spoke very highly of you....but I don't know anything about you." So, I talked about my work in triage with the county, working with criminal justice involved clients, resource connecting, etc. I heard him gasp at one point. "You are like the perfect fit. Are you funny too? We like funny people." To which I responded, "yeah, I like to laugh a lot." I will know more about that next week. Contract position, my time, my schedule. How is this all working out so well????

I have felt for the past year that a little black cloud was following me all over the place. When something good would happen, it felt like 3 terrible things would occur within the next month. When I put in my notice, I had nothing lined up other than being pretty sure I was going to back to school. Job? Not sure. I handed in my notice, I got the job offer for the treatment center right after I sat back down in my office. We pushed and pushed and I was able to get everything together to get enrolled in school right away. This opportunity literally came out of left field when I ran into Dr. H in the hall 2 weeks ago to have a conversation about my departure. 2020 is off to a very positive start which is something I could not be more grateful for. I needed some wins. For the past year, I felt like I was on the losing side of things a lot of time. I didn't see much in terms of my wins in my full time job. I think one thing that kept me afloat was having the wins in transplant. We don't always win but it's uber-cool when we do.

It's the most bittersweet evening. I am going to curl up with the kittens and watch a goofy movie. I got some hard core studying to do tomorrow. I thought I was going to do some tonight, but I think I just need to chill. I am already missing people I have worked with for the past five years. I need to let my heart mourn and be sad for a bit. On the flip side, I am ready to hit the ground running and see what happens in the next several months.

Again, there are many of you who offered words of support and encouragement to me over the past few years! As you have been offering me your support, I would like you to all also be a part of this win. It was with your encouragement, I was able to process the good and the bad at my own pace and be thoughtful with my next moves. Even though most of my co-workers were not happy about my leaving, they were most gracious in their happiness for the journey ahead for me. Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me. 

​Julie

I believe it was about 3 years ago, I was invited by my friend's daughter's school to come and speak about my careers for one of her classes. She was involved in a post-secondary program and the class was called "Investigating Medical Careers". She thought my transplant experience would be really interesting (which the students really do love). When she shared with her instructor that I also did substance abuse counseling, I was asked to speak on both topics. I believe I have now shared my experiences with both areas to about 8 or 9 different classes made up of 15-17 year old students.

It surprises me what the students are most interested in when I start to tell my story of lived experience with addiction. Some are really interested in what I lost and how I got my life back. I have several students that want to pick my brain about cannabis and legalization. I was back up there today and shared my story which resulted in A LOT of questions about mixing THC, alcohol and/or tobacco with anti-depressants. The #2 topic was the genetics of addiction and whether a person with a significant family history is making a choice to get addicted if they chose to use. For a bunch of 15 and 16 year old students, I was pretty blown away by our discussion today. Kids are smart these days.

I no longer prepare a presentation when I go to these classes. I just go in and talk. I figure the experience the students have had with addiction varies and I want them to let me know what they want to know. Three girls came to me after class and asked me if I would be willing to talk with them privately. We found a room and I got a glimpse into the life of 2 teenagers that are heading in a pretty concerning direction and a third whose life has been devastated by her whole family using. Her goal was to stay in this program with the technical college and start a career the minute she turns 18 and can move out. It dawned on me as I was speaking with them, that this interaction is what I had in mind when I thought about going back for addiction counseling/addiction education. The girls were straightforward, honest and had a lot fo self-concern. I talked with them about options and their goals. I heard one say as she was leaving "they need to get more people like her. She was awesome." 

I have a lot of knowledge of addiction both professionally and personally. In this venue, I share part of my story as it plays into how I transitioned from nursing to counseling. These kids could have cared less about my duties as a counselor, they wanted to know about addiction.. Sitting with those three girls was such a validating experience for me. I listened without judgement. They talked candidly about why they are not honest with adults about their use. They want to know why their own parents are the way they are. When I talk about people with addiction issues, I try to remain compassionate at all times. From my own experience, I hardly ever understood my own behavior. I just had this compulsion and very little would get in my way. I made rash decisions. I made hurtful decisions. I never wanted those decisions to burden anyone else even though they clearly did time after time. 

When I did my TedX talk back in 2014 about addiction after gastric bypass surgery, no one wanted to be seen with me during the intermissions. People would smile and say "nice job", but not come anywhere near me to discuss my topic......until I hit the parking lot. Suddenly, a car pulls up and they start telling me about their cousin that had gastric bypass surgery and she was a raging alcoholic. Another car pulls around the corner. I tried to wave them through and the driver pokes out his head "that's OK, we'll wait, we need to talk with you." I ended up having 6 cars full of people who desperately wanted more information about addiction and what to do with their friend or family member. I loved every minute of that. I am breaking down barriers. I am reducing stigma. I am proudly answering "Yup, me too" when it came to the question of a "person like you getting addicted? Really?" I want to offer my strength and hope. People are not helpless in those situation, they have decisions to make as well about they would like to address addiction in their lives. I don't want to be the one to tell them what to do. I offer out options and let them decide for themselves. 

I love public speaking with a passion. I am not afraid to say that I am really good at it too. I came across this talent in high school when I joined the speech team. I won award after award for my work in original oratory, picking totally random topics and convincing a room full of people I was right. Never underestimate the power of having a one sided conversation, ha! Since high school, I have dreamed of being a public speaker. It's my version of wanting to grow up and be a rock star. It wasn't until I got sober that I was able to find that passion again. This time, I found a topic that is both professionally and personally meaningful to me. I get the stigma. I experienced the breakdown of the behavioral health system. I got the whole "you, again?" response from the detox nurses. If shame worked, I would have been sober in my 20s instead of my 30s. I want to reduce stigma. I don't want people to feel ashamed for asking for help. I want people to feel empowered whatever their relation is to addiction.

What I gained in the field of counseling was an extra dose of approaching people with addiction in a compassionate manner. I have a lot of patience for the denial and the seemingly unending level of craziness. As I am transitioning out of direct counseling, I feel my desire burning again to be a public speaker/educator about addiction. On some level, I knew when I was going back to school that being an educator was more of my desire than counseling. There isn't really an "addictionology" degree out there. When I looked at PhD programs years ago, I noticed that there could be a concentration related to addiction in some of the fields. There was no program that specialized in addiction at that level. Most of the addiction concentrations were found in the public health realm (which I agree with actually); however, with a masters in counseling, a public health PhD is a big leap when applying. 

I didn't really plan to return to school. I had thought about it in the past and thought it was too much to go back all over again. I didn't know what I even wanted to do until about 2 month ago. It was at the suggestion of my therapist to at least look into it. I was excited when I found the school that I am attending now because it is designed for adult learners like me. They opt to give me credit for my other educational experience where other schools are not able to. While it is significantly more expensive than other schools, I could start immediately and get done with the RN degree in 14 months. That's worth the expense to me, not to mention the investment will pay for itself faster than any other degree I have earned to this point.

I decided to return and began talking with friends and family about the decision. When people would ask me what I planned to do with my RN after I am done, I really didn't have a solid answer. I took a chance and went with this decision feeling confident that going back to school and completing my nursing was the right thing to do. I start my job as a nurse (LPN) next week at a local treatment center. I have a feeling this whole path before me will be very clear once I get started there. I have always felt like there was a significant deficit in the understanding of addiction in the medical field. My nursing background coupled with degree in addiction specific counseling may be the combination I was missing. I see myself teaching continuing education credits. I see having in-services to talk about addiction in all medical populations. I see myself working in a behavioral health setting and bringing a lot of valuable experience to the table. Lastly, I see myself presenting/public speaking. I have no idea how that will actually play out, but I was provided with a few opportunities down the line (fall 2020) that might be part of the break I am looking for.

Today was a good day. 2020 is off to a quick and furious start. I have a lot of work ahead of me. Good thing that my motivation is slowly returning. I can do this. I want to do this. My life will be better for it. I thank all of you who have offered words of support as I make my newest and latest transition. I am leaving a lot behind in terms of friends, pay and benefits. I still remain steadfast in my belief that I will be taken care adequately and I will be on a better track for having gone this route. After months of feeling defeated, anxious and unhappy, I seemed to have found the light again, my passion, my calling or whatever. Speaking with the kids I did today, reminded me that I have a story with power. My story matters to me and I have always hoped that my story could be of value to others. I don't know that people go through hell for no reason. I was meant to do something with those experiences. I may have misunderstood the calling; however, in the world of recovery, "it all happened for a reason."

Peace Julie