Challenging Belief - Essay

I was challenged today to write about an experience that had changed my way of thinking. I flipped through a few decades of memories. So many things to review. There was one experience, or I should say, a set of experiences that came to the fore. These experiences changed the way that I saw addiction within family life, within my nursing career and within my community. None are ‘most important’. But it was my experience as a nurse caring for a patient in the late 1980’s that really shifted my thinking.

I do not remember her name, but I do remember the situation. This tiny, frail woman with fine white hair was one hundred years old. She was one of the patient’s assigned to my care in a general hospital in Saskatchewan. She was psychotic, extremely agitated and so unmanageable she required physical restraints at her ankles and wrists. I’m certain I had taken care of patients in alcohol withdrawal before, but none as dramatic as this woman. 

I had recently been interested in alcoholism and it’s social and family effects, but had not seen such dramatic medical effects until looking after this frail elderly lady. She did not die, she did not get particularly ill. In fact within days was up and was discharged home to her sons. Her twin sons, both mentally challenged and in their 60's, were still in her care. Was there contact with social work? That I do not recall. The physician, Dr. Saul Cohen, a family practioner in Regina, had established a medical regime that treated the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. He also ran certain blood tests to confirm any medical issues resulting from alcohol abuse. Medically there was protocol and a quasi specialty. But for nursing, I realized there was no preplanned care plan providing specific care for the medical effects of active alcoholism - either withdrawal management or follow up discharge planning.

Although small bits of information had been coming to me about this condition, my thinking changed with this elderly woman and the wonderful physician who treated her. A workshop that he provided the staff opened my budding ideas even more. My own resistance to stigma so obvious at that time created the environment for me to continue in the field of addictions - specifically withdrawal management. I had seen, at the bedside, the neurological effects and the incredible changes wrought by alcohol.

“Do not think that what your thoughts dwell on 

does not matter. Your thoughts are making you.”

 ~ Bishop Steere (from Overcoming Addiction)

Author's note: Edited January 31, 2024