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Addiction, the pandemic, and the stress on healthcare providers


Addiction, the pandemic, and the stress on healthcare providers (WKRC)
Addiction, the pandemic, and the stress on healthcare providers (WKRC)
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CINCINNATI (WKRC) – After a record year of overdose deaths in the US, addiction specialists say the face of those struggling with this disease is changing. Many healthcare workers are now in need of help themselves.


At the beginning of the pandemic, we paid a lot of attention to healthcare workers. They were heroes working long hours and taking care of all of us. But hitting year three, those long hours take a toll, and those who have struggled with addiction say healthcare workers are extremely vulnerable to the struggle with addiction.

Michael Hester is a nurse who is in recovery for addiction.

“My actual mindset was, 'I can try to get better, and if it doesn’t work, there’s always killing myself,'” he said.

After years of struggling with addiction, Hester says he finally got the courage to ask for help.

“So, I was medic in the army with the infantry and cavalry, and then that led to mental health issues, and that led me down the path,” said Hester.

That path is far more common than many realize, according to the most recent report available from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

It says that in the year prior to the study, 7% of full-time healthcare workers between the ages of 18 and 64 met criteria for a substance use disorder. 5% of healthcare workers had used illicit drugs, and 4% reported heavy alcohol consumption in the month prior.

This was all before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Aaron Laine is the director of community outreach for DeCoach Rehabilitation Centre. He says since then, he’s seen this concern continue to grow.

“During the pandemic, everybody has been impacted, right? That’s at every level of work, socioeconomic status. People are finding themselves with more mental health, depression, anxiety, and substance abuse," said Laine.

Laine is five years sober, and Hester is two-and-a-half years sober.

So, for people struggling in healthcare or any other field, both have some advice:

“Reach out when you don’t really think you need it, because in a lot of ways, you don’t know until you know,” said Laine.

“It was a double life,” said Hester. “The strain of that just made my mental health even worse, and then, now, coming out and admitting I had an issue, that I had a problem and it needed to be addressed, just from one of that, not even sober yet, that was a weight lifted off my shoulders that I can’t even express to anyone that hasn’t experienced that.”

Hester says the first step is find a safe person to ask for help.

He has spent the past two years getting his nursing license back. He now works as a nursing supervisor in a rehabilitation facility.

Click here to reach out to DeCoach Rehabilitation Centre.

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