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"I can tell you ways to get high you wouldn't
believe," Sandi Schraut, RN, says with such conviction
that you know it must be true.
Schraut, 52, deals with the chemically dependent in
a 28-bed alcohol rehabilitation unit and 12-bed detox
unit at the Anoka (Minn.) Regional Treatment Center.
In eight years at the state hospital, starting as a
float nurse and for a time as an admissions RN, she
also has worked with the facility's mentally ill: schizophrenics,
bipolars and anti-socials.
"Anti-social personality disorder seems to go
hand-in-hand with chemically dependent folks,"
Schraut said. "Anti-social people don't think rules
are meant for them or they think that if no one sees
them break a rule, they haven't broken it."
The nursing staff has to meet regularly to agree on
rules to put up a unified front, Schraut said, because
"It's easy for these people to do staff splitting.
If one staff says no, they'll go to the next staff and
the next until they can find somebody who's a little
more easy to push around."
It's alcohol, though, that makes for a tough crowd.
In detox, "A lot of times they're brought in by
the police and they're not happy about being there,"
let alone for the minimum 48 hours, Schraut said.
In treatment, about 90 percent of patients are committed
by the court; many are resentful and unmotivated. Some
go through treatment three or four times before they
see-if they ever do-the benefits of sobriety, she said.
But even in them, Schraut sees the positive. They are
living examples for the younger people, testimonies
to the effects of drinking for 25 or 35 years.
Particularly memorable for Schraut was a woman in her
early 50s with "a lovely Southern accent,"
a standout in Minnesota. "The sweetest lady you'd
ever want to meet in your whole life could not stop
drinking," Schraut said, and despite having gone
through treatment several times, she was found dead
of liver disease with a bottle in her hand.
Chemical dependence RNs see all manner of liver, kidney,
pancreatic and brain disease.
Schraut said she's seen patients who, at 40, are in
the late stages of dementia. Then there is Wernicke's
syndrome, the alcohol-induced deterioration of the brain
that is roughly equivalent to Alzheimer's disease. And
the facility sees more than its share of AIDS patients.
At one time, three of 28 treatment beds were AIDS cases,
Schraut said.
She said she set out to be an RN after high school
and worked as an LPN in orthopedics and orthopedic surgery
while rearing six children. Ten years ago, she completed
the RN program at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and
soon found her way to the state hospital.
The nursing staff's priority is to stabilize patients
medically and then pursue treatment, whether it be solely
for alcohol or abuse of alcohol and other substances
that ranges from "huffing" paint to the use
of heroin or cocaine.
"It's easy to get real sour when you're working
with these people," Schraut said.
To cope, it's important to remember that you're dealing
with an illness, she said. "Nobody sets out in
life saying, 'I'm going to be a drunk.' When you're
a young kid and you're looking at your future, that's
not what you're looking for."
Schraut has another way of coping: writing.
Her first book of self-published poetry was colored
by life experiences. Her next, to be titled Psychotica,
will draw heavily on her work with the addicted and
mentally ill, she said.
She also has a couple of novels in the works. "One
is medical fiction, surprise, surprise," she said.
"The other is science fiction.
"Writing is part of the outlet, part of the way
I deal with emotions that come out of working with hard
cases and difficult people," Schraut said.
It's also her way of speaking personally to thousands
of people on the fringes of mental illness and chemical
dependence. Between depression and alcohol, not to mention
other substance abuse, "Everybody has had some
experience with it, either personally or with a family
member," she said.
As a nurse and a writer, Schraut said her heart goes
out to the chemically dependent "because you know
how big that monkey is on their back."
Contact
Phil McPeck at getpjm@aol.com.
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