She Was Stealing Narcotics at Work. Years Later, Alcohol Came for Everything Else. Christine's Story.

Christine was a nurse, a mom of three, and the person everyone counted on. Behind the scenes, she was pocketing the narcotics she was supposed to be wasting at work. Nobody knew. Not her husband. Not her coworkers. Not anyone.

Prescription pill addiction doesn't always look the way people expect. Sometimes it starts with a fractured back and a prescription that feels harmless. Sometimes it takes root in someone who grew up watching addiction destroy her family and swore she would never end up there herself.

Christine got clean from the pills. She lost her nursing license, went through drug court, and rebuilt her life piece by piece. But years later, alcohol showed up quietly, and before she knew it, she was right back in it. Hiding bottles. Waking up shaking. Lying to the same people she'd just spent years earning back trust from.

This is her story of two addictions, the shame that kept her stuck, and the honesty that finally set her free.

Growing Up Around Addiction on Long Island

Christine grew up in Suffolk County on Long Island, New York. Loving household. Big family. Her mom is one of eleven, so there were always cousins, aunts, and uncles around. Her grandmother lived one house over.

But there was also dysfunction. Her father was an alcoholic. He drank heavily for years, and by the time Christine was five years old, her mom had put all five kids in therapy to learn about alcoholism and what it meant that their dad was sick.

When I was five I was already going to counseling for addiction, to learn about alcoholism and that my dad was sick and that he had a disease.

Christine's father got sober when she was young. He really tried. But the damage to his liver was already done. His doctor told him at 27 that he had to stop drinking.

He didn't make it past 43.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3bMyFscC38

Losing Her Father at Eleven

Christine's first day of sixth grade was the same day her father went into the hospital for surgery. Doctors planned to remove the damaged part of his liver, hoping it would regenerate. He never came home.

She remembers standing at the doorway that morning, giving him a hug and a kiss and saying goodbye. The next time she saw him, he was in the ICU with a tube down his throat.

I remember instantly, maybe within five minutes, just grabbing her face like this and telling her, it's gonna be okay, mom. It's gonna be okay. I was 11 years old.

That moment says everything about the role Christine would take on for the rest of her growing-up years. At eleven, she became the one holding everyone else together. She grew up fast. She helped raise her sister's children. She took on responsibility that wasn't hers to carry.

And she buried a lot of it.

There's a six-month stretch from her childhood that Christine has no memory of at all. Her therapist told her she must have blocked it out. It was the period when her father had an affair, left the house, and moved out. Everyone else in the family remembers it. Christine doesn't.

High School, Early Drinking, and a Promise She Couldn't Keep

Addiction runs deep on both sides of Christine's family. Three of her father's brothers died from alcoholism, none of them old. Her grandfather died from it too. On her mother's side, the pattern repeated.

Christine knew all of this. She told herself she would never drink or use drugs.

She made it to about ninth or tenth grade.

I hated beer, so I would have like my backpack with my Bacardi, going to keg parties in the woods and smoking Newports. And it was a lot of fun in the beginning.

It was weekend partying with friends. Nothing that felt dangerous at the time. When she moved out and got pregnant with her first daughter, the drinking stopped on its own. She became a wife, then a mom, then a nurse. Life was full and busy and moving forward. Christine's story echoes Don's experience of watching his father die from alcoholism and then following a similar path, even after swearing it would never happen to him.

For a while, she was what she'd call a normie. A drink at a wedding here and there. Nothing more.

The Fall That Changed Everything

In February 2012, Christine had her third daughter, Gabriela, by C-section. She went back to work eight weeks later. The very next morning, she was carrying the baby downstairs while talking to her husband on the phone when her foot went out from under her.

She hit the stairs so hard she couldn't breathe. Her six-year-old daughter grabbed the phone. Her husband called 911.

Christine had fractured a thoracic vertebra, a bone doctors said was very hard to break. They gave her pain medication.

Something switched.

She had taken pain meds before, after her C-sections, after a tooth extraction. Nothing had ever happened. But this time was different. She felt euphoria. And she liked it.

Something different happened. I had that adverse reaction of euphoria, and I just remember really liking it. And that was pretty much it.

The doctor only gave her two prescriptions. But Christine knew where to find more. Family members with their own prescriptions. And then there was work.

"I Was Saying I Was Wasting It. I Was Not Wasting It."

As a nurse, Christine had access to narcotics every shift. When a patient didn't take their pain medication, protocol required her to waste it with another nurse watching.

She stopped wasting it. She started putting it in her pocket.

I was saying I was wasting it and I was not wasting it. I was putting it in my pocket.

It started once or twice. Then it became every day. The internal war was constant. She knew it was wrong. She knew this wasn't who she was. But the addiction had its grip.

Then came the day she got the flu and went two days without the pills. The chills hit. The sickness hit. And she realized what was happening.

She was in withdrawal. She was physically dependent.

Christine wanted help but couldn't bring herself to ask for it. The shame of what she was doing, as a mother, as a nurse, as someone who grew up watching addiction destroy her family, was paralyzing. She prayed for a way out.

God answered in a way she didn't expect.

She meant to text her brother asking for a methadone so she wouldn't be sick. She accidentally texted her daughter, who was in sixth grade. Her daughter didn't know what methadone was. But her husband called immediately.

That was the crack in the wall. Christine told him she needed help. He told her to leave. She went to her mom's house, cried on the floor, and started the process of getting clean.

Losing Her License and Carrying the Shame

Christine went to outpatient treatment. She went to her nurses' union. She did everything she was told to do. She got clean.

But two years later, a detective showed up at her job asking questions. Christine was honest. She told the truth about everything. Her lawyer later said she should have kept quiet, but Christine couldn't hold it in anymore.

She had to surrender her nursing license. She went through drug court. She watched other nurses in similar situations get contracts that let them keep practicing. Christine didn't get that option. She believes they made an example out of her.

I had to leave that nursing job and it broke my heart. I really loved what I was doing.

She had been a nurse for nine years. She loved the work. She was doing women's health, working with the same doctors who had delivered her babies. They wrote letters to the judge. They fought for her. It wasn't enough.

The shame and guilt from losing her career, from the choices that led to it, from the lies she told her husband, all of it sat on her like a weight she couldn't put down. She didn't know who she was anymore. Her identity as a nurse was gone. Her identity as the reliable one, the good mom, the one who had it together, felt like a lie.

That shame would follow her for years. And it would open the door for something else.

When Alcohol Showed Up Quietly

After COVID, around 2021, alcohol entered Christine's life in the most ordinary way possible. The kids were bigger. She and her husband were going out with friends. One evening, the girls were at basketball training and Christine was home alone. She found a leftover bottle of liquor.

She thought she could have a drink. She was an adult. People have drinks after work. It seemed fine.

It was fine at first.

I thought it was okay. And it was okay at first. Until it wasn't.

The progression was fast. Christine went from an occasional drink to waking up shaking at three in the morning, filled with anxiety and fear. She was having panic attacks at family parties, leaving to sit in the car because she couldn't be still. She was drinking by two in the afternoon. She was hiding bottles around the house, in places she thought her husband would never find.

He found them.

The shame and guilt from losing her nursing license, from feeling like she couldn't provide for her family the way she once could, from the years of carrying a secret, all of it was fuel. Alcohol made it quiet. Until it didn't.

"So What Are We Gonna Do With You?"

Christine's husband took her for a drive one Friday evening. She knew what was coming.

He's like, so what are we gonna do with you? I think those were his exact words. And I was like, I don't know. I need help.

She told him she couldn't just stop. She was physically dependent again. Stopping cold could mean a seizure. They made a plan. Saturday morning, while he took the girls to basketball training, Christine would make phone calls.

She called two places and got in right away. She asked if she could come the next day. The man on the phone said no, come today. So she did.

Before she left, she pulled each of her three daughters aside, one at a time, and told them where she was going.

She went to detox and stayed four or five days. Midway through, they found a 28-day residential program for her. Christine said she'd do two weeks, max. She ended up staying the full four.

Once I was able to really let go and just focus on myself, it was like a mental break. And I think I needed it. I realized that I kind of lost who I was a long time ago.

She had become a mother very young. Her entire identity was her children, her work, her family. She had no hobbies. She didn't know what she liked anymore. Those 28 days gave her space to figure out who Christine actually was outside of all of that.

Rebuilding Trust, One Day at a Time

When Christine got out, the work was just beginning. Her husband had been honest during a family session at the facility. He told her that her word meant nothing. She had lied too many times.

That wasn't easy to hear. But she understood it.

He said, your word means nothing right now. Because you just lied so much. And I knew that. And I remember thinking, well, I'm gonna show you.

Within a couple of months, he told her he could see the change. Keep going, he said.

Her daughters became her biggest cheerleaders. They understand when she needs to go to a meeting instead of a game. They see the version of their mom that recovery has given them, and they know why it matters. One daughter even asked if she could give Christine's phone number to a friend whose uncle might need help.

Christine brought her girls to her one-year anniversary at her AA home group. They got to see what recovery looks like from the inside. Her husband was there too.

They got to see kind of what it's like, what I'm doing there. The support I'm getting. And they were like, okay, now I get what you're doing.

The Power of Telling the Truth

Looking back, Christine sees a thread running through her entire story. The moments that felt like they would destroy her, the detective showing up, the accidental text to her daughter, the conversation with her husband in the car, were actually the moments that saved her.

Every time the truth came out, the grip loosened.

I was honest and I hadn't been honest in a long time. And being honest, I think, is what changed my life.

Christine's sober date is July 28, 2024. She is now a five-time certified recovery coach working in a rehab facility. She found the Sober Motivation community during her first year of recovery, walking two miles a day with Brad's podcast in her ears.

She didn't think Brad would respond to her Instagram message. He answered within 25 minutes. She joined the community and never looked back.

If I had to go through what I had to go through to get to where I am now, so be it. Because I feel so much better and have such a peace. And it's okay.

What Christine Would Say to Someone Still Holding It All In

If you're reading this and you're carrying a secret about your drinking, your using, or anything else that's keeping you stuck, Christine has a message for you.

It's not gonna end this way. There is a way out. All you have to do is just ask somebody, anybody. You can call a hotline. You can text a friend. All you have to do is just say that word and there is somebody there that is going to help you. You can and you will recover.

You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to know the plan. You just have to tell one person the truth.

That's how it starts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a nurse recover from prescription pill addiction and get their career back?

Yes, though the path varies by state. Christine had to surrender her LPN license after being caught diverting narcotics at work. She can now apply to get it back through a review process that involves appearing before a board and providing letters of support. Many nurses do recover and return to practice, though it requires time and accountability.

How does prescription pill addiction start from a legitimate injury?

Christine fractured a thoracic vertebra and was prescribed pain medication. She had taken similar medications before without issue, but this time she experienced euphoria and couldn't stop. Tolerance builds quickly, leading to dependence. What starts as pain management can become a compulsion, especially for people with a family history of addiction.

Can you become addicted to alcohol after years of not drinking?

Christine went years without problematic drinking after getting clean from pills. But around 2021, alcohol entered her life gradually. Within a relatively short period, she was physically dependent, waking up shaking, and hiding bottles. Addiction can resurface through a different substance, especially when unresolved shame and emotional pain are still present.

What does it mean when someone says addiction "runs in the family"?

Christine's father died from cirrhosis at 43. Three of his brothers died from alcoholism. Her grandfather died from it. Multiple family members on both sides have struggled with addiction. Research supports a genetic component to addiction risk, and Christine's story illustrates how that risk can show up even when someone is fully aware of it.

How do you rebuild trust with your family after addiction?

Christine's husband told her during treatment that her word meant nothing because she had lied so much. She couldn't argue with that. Instead, she showed up every day and did what she said she would do. Within months, he acknowledged the change. Rebuilding trust takes consistent action over time, not words.

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Christine's full interview is available on the Sober Motivation Podcast. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.

If you're questioning your relationship with alcohol or struggling in silence, you're not alone. Visit sobermotivation.com to join a community of people who get it.

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