I own it, I did that, not proud, but that was me, and when I face it, I take back a little dignity, not looking for excuses, I just want to be free from power.

Weakness had on me.

Free, free, free, free, free.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the bubble hour where real people tell real stories of addiction and recovery.

I'm Gene McCarthy, recovery author, blogger, and podcast host.

I've been chronicling my adventures in life after alcohol since my first day of sobriety over nine years ago in my blog Unpickled,

and in books like The Unpickled Holiday Survival Guide and my

recently released poetry collection, The Ember Ever There. I tell my stories there and I hold

space for your stories here. More specifically today, I'm holding space for your questions because

this is a question and answer episode, also a follow-up episode to some things that

came up in some earlier episodes. So I'll start right off by following back to a few weeks ago

on the interview I did with Margaret, Season 8, Episode 21. In Margaret's story, I asked if any

listeners had experience in the medical community

with what it is that nurses and doctors are taught about alcohol addiction, alcohol

use disorder, and the whole process, what to do if someone comes to them talking about their problems,

just what is it that they learn? And I did hear back from a couple of listeners. So first from

Megan, who wrote via Instagram, who, by the way, is recently celebrating a year alcohol-free.

So congratulations, Megan. That's awesome.

And she says that she's been a nurse for eight years and decided at one month to follow

her passion and become a family nurse practitioner, specifically to work on this issue after graduation. She says, we didn't learn much

about addiction in nursing school and not even in my master's program. There's not a lot of content

covering how to deal with patients and substance abuse, use, or misuse. And I'd like to be part

...