just was seeing in various threads different stories that reminded me of my own stories. thought i'd try to group it together. not trying to start the most awsome thread there is or anything awsome like that....
anyhow, as i titled, this one is about my experiences with the "tobacco free" workplace.
i was a nurse in the navy. so get all your insecure gay comments out as much as you like. don't think i haven't heard them all. anyhow, i was working in a navy hospital ward. i was a dipper, but was still the "i'm not an addict" dipper. i didn't need it at work. i caught one of my sailors charting with a spit cup next to the chart at the nurses station, though. i chewed his ass out for it.
fast forward four years, and i get out of the navy. my first civilian job was working for the federal bureau of prisons, still as a nurse. i worked at a brand spankin new mental health and medical facility for prisoners. state of the art building, your tax dollars working for you type of thing. i get there, and the director of nursing meets me at the front before i come into the actual facility. she is going to take me on a tour, but reminds me before i am screened by the guard, that i need to remove any cellphones, pocket knives, or tobacco products. i took the opportunity to ask, "is that smoke free, or all tobacco products?" she asserts that it is any tobacco product, acknoledging that it may be difficult with some of the officers.
about a year later, i'm on a midnight shift. i'm on this mental health ward with all the crazies locked down. i'm hanging out with another nurse and a correctional officer. not much going on, so we're just shooting the shit. i recognize a smell. i look over to the officer who is palming a coke can. "Are you dipping?" I ask him.
"No!" he says. I eye his face, but don't see any tell-tale fatty buldges. I nod, but am skeptical. We continue shooting the shit. Then out of the blue when the other nurse goes off to do something, he says, "Yeah, I am dipping. How'd you know?" I told him that I dip, and i could smell it. The other nurse never noticed, though. Instead of chewing him out like i did my corpsman, i make a mental note to bring in a tin of my own for my next night, and learned to pack my wad in the side and smash it down, ninja fashion.
that was probably the biggest fucking slippery slope in my addiction right there. thats when i went from 1 can every week or two to one can every two days.
it also still disgusts and ashames me. i was a nurse packing a fatty pretty much all the time. most of my patients didn't know, except maybe the ones that had dipped in the past. they did notice other things though. specifically, i remember after handing one guy his evening pills, he asks me "are you a mechanic?" confused, i shake my head no. "do a lot of work outside?" he asks.
i was glad i could confirm this, because he pointed out the reason he asked: my stained ass fingernail.
