Healthcare Professionals - Stress of Helping Others

The Stress of Helping Others Heal

Healthcare professionals and addiction is a current issue in the current COVID world. Healthcare professionals work in an intense, fast-paced environment, and while their professions are celebrated and championed, the stress of their occupation cannot be understated. Despite the respect garnered from their communities, this pressure can have adverse effects on a healthcare professional’s mental and emotional health, leading to a number of destructive outcomes.

Between compassion fatigue, burnout, and pure exhaustion, healthcare professionals are constantly battling stress and are in need of outlets to process the constant barrage of high-stress scenarios, with substance abuse being a common response to these conditions. Even while helping others heal, substance use disorder and addiction can be prevalent among healthcare professionals, and understanding the trials they face can help destigmatize addiction in this important and strained community.

Understanding the Trials of Healthcare Workers

Healthcare professionals are exposed to traumas on a daily basis. Seeing victims of abuse, car crashes, or acts of violence takes an emotional toll, and witnessing the effects of disease can add to these already tense feelings. Delivering unfortunate diagnoses and difficult news to patients or families adds another layer of strain. Over time, this constant exposure can desensitize an individual—while still allowing emotional weight to quietly build in the background.

The stress of helping others in these intense circumstances has only grown since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Workloads increased, hours stretched longer, and staffing shortages made it harder for anyone to catch their breath. The high turnover rate among nurses and other healthcare workers reflects the toll this environment continues to take. Burnout is more common than ever, and many are struggling to keep going under the pressure.

Without time off or opportunities to recover, it’s easy to feel trapped. For some, unhealthy coping mechanisms like addictive substances can become an escape, despite knowing the risks. The weight of caring for others can become overwhelming when there’s little room to care for oneself.

Access to Substances and Knowledge

Healthcare professionals also work in close proximity to a wide variety of controlled substances and know the effects they have on an individual. This access to prescription drugs and intense substances can make their use seem like a tempting prospect. Coupled with the widespread availability of alcohol across the country, healthcare professionals have unique access to dangerous substances.

Knowing the side effects of various drugs can falsely empower an individual to feel they are in control of their use or can moderate themselves, creating a dangerous precedent in one’s mind that can quickly lead to a substance use disorder or addiction.

Addressing Substance Abuse in Healthcare Professionals

While difficult, it is important to discuss addiction and substance use among healthcare professionals. Substance abuse and addiction can affect anyone, and nobody is immune to addiction regardless of one’s profession or education. One’s work performance, stress and frustration, mood swings, and work attendance can all be affected by one’s substance use to the detriment of one’s own health, professional status, and the wellness of one’s patients.

The topic of substance abuse is a delicate one, but it is essential to create a sense of solidarity and community to face these tumultuous, stressful times and find alternative coping strategies.

For some, this can mean getting together with coworkers and peers to discuss the struggles that these professionals face every day. Others may want to go in the opposite direction and turn off their phones or limit access to information while not on the clock to distance themselves from the stresses of the workplace. Determining the kinds of boundaries that each individual wants to set is the first step towards creating a healthier balance between workplace stresses and one’s home life.

Finding a Community

It can be difficult to articulate how the work environment affects an individual on a personal level. Coupled with the national attention to the coronavirus, as well as the misinformation, doubt, and the birth of new variants therein, the idea that Covid-19 can be overcome can feel like a pipe dream, adding a sense of uncertainty that only increases one’s fatigue. Communities of peers are essential in sharing this unique perspective while developing personalized strategies pertinent to one’s profession.

Acknowledging the trials that healthcare professionals face is essential in deconstructing the stigmas that surround this championed role in a community. Supporting healthcare professionals through this worldwide pandemic means not just understanding that they work long hours and in stressful environments but also allowing healthcare professionals to be people with their own needs outside of the workplace for their own mental, physical, and emotional health.

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Healthcare professionals are in a unique position of being respected and championed members of society while also being strained to the brink of exhaustion as the stress of the workplace and the Covid-19 pandemic continue to weigh on them.

At Chateau, we understand Healthcare Professionals and Addiction, as well as the risks with using substances as a coping mechanism. Our programs are curated to help professionals by treating substance abuse & addiction and instill strategies to help process stress, anxiety, depression, and more.

For more information on how we can help you, call us at (435) 222-5225

About The Author

Ben Pearson, LCSW, Clinical Director

Ben Pearson, LCSW - Clinical Director

With 19 years of experience, Ben Pearson specializes in adolescent and family therapy, de-escalation, and high-risk interventions. As a former Clinical Director of an intensive outpatient program, he played a key role in clinical interventions and group therapy. With 15+ years in wilderness treatment and over a decade as a clinician, Ben has helped countless individuals and families navigate mental health and recovery challenges.