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Jake Nichols paid a steep price for a substance abuse disorder: more than 500 felony charges, a divorce and losing a pharmacist job that he loved.
“Drugs like Vicodin, Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, stimulant drugs like Ritalin and Adderall,” he said.
The Natick native worked as a pharmacist at Walgreens and Boston Medical Center, but eventually was forced to surrender his pharmacy license for diverting — or stealing — drugs and writing fake prescriptions to fuel his addiction.
“Most of us get to the point where the disease gets so bad that we’re really not processing those repercussions and we will blatantly just take pills,” said Nichols.
The 43-year-old Nichols isn’t alone.
A drug diversion survey released Tuesday of 650 hospital executives and providers — including nurses, pharmacists and anesthesiologists — shows 85 percent say drug diversion is a problem, but only 20 percent believe it’s a problem where they work.
“They all agree it’s a problem but it’s somebody else’s, not theirs,” said Carol Mallia, a nurse with the Massachusetts Nurses Association who participated in the study.
Mallia believes a big factor fueling drug diversion is hospitals not providing the right resources to nurses.
“Unlike our colleagues in first responders they get critical incident debriefing and we get wrap it up, next admission is yours,” Mallia said.
Mallia works with the union’s peer assistance program which tries to help nurses struggling with addiction before things get out of control.
The study found one of the driving forces in hospital drug diversion is an extremely stressful work environment.
“I had some folks peers that had a very good feeling that I had a problem but they clearly told me they didn’t want to ruin my life,” said Nichols.
After entering Massachusetts’ treatment program for addicted pharmacists, Nichols is now fully recovered — and has regained his pharmacy license.