Who Is UU?

Dede isn’t shy about being a recovering addict – and for good reason! Since she started recovery in the late 90’s, Dede has spent most of her life helping other addicts. I asked Dede if she was comfortable sharing about her addiction, and she was emphatic, “Oh yeah. I’ve talked to the nursing board. I wrote an article.” When talking to nurses about substance abuse, Dede would start with PowerPoint and statistics, but after a few minutes, “I’d say, ‘oh, you know what, I forgot. Hi, I’m Dede. I’m an addict.”

Dede’s first nursing life was as a labor, delivery, and special care nursery nurse. However, she was diverting medicine from the hospital where she worked. She was reported to the Department of Consumer Protection. “My intervention was a good cop/bad cop thing, and I cried through the whole friggin’ thing. I finally had to say, ‘I’m not being resistant, but I just have such shame and guilt.’” After being confronted, the CT Board of Nursing levied some harsh punishment, including a four year probation, mandatory counseling and weekly urine drug screens, which ended in 2001.

Dede knew that the way she’d been treated wasn’t the best way to help medical professionals get into recovery, so she set out to change things. “I got involved with creating the HAVEN program.” This alternative to discipline is designed to help healthcare professionals with drug, alcohol, or mental health problems. When Governor Jodi Rell signed the bill establishing this program, Dede was standing right behind her at the desk. She went on to help the agents of the Department of Consumer Protection to “reframe” their approach towards confronting nurses.

Her most recent job, from which she reluctantly retired in May of 2024, was to train nurses and social workers to the role of care coordinator for Aware Recovery Care “a 52 week, in-home substance abuse treatment program.” 

Dede’s mom passed away last year, and it left Dede in a dark place and feeling lost. “I started thinking I need to find myself and where I belong." Dede’s son Dylan, had first introduced her to UU when she and her mom had visited him in Pennsylvania. Dede saw her son deeply moved by his participation in church and said “Wow, this place has got something to get a hold on him like that – for him to find such meaning in this. It was wonderful.” 

Part of what drew Dede to UU Meriden was how different it felt from the churches she’d known growing up. As a child, she’d attended churches and religious education with too much focus and emphasis on being rich, dressing right, and accepting other people’s dogma. Dede would ask her catechism teachers questions and was ordered to ‘go stand in the hall’”. One Sunday, after Dede’s pastor banned her singing group from a Saturday night service because one member’s pants were dirty from work, Dede spoke up, “I’m on the altar, and I said, ‘may we be judged by how we act towards people and not by what we wear.’ I was kicked out of the church.”

But even though Dede hadn’t been attending a church for many years prior to her mom passing, she had spent those twenty years helping her mom get to her Catholic church, even helping her find a TV church service during COVID. She’d seen that having a community could be meaningful. She started at UU by attending Zoom services. When Dede started attending in person, it became clear this place was for her.

“I realized that I belonged here, I was welcomed here. When I had questions they were answered. The openness and the diversity of the congregation was so dramatically different than what I was used to. I’m still getting used to lay people doing service, and I have joined the worship committee.”

In her free time, Dede enjoys shopping. Lately, she’s been buying new clothes for her changing body. Over the past ten months, Dede has lost 95 pounds! She says that weight-loss medication has been a great tool. She says it “changed my relationship with food almost instantly,” and it has really shut down the food noise she experienced. “My son’s like, ‘mom, you look so different.’ He’s very proud of me.” 

Three years ago, Dede had a bilateral mastectomy for breast cancer. With the mastectomy and weight loss, Dede says that her body is incredibly different and that she’s had to get used to her “new” center of gravity. She’s beginning the next leg of her journey with strength training to build up her muscles. She says that she “couldn’t even approach that until I wasn’t feeling like I was going to fall down every two seconds.”

One of the tools that has helped Dede through her addiction recovery and having cancer is journaling. Dede is very involved with a cancer support group that she loves being part of. 

Dede finds value in journaling because it’s a way of moving away from thoughts that your brain can get stuck on, and “if it gets off the hamster wheel, you’ll feel better.” Dede is considering offering a journaling “class” here at UU.

Dede lives with her cat, Bennie who joins her when she’s on Zoom for our church service, other zoomers may have an opportunity to meet him! Bennie is a big, ragdoll, siamese mix and loves headbutting Dede to show his love, especially when she’s feeling down.

Dede took her experience of addiction and turned it into something positive for others, by being pro-active - changing laws, helping health-care professionals with education to enhance their knowledge of addiction and supporting them in their early recovery, and training the next generation of nurses in treating drug addiction. She wrote an article that was published in RealityRN in 2007, about her experience, “Memoirs of a Recovering Drug Addicted Nurse.” She is an inspiring example of resilience and service to others. We’re thrilled she took a chance to check out our church community!