Drug addiction discussion in personal statements

[koffein]

Edit: by personal statement I meant an essay segment in your application where you write about some difficult life experience that you have had to overcome and as a result have come out as a stronger/better individual.

If a person has struggled with addiction to a substance (drugs including ethanol) and that experience very strongly afflicted his/her life for several months or longer, should that person mention this in his/her personal statement.

Lets say the person is a friend that had an experience of cycles of functionality followed by inability to work, lack of affect, possibly depression. This person then did terribly for a semester but recovered and from the experience gained an immense amount of insight into addiction and certain mental states. I want to illustrate that the person had an extreme problem.

The reason for at all bringing this up is that an extreme drop in academic performance occurred for the friend while in this period of addiction.

Is this something that is safe to talk about with an adcom? Will it be taken against the applicant? How great of an influence will this have on the application?

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[Forkit]

If a person has struggled with addiction to a substance (drugs including ethanol) and that experience very strongly afflicted his/her life for several months or longer, should that person mention this in his/her personal statement.

Lets say the person is a friend that had an experience of cycles of functionality followed by inability to work, lack of affect, possibly depression. This person then did terribly for a semester but recovered and from the experience gained an immense amount of insight into addiction and certain mental states. I want to illustrate that the person had an extreme problem.

The reason for at all bringing this up is that an extreme drop in academic performance occurred for the friend while in this period of addiction.

Is this something that is safe to talk about with an adcom? Will it be taken against the applicant? How great of an influence will this have on the application?

Do bother with such an essay if the "drug" of discussion is marijuana

 

[koffein]

Do bother with such an essay if the "drug" of discussion is marijuana

Its a bit more serious than that

 

[Retsage]

No, do not.

Your personal statement is not your sob story. It is a professional piece of writing trying to market yourself.

 

[koffein]

No, do not.

Your personal statement is not your sob story. It is a professional piece of writing trying to market yourself.

My understanding was that in the application there is a segment where you can explain any difficulties in life that you have overcome; things that have helped you grow as an individual. Thats what I meant.

 

[ButImLETired]

If a person has struggled with addiction to a substance (drugs including ethanol) and that experience very strongly afflicted his/her life for several months or longer, should that person mention this in his/her personal statement.

Lets say the person is a friend that had an experience of cycles of functionality followed by inability to work, lack of affect, possibly depression. This person then did terribly for a semester but recovered and from the experience gained an immense amount of insight into addiction and certain mental states. I want to illustrate that the person had an extreme problem.

The reason for at all bringing this up is that an extreme drop in academic performance occurred for the friend while in this period of addiction.

Is this something that is safe to talk about with an adcom? Will it be taken against the applicant? How great of an influence will this have on the application?

I'm afraid the safe bet here is to avoid any mention of that whatsoever. I also have a friend who was in a similar situation last year, he'd been clean and sober for years and had really done well academically after he'd gotten over his substance abuse problems- and his advisors strongly recommended he not mention anything remotely concerning his drug and alcohol history. Unfortunately, while I can definitely see why your friend would want to mention it, I think it's way too risky. Drug and alcohol abusers are statistically way too likely to relapse for adcoms to put themselves on the line and trust they will remain sober. Also, adcom members are human beings, oftentimes middle-aged, conservative human beings who come with their own preconceptions.
So, I'd definitely suggest you avoid mentioning it altogether.

 

[RoyBasch]

Avoid it. You know for yourself if something is really behind you, but statistically, as posted earlier, many people do relapse. This is something that would be especially concerning for someone entering a profession that is given the power and privilege to prescribe controlled substances.
-Roy

 

[koffein]

Avoid it. You know for yourself if something is really behind you, but statistically, as posted earlier, many people do relapse. This is something that would be especially concerning for someone entering a profession that is given the power and privilege to prescribe controlled substances.
-Roy

I see what you're saying and I have heard it before from other people I know well. At the same time its interesting that perhaps the most celebrated (albeit fictional) physician on this forum has gone through addiction - Gregory House. Even though physicians do hold that power of prescribing controlled substances, it does not seem all that reasonable to suggest that this should be a factor as they could lose practice rights if they were using those prescription rights to intoxicate themselves. It seems that a phyisician would be far more likely to go to the black market for drugs instead of prescribing to him- or herself.

 

[strv04]

the troll meter is going off especially with the dr. house comment above but just in case you are serious

Did you tell the person interviewing you at your last job about how drug addiction made you a stronger person? If so how did they respond?

How would you respond if you found out the doctor about to operate on a loved one was a one time drug addict? The vast majority of people in this country would not respond positively to such information and would most likely go elsewhere for care even if you are equal or better then your peers in every other respect.

Odds are there are thousands of other candidates applying for med school that will have similar stats as yours without any drug problems. Imho writing about this or any other controversial issue is a good way to sink an otherwise decent application. In the end it's up to you but don't be surprised by the logical consequences of including such information.

 

[koffein]

the troll meter is going off especially with the dr. house comment above but just in case you are serious

Did you tell the person interviewing you at your last job about how drug addiction made you a stronger person? If so how did they respond?

How would you respond if you found out the doctor about to operate on a loved one was a one time drug addict? The vast majority of people in this country would not respond positively to such information and would most likely go elsewhere for care even if you are equal or better then your peers in every other respect.

Odds are there are thousands of other candidates applying for med school that will have similar stats as yours without any drug problems. Imho writing about this or any other controversial issue is a good way to sink an otherwise decent application. In the end it's up to you but don't be surprised by the logical consequences of including such information.

Your trollometre is getting a false positive.
I wanted to gauge the overall opinion/attitude of people here.

If the former drug-addict physician/surgeon was no longer abusing, especially for a long period of time, then there would be no issue. The only people who would be worried by this, imho, are those without a sufficient understanding of addiction. Even so, I understand how it could worry such people and why it would potentially be an issue with the patients' family.

Over 40% of the population will at some point have a substance abuse problem... so I think its more a matter of applicants not disclosing rather than not having problems themselves.

 

[Habeed]

Ok, having just got into med school, here's what I learned :

I was honest in my personal statement and application. BUT, I realize now that the schools verified NOTHING. NOT-ONE-THING. All of my employment, my military service, my volunteer work, NOTHING GOT CHECKED.

What was verified? My recommendation letters (from 100% professors I had), my GPA and my MCAT.

And I guess if I had been lying during the interview they might have been able to tell.

So, in retrospect, I wonder why the f- I did all that volunteer and military work? I could have just SAID I did on my application and be in the same spot today! Yeah, yeah, you can get caught lying...but the odds are slim to none.

The moral of the story? If you don't have to tell the truth, sure as **** don't mention anything negative like a drug addiction! Dear god, that's a dumb thing to do!!!! And even if EVERY one of your friends knows you are a druggie, the medical schools are NEVER going to find out unless you tell them, you get convicted, or it's in your letters of recommendation.

Moral of the story? When they say you need to be a well rounded candidate, know it's a big lie. You need high GPA, high MCAT, and you need to suck up to at least 3 people to get recommendation letters. Everything else you can MAKE UP. Just get a coach to teach you how to lie smoothly and effortlessly.

Ok, I don't really recommend this....but it's frustrating knowing the truth. Only reason I didn't get into my first choice school was a single number, and nothing I said during the interview or said I did in my application changed anything. The school I got into, I was admitted because my numbers roughly met the averages they normally accept for people of my race and gender.

 

[Siverhideo1985]

I must admit I know little about addictions of any sort. Including statistics of relapses, this problem in the physician community, etc. If anyone has some scientific lit, I'd be interested.

I think, personally, I would not mention an addiction on my application, even if it was long in my past.

On the other hand, I also feel that it would show extreme character strength to be able to disclose something like that on an application to medical school. I would be impressed for with the applicants dedication to honesty. But the risk of adcoms just shying away (when there are so many applicants who didn't mention any past addictions on their apps) is quite big, I would say.

Who knows, though, maybe one of the schools that take a closer look would be intrigued by the applicants honesty and story of how he/she dealt with that part in their life.

I find myself unusually torn about this issue...

 

[NTF]

Seriously, no. Unless, because of your experiences you founded a clinic that's helped thousands of people get off drugs, no one's going to see a story of personal triumph and reflection about addiction as anything more than a reason to wonder when your next relapse is coming.

If your story amounts to I abused drugs, it affected my grades, got treated, now I'm better and have a better personal understanding, I don't think many adcoms will score it a plus for you as an applicant, especially considering how many narcotics physicians have access to.

 

[8744]

Edit: by personal statement I meant an essay segment in your application where you write about some difficult life experience that you have had to overcome and as a result have come out as a stronger/better individual.

If a person has struggled with addiction to a substance (drugs including ethanol) and that experience very strongly afflicted his/her life for several months or longer, should that person mention this in his/her personal statement.

Lets say the person is a friend that had an experience of cycles of functionality followed by inability to work, lack of affect, possibly depression. This person then did terribly for a semester but recovered and from the experience gained an immense amount of insight into addiction and certain mental states. I want to illustrate that the person had an extreme problem.

The reason for at all bringing this up is that an extreme drop in academic performance occurred for the friend while in this period of addiction.

Is this something that is safe to talk about with an adcom? Will it be taken against the applicant? How great of an influence will this have on the application?

Are you ****ing crazy? As long as there is no record of your problem, or none that an admission comittee could ever get a hold of, bury this problem as deep as you posibly can and never breathe a word of it to anybody until you are safely matriculated into medical school.

Jesus Christ.

 

[Habeed]

And if there's a record that they might get ahold of, bet on them not. (if it's a criminal conviction, though, don't even waste money applying, of course)

 

[mbe36]

NO WAY

You will seem like too much of a risk. Plus, will this same affliction pop up under the stressors of the first or second year of medical school? Just don't.

 

[squrlgrl007]

This is like any other topic you write about in an essay (death of a loved one, being gay, ect). If it is your "launching platform" into the appropriate topic for an essay they have asked for (ie, Give an example of when you overcame adversity, how you did so, and how it affected you) then yes, it is a perfectly acceptable topic.

Given that, I would make ABSOLUTELY SURE you convey that this is no longer a problem you suffer from, and that you make abundantly clear how you overcame the problem and that you did indeed learn from the experience.

I think it is especially important not to seem like you are trying to hide the addiction if it resulted in an criminal proceedings, as that would only make things worse.

 

[bluesmd]

no, it's to hard to negotiate sucessfully

 

[aznb0y129]

I can't believe this is even being seriously considered...OF COURSE DON'T MENTION THAT. More than likely, instead of respecting you for your honesty, they will toss your application into the Reject pile.

 

[lainey234]

I asked this very same question (different substance, same story) a few years ago when I was beginning to write my PS as well. I got the same litany of negative comments and sarcastic responses.

I think what people who have no experience with addiction do not understand is just how powerful overcoming an addiction can be. It can change you and make you a stronger person in many ways.

If it were any other circumstance (with maybe the exception of mental illness), you would rush to put it into your PS and tout your success. Unfortunately, people are so prejudiced against this topic that I think it would be a death sentence to bring it up. I would encourage my friend to steer clear of any questionable topics in the PS or anywhere else on the application. Take pride in your own accomplishments, but leave it at that.

Best of luck.

 

[anoncurious]

Your trollometre is getting a false positive.
I wanted to gauge the overall opinion/attitude of people here.

If the former drug-addict physician/surgeon was no longer abusing, especially for a long period of time, then there would be no issue. The only people who would be worried by this, imho, are those without a sufficient understanding of addiction. Even so, I understand how it could worry such people and why it would potentially be an issue with the patients' family.

Over 40% of the population will at some point have a substance abuse problem... so I think its more a matter of applicants not disclosing rather than not having problems themselves.

I think this is completely incorrect. In general the public perception of 'drug addict' is no better than that of 'convicted felon'. It's probably one of the most horrifying things that you can learn about someone who you entrust with your life. Now, certainly there may be some unfounded biased opinions here, but I think that there is, in general, a well-founded basis for this interpretation: drug addiction shows a record of making bad choices as well as a record of having little self-control--both of which are terrible qualities that a person wants in their physician.

You mentioned that you (or a 'friend') wanted to write about being an addict to explain poor grades in college. If anything that makes having bad grades even worse..it's not an excuse for bad grades whatsoever. I think if you write about being a drug addict you will never get into any medical school in the country. Any reasonable person would rip up your application immediately since, frankly, it's negligent on their part to let someone with that background anywhere near patients. I just hope for the sake of your future patients that you don't relapse like most people in your situation..

(By the way - 40% of the population having a drug addiction does NOT mean that 40% of the applicant population has had drug addiction. 45% of people in the US have college degrees..that's not true of med students either. 12% of the population is over 65..that's not true of med students either. Compare apples to apples)

 

[drelizabeth292]

it sounds like a bad idea to me. it would be best to find a way to make yourself sound very positive and stable enough to pursue a career as hard as medicine. i would think that a lot of the adcoms would think that you would not make it through the medical school/residency stress and that you would possibliy relapse. you do not want to give them any excuse to deny you this absolutely amazing experience.

 

[time md]

I would advice against doing so. It would shine a very negative light on the applicant.

 

[atomi]

You're making excuses instead of accepting personal responsibility. It makes you look childish, so don't do it.

 

[majahops]

What about porn addiction?

 

[Bacchus]

No No No No No! DO NOT MENTION IT. Even if you're clean, I'd have reservations recruiting a future physician that had a past abuse addiction. Think of something else.

 

[AH11]

I'd sooner tell them I'm not human

 

[sunny1]

a universal no.

no no no no no no no no

NO!

 

[koffein]

I asked this very same question (different substance, same story) a few years ago when I was beginning to write my PS as well. I got the same litany of negative comments and sarcastic responses.

I think what people who have no experience with addiction do not understand is just how powerful overcoming an addiction can be. It can change you and make you a stronger person in many ways.

If it were any other circumstance (with maybe the exception of mental illness), you would rush to put it into your PS and tout your success. Unfortunately, people are so prejudiced against this topic that I think it would be a death sentence to bring it up. I would encourage my friend to steer clear of any questionable topics in the PS or anywhere else on the application. Take pride in your own accomplishments, but leave it at that.

Best of luck.

I think that basically sums up the concluding idea for this thread.

My friend will discuss some other less meaningful life-experience instead.

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[butterfly2684]

.

 

[Bacchus]

I just wanted to add my 2 cents before this is dropped completely. I'm someone with a similar problem who wrote about it not only in the "overcoming difficulty" essay but also in my personal statement. I did so for several reasons, including the fact that I had an otherwise unexplained year off in undergrad. Also, I had the opportunity to speak with an admissions dean from a top university and ask his advice. He said that applicants with addictions/eating disorders/depression/whatever are not all that uncommon. He said that if I chose to discuss it, admissions committees would be looking for 4 things: 1)what the problem was, 2) what you did to address it, 3) how you continue to make sure it is no longer a problem, and 4) what you learned from it. I chose to apply to a lot of schools (28), just in case. I've gotten 21 interview invitations so far - apparently people aren't as close-minded as we fear.

So I'm not saying your friend should do so, but just that he shouldn't necessarily rule it out if he feels there are good reasons for it.

You had a reason to report it. It was the only way for you to account for a year off, as you say. It would look fishy if you didn't report it, got to an interview, and then dropped the "bomb."

 

[drelizabeth292]

What about porn addiction?

HAHAHAHA

 

[majahops]

Thank you for acknoledging my post.

HAHAHAHA

 

[CIA21]

I have a related question. I have been thinking about writing my ps about my mom's drug addiction, which has been ongoing since I was in the 7th grade. I've had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get where I am, as my mom actually had full custody of me until I was 16. So, my question is, would it be bad to talk about her drug addiction?

 

[Rendar5]

that wouldnt' be a bad idea. I'd just be careful about how you word it. Lizzy would have a much better idea on that one. The OP's one though is a no-no

 

[FuturaDocta]

What about porn addiction?

LMAO!

OP, why don't you save this for something like a short essay prompt that asks for "something you have overcome"... etc.

 

[pietachok]

When you apply for licensing as a physician after med school, in many states you will have to answer whether or not you have ever had substance dependency in your life. Depending on what your situation was, it can lead to difficulties getting licensed.

Schools are very wary about admitting individuals who may face the problem of not being licensed, or who they fear might be a liability in the clinical experiences of the education.

Although the relapse rate of alcoholics drops drastically after the 1st year, many addicts in recovery would agree that alocholism never actually goes away. Assuming you are not a 40 year old applying to medical school, insufficient time has elapsed for you to be at minimal risk of relapse. It is fabulous that you have been sober for however many years you have been, but you are still more likely to resume alcohol abuse/dependency than an individual without such a history. Given the option of so many un-flawed applicants, you'd have to have some amazing circumstances to make a med school risk an admission on you (who may have difficuly obtaining full licensing) instead of an applicant who doesn't pose that risk.

That said, if you need to discuss a glaring issue on your transcripts, you can try to discuss alcoholism, in my opinion, as a "health issue" without disclosing the nature of the problem. On my application I handled depression/PTSD (another issue for licensing) in this manner, and I was not asked to clarify by any of my interviewers. Simultaneously, however, I was also very open about having had my undergrad grades marred chronic, non-ressectable tonsil problems, and wrote about my heart surgery...so I kind of wonder if when i wrote "health issue" they thought I was trying not to go into details about GYN problems or something

 

[flip26]

Confessing to crimes is not a good idea, especially crimes that may haunt your licensing chances. Too many solid applicants with no such personal history for med schools to take a chance on you.

 

[BeardedRunner]

Wouldn't touch it with a 30 foot pole.

 

[Jolie South]

Although the relapse rate of alcoholics drops drastically after the 1st year, many addicts in recovery would agree that alocholism never actually goes away. Assuming you are not a 40 year old applying to medical school, insufficient time has elapsed for you to be at minimal risk of relapse. It is fabulous that you have been sober for however many years you have been, but you are still more likely to resume alcohol abuse/dependency than an individual without such a history. Given the option of so many un-flawed applicants, you'd have to have some amazing circumstances to make a med school risk an admission on you (who may have difficuly obtaining full licensing) instead of an applicant who doesn't pose that risk.

It doesn't ever go away. Addiction fundamentally changes the structure of the brain in irreversible ways. It will be a lifelong battle for anyone that has ever had substance dependence problems.

 

[LizzyM]

I have a related question. I have been thinking about writing my ps about my mom's drug addiction, which has been ongoing since I was in the 7th grade. I've had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get where I am, as my mom actually had full custody of me until I was 16. So, my question is, would it be bad to talk about her drug addiction?

You need to balance your need to tell YOUR story with your mother's right to privacy. Just as applicants respect the privacy of patients, you should be careful about too much information about a family member.

You could say that your mother developed a serious, chronic illness that kept her from being able to be available to advise you and help you thorugh your early adolescence, that her inability to work and/or a drain on family finances created hardships at home and that eventually you went to live with [...].

I'm embarrassed to read about applicants' dads who behave like governors and similar situations.

 

[Lil Mick]

I mentioned it, more or less detail depending on secondaries. I got into several schools. However, I think there needs to be a few years of sobriety and obvious changes in a person for it to work well (community service and strong credentials didn't hurt, either). Further, there are groups (AA and special meetings for physicians) at many hospitals/medical complexes.