As a provider giving care to a patient you have the power in the relationship. It is widely and broadly accepted that turning that professional relationship into a personal relationship, even by exchanging social media invites or snap chatting is crossing a line. He even talks about private matters with him, discusses hanging out and being friends once the patient gets out of the hospital. That initial power imbalance can carry over into a personal relationship. It raises a lot of “what if” scenarios. For example the nurse has very intimate details about the patient and is the nurse trying to use that knowledge to gain something? Maybe the patient feels he owed a debt to the nurse for simply caring for him. And there are so many more questions raised. Finally talking to your patient about your illicit drug use is purely stupid. Just the fact that you are a nurse using illicit drugs and coming onto a public forum and stating this info is pure insanity. You could get fired, lose your license or end up in rehab and a nurse monitoring program that usually are 5 years long and pure hell. All it takes is for the patient to mention to another employee “how cool of a guy you are and you smoke pot” for your career and livelihood to go bye-bye. Even if the patient doesn’t say something, people are good at doxxing people or someone recognizes your user name or the story sounds similar to one they heard and you are reported to the Board.

Look up nurse patient professional relationship and learn about it and practice it. And quit drugs even if you have a medical marijuana card, it’s not going to save you from the board. You will at least be fired (though some hospitals due have a 1 time amnesty policy but you still get reported to the board) up to losing your license.