This mini-course for nurses is intended to establish an atmosphere conducive to the development of personal awareness of the ramifications of alcohol/substance abuse involving the nurse. Contents include the mini-course's goals and objectives, a course outline, copies of 11 handouts and a booklet written to provide information about nurse impairment due to alcohol and/or drugs, and the pretest/posttest. The curriculum section, after providing historical perspective in an introduction, deals with the following topics: classifications of commonly abused drugs, alcoholic substances, vocabulary/terminology, proposed causes of nurse impairment, commonly abused drugs in the nursing profession and signs and symptoms/behavior, prevention of nurse impairment, intervention, and legal and ethical implications. End notes, a list of references, and a selected bibliography are also provided. (YLB)