'If I didn't come here, I'd be dead or in prison'

It isn't very often that we run across a news article or human interest story that tells a good positive story of Methadone and the good it brings to the patients receiving it. This morning I came across this article and wanted to share it with you. I'm not going t post the comments that came after the article as most of them are the same as always. Ignorance of what Methadone and the clinic is all about is a story that we have all heard too often. This article comes from The Morning Sentinel the town is Waterville, Maine.

Kennebec Journal
Morning Sentinel
10/17/09
It's cold and dark and quiet Tuesday outside the methadone-treatment clinic on Airport Road in Waterville, but that all changes when the clock strikes 5:30 a.m.
Headlights break the stillness as cars and trucks appear, one after another, and swerve into the parking lot, their occupants spilling out into the rain and rushing into the building.
Some carry little metal boxes with handles, boxes that come in red, gray or blue. Some carry paperwork. Some linger outside the door only long enough to douse a cigarette, and then go in.
They reappear minutes later, one by one, these dozens of young men and women, older folks, mothers with children, and those who look like teenagers.
"I've been coming here nine years," says a client I'll call "John," as he asked his real name not be used.
The methadone clinic, Discovery House, opened in Winslow but moved to Waterville a few years ago.
John, 42, says clients come for their daily or weekly doses of methadone, a synthetic opioid, to treat heroin addiction and addiction to painkillers such as OxyContin and Percocet. Some are addicts because they used drugs recreationally; some became addicted following illness or injuries, he says.
Newer clients or those who test positive for drugs in their urine must come every day for a dose; others, like John, come once a week, take a liquid dose inside the clinic and are given six little bottles to take home in their metal boxes.
"You keep the box locked so no one can get into it," he says. "You keep it where no one can get at it."
John, a tall, slight man with longish hair and a gentle demeanor, stands under the overhang of the building long enough to tell his story, one that started when he was 9 years old and smoking pot, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
"By the time I was 17, I was shooting heroin. I graduated high school with honors. I got in trouble with the law, with drugs, later on in life."
In fact, he says, he was so addicted to heroin, he had to deal drugs to support his habit, going out of state to buy and then returning to Maine to sell.
"It's cheap out of state -- four or five bucks a bag, and you can sell it here for $25 or $30. A bag is one-tenth of a gram. Some people do a bag in a night. I was doing 40 to 50 bags a day. I overdosed a few times."
Using heroin was great -- at first.
"It makes you forget everything. It puts you in your own little world. All your troubles go away."
But his habit got expensive and dealing was the only recourse.
"There's the lure of easy money and free dope. I used to go five days a week out of state. You always got to run for the drug. You know, chase the drug."
But John's luck ran out. He got caught, was convicted of possessing and furnishing heroin and landed in prison for three years.
"I used (drugs) the whole time I was in jail," he says. "Everybody brought it in -- the guards brought it in. I got out in 1999. I started using out of prison and got right back into it. I violated probation and had to go back for 60 days."
In prison he worked in the slaughterhouse and got certified as a meat cutter. After he got out of prison, he managed the meat department at a grocery store. But his difficulties didn't end.
Doctors discovered he had other medical issues, including bipolar disorder and a malfunctioning thyroid, he says.
"They thought I had a small stroke at work, and that's why I stopped working."
With a mental disability now, he does not work and is on MaineCare, which pays his $95 weekly cost for the methadone treatments. In addition to receiving monthly counseling at the methadone clinic, he sees a psychiatrist.
As he stands in the rain, John explains that most clients who come to the clinic so early in the morning have jobs and need the methadone in order to function at work.
"I get anxiety attacks in crowds and that's why I like to come first thing in the morning," he says. "I'm on so much meds, my mother transports me. I'm 42 and I have to take 22 pills a day."
John says some people come to the clinic for a year and can get off the methadone and be clean for life.
"I did drugs for so many years, this is working for me. If I didn't come here, I'd be dead or in prison. I've been clean over nine years. I can get off it (methadone) any time. You can go down on doses slowly. Everybody is different. If I feel safe enough to get off it, I'll get off it."
But until then, he'll make his weekly visits to Waterville, arriving at around 5:30 a.m.
"You stand in line and there are two windows with a slit under the glass and they give you a Dixie cup with methadone in it and put cold water in it; you drink it," he says. "It's a good program here. They've helped me and I know they've helped a lot of people."
source:
http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/6973475.html
Posted by:
Dee
10/17/2009