From: an135230@anon.penet.fi (Cuthbert Rumbold) Subject: Re: Methadone Date: 1995/10/14 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard In article , you wrote: > The worst thing about methadone programs IMO, are the people who > staff them. Usually a bunch of power crazed, sadistic dimwits who > no nothing about drugs and who hate drug users. They get off on > letting you know where the power lies in that relationship, and > by humiliating people on a regular basis -- just to show who is > boss. No shit! Let's swap some horror stories, shall we? At the clinic I was at (this was in Massachusetts) the director was a flaming asshole. He'd set up various hoops for people to jump through and derive great pleasure from watching us stumble. Here's a ferinstance - "take-homes" Now where you are "take-homes" are probably a given; you get a few days dose at a time, right? Not here. The clinic is open seven days, from 6:30 to 8:30 each morning. If you've had _six months_ of clean urine screens (including alcohol, BTW) you become eligible for _one_ take-home per week. Oh boy! And even the slightest transgression (say, missing your weekly counseling session) and you lose 'em. There was a fellow who was doing very well and was getting a few take- homes a week. He lived in New Hampshire and drove about an hour each way to get to the clinic. Now the clinic closes at _exactly_ 8:30 and if you show at 8:30:01, tough shit - no dose. Anyway, seems there's a power outage in this fellows town and his alarm doesn't go off. He _calls_ the clinic to let them know he'll be ten minutes late. He shows up ten minutes late. Tough shit - no dose _and_ he loses his take-homes! OK, here's one that happened to me. When you get a take-home it comes in a small plastic bottle, meth already dissolved in water. You _must_ return the empty bottle the day after. I had been on take-homes for several months when one day (oh darn) I _forgot_ my bottle. The director says I have to go back home and get it. Now I've already been dosed, so I say OK and I leave. I get in the car and realize that if I go back home and get it I'll be wicked late for work. There's no way I can do it. So I ask my wife (who's also on the same clinic) to drop it off for me. No problem, right? Next time back, I'm waiting in line for my dose. The director comes out and starts giving me shit about how _I_ was supposed to return the bottle, as if it was some sort of character-building exercise. I laughed at him; I sincerely thought he was joking. He figured it was so important to return that little bottle that I should risk losing my job over it! Thank's for listening to my rant. I feel better. Regards, Cuth ==================================================================== From: monde@sirius.com (Monde Kontrolle) Subject: Re: where the hell was my dose Date: 1996/11/11 newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard Jackson wrote: > As for Clinics the are by no means Perfect as we all know. One day > they were changing bottles as you can see when those little air bubbles > start coming up to the spout,Thats not going to be My dose! Anyway I was > talking to the Nurse dispensing and she (as usual)got forgetful and gave > me the cup she had emptied the old bottle into(They have to measure it) > It was a quarter cup of pure methadone at least 400-500mg. and I > swallowed it.She looked at me like she had just realized what she had > done and never said a word,just to cover her ass.The Director is a > Tyrant.It had to be a hell of a lot as my usual dose on those rare > occasions when a new nurse forgets to put any water in it,isn't much > more than about ten ml. and this was a least 2-3 ounces??? I was a > little worried about the amount but It went well. I got very high,danced > around the living room and slept for about 16hrs. heh...that sounds like it was what i'd call a 'happy accident' :} although if it had happened to someone on a very low dose who'd not been addicted to heroin for very long, it might not have been so happy... > I have had them Tell me once that I already received my Medication > for the Day when I switched to once a week. And Nothing in the World is > going to allow them to take a Dope Fiends word,of course. So They chased > me out the door with the threat of Kicking me off.I was Pissed. i've been reading a lot of stuff on this ng about the shitty treatment people seem to be getting from their methadone clinics. i guess i am just lucky, or maybe it's because this is San Francisco...i have always recieved excellent treatment from my clinic . they've even gone over and above the call of duty, and when the California law was passed that caused a lot of people to have to lose their SSI payments because they were based on alcohol and/or drug problems, the counselors brought in advocates to help people be able to keep receiving their payments. i just had my hearing on the 31st of October and last week got a letter from Social Security...much to my relief my payments are NOT going to stop. and i attribute this very important result to my advocate, who genuinely cared about me and wanted to help me not lose my home coincidentally enough, the day of the hearing was the same day i wondered what the hell happened to my dose. it could be that those jitters i had made the judge at the hearing a little more convinced of my mental disability. i wondered if maybe my counselor had arranged to have me dosed on a placebo that day for that very reason, but i quickly wrote that thought off as unlikely. [...] ==================================================================== From: Jackson Subject: Re: sued by a clinic? Date: 1996/12/24 newsgroups: alt.drugs.psychedelics,alt.drugs.hard,alt.drugs.usenet,alt.drugs,rec.drugs.misc [...] Oh Yeah, They made a big stink out of it as most people were not paying if they didn't have insurance, which 95% of all of them did have. Alot thru their employer. The larger Corporations that had insurance that recognized Rehabs and drug abuse as a "Disease" in "83" placed employees there.Like the now Defunct Eastern Airlines & The Metro-Dade Police Dept.! They had 46 beds that were rotated every week. I was in one of the two private rooms the first week(Due to my addiction).The worst week of your stay,though mine lasted way past a week? They knew which were more apt to be awake all night and doing the shake,rattle,and roll!! I really don't know where the Benzo's withdrawals ended(probably the body tremors) and the opiate nasties began.I had been working on the benzo problem for two weeks prior(had been taking Halcion-Lrg.amounts) hiding and sleeping all over thinking I was "Under Surveillance" and just talking and walking in circles.Psychosis! It was with that Clonodine incident @95mg.of Methadone and I didn't know it would be with that crap.I felt like it was a total cold turkey and didn't feel they deserved shit.When we registered in Admissions they asked my wife to sign as a potential "responsible party" and she refused. So after a year or two of the bill collectors looking for me they couldn't really get me and knew I wouldn't have the cash anyway because someone who stuck to the program would have paid it off by then. So they went went after my wife in Civil court and though we were legally divorced by then and she refused to sign it too,they won and hit her for $6,000. I told her before any of it to just give em my address but they found someone with a regular job! A School teacher vs. a Drug Addict with an out of state address. And she wanted those credit Cards and have a good credit rating.I have never had credit. And still owe a few K out here to the Hospital bills.No socialized Medicine in this screwed up country!See ya, Jackson ==================================================================== From: ikoltunov@aol.com (IKoltunov) Subject: Re: methadone and 'harm reduction'. Date: 1997/05/11 Newsgroups: alt.drugs.hard [...] Yup, folks, ragging on Methadone IS cliche, and the reason it became cliche is - you've guessed it - M SUCKS! Talk to anyone who's been on maint. for any span of time, and managed to get off (either by going clean or going back to using H), and you'll hear "getting on M was the biggest mistake I've ever made". Sure, during the time I was on the clinic I've lived a seemingly normal life (though, in reality, the thing I've become had more in common with an old sofa than with the old me), didn't have to go out every morning to "get the mornin' paper" and hook up ... or, wait, I DID! Same shit, different dealer. Only now you're single-soursing (even the army's not dumb enough to do that!). That''s right, you're STILL scoring every morning, only now you've got just one dealer in town... You have to piss in a cup, stand in line, chat up your councelor. Noooh, not degrading at all. Then, one day, you think - won't it be nice to visit some friends back in MAss? Chat up the councelor again ( at least a week in advance) to get the 'visiting dignatary' pass - so another clinic will dose you. And now you're hooked on M, not H - you're bigtime now. Before M you COULD do the merry-go-round thing- dry out, start using again, dry out - BUT NOT ANY MORE! Try drying out from an M habit - I promise, you'll be cat food when they find you. when you go on M maint, YOU'RE SIGNED FOR LIFE, unless a miracle happens (it did to me - I've become so appathetic that when my councelor told me that they were going to drop me off the program unless I got the mandatory yearly physical - i've mumbled ok and did nothing. Two weeks later I was gone.). What, exactly, am i bitching about - Methadone or the way it's distributed in US? I can't separate the two - the distribution methods suck, while the drug makes you dull enough to think that it's ok (but then 2 bundles of dope/day made me think that it was perfectly reasonable to drag my cracker ass to E125 in the middle of the night if I ran out). Anyway, to cut this short, let me paraphrase the slogan DARE thought was the best script for kids "JUST SAY NO TO METHADONE"!