According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, “Methadone is a rigorously well-tested medication that is safe and efficacious for the treatment of narcotic withdrawal and dependence.” 1
Years ago, I believed that I could not give up my little pain pill habit. Lortab, Lorcet, Tylox, whatever opioid pill I could con out of a doctor or buy for about $4 a pill on the streets, I usually took no more than eight in a twenty-four hour period, and had “weaned” down to about five a day when I decided I needed to get help. That was years ago, when I truly did not understand what a drug addiction could tragically become.
I started thumbing through the phone book in search of rehabilitative support. The group thing didn’t appeal to me. I wanted relief from withdrawals, even though a small five pill a day habit was not, I had yet to learn, hard withdrawals from a drug. I found a Methadone Maintenance Program here in Jefferson County that promised relief from withdrawals while giving professional support and counseling to rid me of my addiction to hydrocodone. I was amazed.
The next day, I was up at dawn waiting to be seen by a doctor at the Methadone clinic. I noticed that even though the doors to the clinic were yet to be unlocked, there were about twenty to thirty people waiting outside. Once open for business, the nurse took down my information, and I was ushered through the process of a blood test, paying a $60 fee to begin the Methadone Maintenance Program, and finally was placed in a line in the main lobby, behind other Methadone patients.
When it came my turn at the Methadone clinic’s dosing window, enclosed behind steel bars and offering a counter at my immediate front, I was told to sign my name. I paid her $11 to dose. The nurse, locked in a small room that held many, many rows of small plastic bottles containing Methadone on shelves that ran the length and height of the room, used a small knife to cut open the foil seal on the top of evidently my prescribed bottle. She then poured water into the bottle of Methadone, bringing the amount of liquid about ¾ full. She handed this through the small window and placed it on the counter before me, instructing me to drink it all in front of her. I obeyed. The Methadone tasted horrible, even when diluted with water. She offered a small, paper cup of water and told me to drink that in front of her as well. I did. Then she wanted to see inside my mouth. At first, I was perplexed, then realized she wanted to make sure I did not leave with any Methadone in my mouth. They had prescribed me 30mgs of Methadone.
The few clues that should have warned me against Methadone Maintenance escaped me then, as I ignorantly believed that hydrocodone addiction was the worst addiction one could have. I should have looked at the fact that people will wait outside the clinic doors in freezing cold weather just to be able to be the first in line at the Methadone clinic’s counter. I should have realized that if they are worried one may actually take the Methadone outside the clinic in their mouths, there must be someone willing to then buy the Methadone that had once been inside that patient’s mouth. It did not occur to me, however, that my measly little pill addiction was not something that would cause that behavior. I would never have bought a pill someone smuggled to me inside their mouth. No way. It did not occur to me that perhaps Methadone was a drug that could cause someone to be that desperate in obtaining more.
That first day, however, nothing anyone could have told me would have ever swayed my support of this ingenious little answer known as Methadone Maintenance. I was on cloud nine, if there ever were such a place. Methadone was it, buddy, and if you didn’t think so, you just had not tried it before. I was higher than I had ever been on any other opiate, and for that matter, on any other drug I had tried up until Methadone. It was the god of highs. It was my answer. And the very next morning, bright and early, I was up and standing in that line, ready to receive that second dose of 30mgs, which I actually did not need because I was still as high as a freaking kite. Upon standing once again at that counter and peering into the window at the seemingly imprisoned nurse, I went through the signing and paying routine, again only $11, and was then asked, “Is 30mgs holding you?” I answered that it was, and she told me that if it does not, I can go up 5 more milligrams. In fact, a Methadone Maintenance patient at that time could go up 5mgs a day until they reached 50mgs. At that point, they could increase another 10mgs a day until they reached 100mgs. And the $11 per day remained the same, no matter what milligram a Methadone Maintenance patient dosed at. These days, the milligram allowed is much higher per day.
I continued in this manner until I grew a tolerance for my little 30mgs of Methadone per day. It just wasn’t “holding” me, I suppose. The fact was, it wasn’t holding my high steadily until the next morning when I would again be able to dose. Over the next few months, I increased all the way to 100 mgs per day. I had no idea then that I had traded the hydrocodone monkey on my back for a completely insane gorilla. I eventually had to quit driving, being what a heroine addict would call “on the nod” continuously. It was like having Narcolepsy, where someone just falls asleep no matter what they are doing. I could not function as a normal adult. I could not function at all, and quite a few times, was escorted into the clinic by my husband and a friend, and held up so that I would not fall down in line, in order to dose for the day.
Withdrawing from Methadone was something I had never encountered before. No sickness, no flu, no pneumonia could even come close in comparison. It was like someone forcing their hand through my gut and pulling my spine from me. That is, before I broke with reality. After the break, I don’t remember very much pain from the Methadone withdrawals. I only remember trying frantically to figure out who I was, who my loved ones were, and what was happening to me.
I had decided to come off Methadone, as it was destroying my life. I had not been told that coming off of it too quickly could cause severe problems. I was at about 80mgs per day when I decided to come down 5mgs per day and stop going to the Methadone clinic. When I reached about 40mgs, I have been told by my husband that I told the nurse I did not trust what they were giving me, and refused to dose. The doctor told my husband that I must be taking other drugs and lying about it, though my urinalysis were all clean. They told him they could do nothing for me.
My husband had to take off from work and sit with me twenty-four hours a day, as I would not sleep. I do not remember much from that time, but I do remember trying to throw myself from the truck when we were going down the Interstate one time. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to die. At least, I don’t think I did.
Perhaps Methadone Maintenance Programs are beneficial to heroine addicts. I am not suggesting that no one benefits from the program at all. But to allow addicts with an addiction to opiates which are of a lower grade than Methadone on the program is completely insane, and even rings a familiarity to a common street dealer. As a matter of fact, I have often thought of Methadone clinics as the governments own legal drug deals. And Uncle Sam has one potent high awaiting anyone with any opiate addiction, even to Tylenol 3 with Codeine, right behind that little dosing counter. I have seen it, and thank God I lived through it. Many do not. Some even believe their loved one meant to commit suicide while withdrawing.
1Erin Steiner Broekhuysen at the ONDCP Drug Policy Information Clearinghouse; www access: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/methadone/index.html
