So recently, I have started this informative and slightly entertaining blog called “Confessions From The Methadone Clinic”.
Yes, I am a recovering heroin addict, and yes, I go to a methadone clinic every morning to dose, so that I don’t go into opiate withdrawal or use heroin…or both. For those of you who have never been inside a methadone clinic, you may have a vividly wild imaginative idea of what it would look like inside those walls. You may envision complete chaos. Or you may envision scenes from Zombieland, as hundreds of creatures minutes from death stagger to their dosing window.
Well, as a daily visitor to the methadone clinic, I can tell you that it’s very different than those descriptions. Granted, today I did have a wild-eyed homeless man, covered in dirt , sit beside me begging for a smoke. I politely told him that I didn’t smoke and that if he couldn’t afford his own smokes he should probably consider quitting. But besides the dirty, homeless man, the methadone clinic is full of normal people.
People that you would never know are opiate addicts. At my clinic there is a nurse. She confided in me that she is close to retirement and worried that her retirement and pension could be negatively affected if they find out about the clinic due to her access to pain medication throughout the years. There is a school teacher at our clinic who doses before she goes to school to teach children. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Should we applaud her for seeking help or “down” her for being around our children under the influence of an opiate?
I see two young college kids, obviously a couple, coming in together before class every morning. This shows me that sometimes a couple who used together can make it work by getting sober together. I see a very wealthy business owner who drives his $65K corvette to the clinic every day. He obviously has done well in life! We even have a general manager from a local grocery chain who doses each morning before he goes and runs a large store with a staff of over 100 people that he is generally responsible for.
All of these people from the dirty homeless man to the wealthy business owner with the corvette are basically the same person for those few minutes that we stare at the number board waiting for our number to be called to the dosing window. We all are exactly the same, as we need that morning dose to be able to function on a daily basis. So as you can see, addiction does not discriminate at all. It doesn’t care what you look like, where you came from, what you do for a living, or how much money you have.
—John
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