A Daily Dose of Death
By: Christina Vaughn, Nurse, Freelance Writer
Tags: Better Living, Addiction Treatment, About, Addiction Recovery

Promoting True Healing

Despite the common allegation that Methadone maintenance is different for everyone and so some have to take it for years or for life…the truth remains that this theory of “treatment” is not acceptable. It is not safe and its effects are not congruent with normalcy.

If you question my observations and theories…go to a Methadone clinic in your area and sit outside anywhere from 6 am to 11 am and observe…or better yet,…go INSIDE the clinic as a passive onlooker and take in the environment as it is.

The call that has rung out since the 1950s aimed at the medical and recovery communities to accept and address the addict’s state as simply human is still far from being heard and implemented.

Understanding the need for the brain to heal completely from addiction…not just be put at bay from the effects of addiction…will facilitate the dire need to actively treat addiction as a medical condition.

The brain CAN heal. Methadone only keeps an addict’s death and healing at bay.

I am all for the longer terms of proper and fully rounded temporary treatment of Suboxone and Buprenorphine in combination with adequate and continual therapy…and the access to this type of treatment void of the ridiculous prices a recovering addict is forced to pay to just to STAY ALIVE if not covered by insurance (which is most addicts.)

I can only condone the temporary use of Methadone if the entity offering it adamantly addresses the core needs of the recovering addict in terms of lab testing, monitoring of the patient’s person (dress, attitude, demeanor, and body language) through the confirmation and implementation of appropriate counseling and the dosing regimen to include a way to night dose sooner than later in recovery.

The effect of the administered Methadone needs to be actually visualized with each dose through a set “wait” time after AM administration and then documented. Evaluating each patient at least weekly for negative symptoms as noted previously in this piece is imperative to their advance to wellness.

It MATTERS that these patients are coming and going looking like pure hell.

In addition, medically speaking, most medication (especially the ones noted), that is administered to or prescribed to any patient is to be monitored with lab testing every 3 months to evaluate kidney and liver changes. This most definitely is not being implemented in much of the medical community as a whole and not in the clinic my son attends with hundreds of other “recovering” addicts.

Some Perspectives and Experiences of Addicts

Russell Brand, a recovering heroin addict, and advocate for abstinence has something to say about Methadone use.

“We might as well let people carry on taking drugs if they’re going to be on methadone,” Brand says. “Obviously it’s painful to abstain, but at least it’s hope-based.”

Brand was put on a recovery programme after his agent, John Noel, found him taking heroin in the toilet at an office Christmas party 10 years ago. Brand checked into Focus 12, an independent charity that runs a 12-week rehabilitation programme in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, overseen by chief executive Chip Somers, who is himself a former heroin addict.

Somers says: “The beauty of the methadone programme is that it’s really easy. You just dish it out. End of story… It’s a way of shutting up a large population of drug addicts and keeping them out of the way instead of having to engage with people and do things differently.”

I know that not every Methadone patient shares this perspective, but I am presenting the idea that they are themselves being seduced into accepting that Methadone is true “treatment” and potentially is lifelong.

This position does not include the idea of their eventual healing of the need for Methadone, specifically, nor its effects. Addicts are persuaded that Methadone is a be-all-end-all to their addictive suffering which, in exchange for their addiction, has the strong potential to be lifelong. Perhaps they cannot do without it? Sound familiar?

Sounds like Heroin.

This idea of the lifelong need to medicate yourself with the closest thing to the opiate killing you is just not a rational or acceptable one.

Photo by niu niu on Unsplash

The first time my 22-year-old son took that forced double dose of 16 mg, although it was the safer alternative Buprenorphine, he was crying when he came to the car. He was used to staying sober on 8mg of Suboxone twice a day.

“I’m gonna get high, Mom. I can’t get high!”

And so he did.

I think about the founding Project Director of the MARS program, Walter Ginter, who states his expertise in the matter of Methadone “success” (and I have to say…his comments on the subject reiterate the plight of the opioid addict,) is based on his own decades-long use of high doses of Methadone.

What? Clearly, long ago, Walter accepted that he could never be free of his opioid addiction. He soothes it with Methadone to this day. I am not judgemental of that fact at all. I am devastated to think that this man himself, who runs a program that exists fundamentally to assist and save the addict, believes the addict is never free.

The addict’s struggle is commonly longstanding, but they do NOT have to LIVE like an addict.

Shut the addict up with METHADONE and no one has to treat the addiction and its sources.

Barriers and Challenges to the Pursuit of Recovery

I am writing this piece as I want to expose the sordid facets of “sobriety,” and “recovery” that addicts who want to get better must endure achieving safety, security, and a drug-free place in their lives.

The inconsistencies in care, inadequate and lack of access to treatment, and vile prejudices are serious issues that addicts experience while they are seeking sobriety. Insults to their intelligence and worth within the medical and social communities further damage their frail psyches.

The vulnerable mind frame of the addict and the accompanying low self-worth prevent addicts from standing up for themselves for better or excellent care.

One recent former employer who discovered my son was in recovery, actually called him a loser and told him he did not want “his kind” working for the company and promptly fired him. A recent visit to a new physician who knew my son was in recovery told him that a “spot” on his face was “probably HIV” and proceeded to put the fear of God in him due to his “previous lifestyle.”

The “spot” proved to be a simple skin eruption to be treated with Neosporin.

Medical providers are easily the absolute worst proprietors of the spread of prejudice. They do not understand and seemingly most are not taught, the biochemical workings of addiction and recovery medications.

Most do not respect the opinions and research of addicts who know their drugs and the effects of those drugs in and out…better than medical providers ever will.

Too many medical providers do not respect addicts as humans, much less as patients, period.

Summarizing a Need for Change in Longterm Methadone “Treatment”

Addiction is a health problem, not a personality/character problem. However, there are major differences in treating traditionally recognized diagnoses with lifelong medications and treating opioid addiction with very longstanding or lifelong doses of Methadone.

Now, medically speaking…when a diabetic begins to use and benefit from insulin, their BS comes down, their weight comes down, their kidney function improves, and their heart attack and stroke risks dramatically decrease, just to name a few of the health benefits of insulin.

Yes, they do need to take Insulin for the rest of their lives, barring a patient’s research into the documentation of the scientific work and research overseas teaching that even Type 1 Diabetes can be a reversible/correctable process. American pharmaco will not allow this information to be spread as truth here in this country.

But opioid addicts’ brains CAN completely heal from the gaping holes in opioid receptors caused by the overuse of opioids which cause the insatiable desire for the drug. Intensive, corrective counselling can and does foster and create the emotional and mental healing needed for the addict to come to terms with their reasons to medicate in the first place.

As a mother who is both an onlooking bystander and a medical professional, and in the opinion of those within my reach who are everyday addicts needing treatment, Methadone is not changing or improving the heroin addict’s demeanor, body function, healing processes nor does it improve the function of any body system or emotional malady.

It is a simple mainstay that has its purpose if used in conjunction with the other aspects that will help an addict, but that purpose does not and should not be part of a regimen that overdoses the patient each morning, starving them of a night dose, due to lack of staff or funding to offer an evening clinic or especially because stigma still calls for the addict to “toughen up” and “wait it out” for the AM dosing.

My God, does the average medical community read the obituaries? Do they follow their patients’ absences and worry? A heroin addict cannot “wait it out.”

On a positive note, Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, some of the MARS clinics, and the IntegralCare organization here in Austin, Texas do employ some very dedicated healthcare workers, degreed professionals, who have made it their life’s work to advocate tirelessly for the addict communities. I am so thankful for them.

Today Texas Harm Reduction Alliance returned my call almost instantaneously today when I called to get immediate Suboxone for my son, Landon, as his insurance coverage lapsed yesterday and he cannot go back to his maintenance clinic as of today.