Our Methadone Journey: Two Tracks

What I learned about a life-saving medication. What my daughter learned from the Methadone clinic.

I shared in a previous post how my daughter had gone to a rehab in a city where she knew no one and walked out.  She called me to tell me that she had gone to be “with her people.”   Her brothers, my two sons, found her in a park and stayed with her.  She agreed to come home with her dad and her brothers if she could use drugs along the way, and if she could get on methadone.  We said, “Whatever it is that you need to do.”  When I think back on it, she had been telling me this for years and I just hadn’t been listening.  So this began our methadone journey.  

My Methadone Journey: Why doesn’t anyone know about this?

 My journey was one of intense unlearning.  As she was making her way down the coast with her dad, I was finding her a clinic.  The first part of the upset was that the closest one was an hour away.  I was shocked.  I hadn’t realized that she couldn’t just get methadone from her doctor.  

I got her an appointment an hour away and I just started doing my research.  I thought to myself, “Why doesn’t anyone know about this?  Methadone has been around for fifty years, it’s one of the most researched medications!”
I started to read things like “gold standard in addiction treatment.”  I read reports with the success ratio of preventing overdose of 50% or more, sometimes 80%.   I was just so angry: at myself and angry at all this advice that I had been given over the years that had created a bias against this life-saving medication.  I was thankful my daughter was still alive but I was really angry with myself for not listening to her and not doing the research.  I could have helped her get relief from her pain so much sooner.

I was very curious, so I dove into it. I asked her if I could learn about this along with her.  I asked her if I could go with her to the clinic.  I took her to the clinic at 5:30 every morning.  It was extremely hard, but I miss those times.  Sometimes we would just sit in silence or listen to music but just being able to reconnect with her on her journey to a healthier life was something I will never forget.  

I was paying attention to everything.  I said to her, “I’m sorry this is such a hassle that we have to get there so early because I have to get to work.”   Getting her up and dragging her to the car that sometimes resulted in arguments.  But she told me, “You know Mom, this is okay right now because I am still going to get drugs every day.”  That had been her routine - getting up in the morning, figuring out how much she had left and how much she needed to get through the day and then figuring out how to get it.  So in some ways, going to the clinic was okay with her, in the beginning. 

She allowed me to go into her first appointment with the doctor who ran the methadone clinic.  He was old school.  I remember asking him millions of questions.  They were starting her on such a low dose that I knew wouldn’t hold off her cravings and she would be in withdrawal, so I asked “Can you prescribe her morphine or something for her to take until she gets up to whatever dose is going to be good for her?”   He said, “Oh no, we don’t do that.”  I asked him, “Well, what is she supposed to do?”  He told me that they expect their patients to supplement until they get up to their dose.  “But she’s supplementing with illicit drugs that could kill her!”  He said, “I’m just telling you that’s what we do.”  

After sending many medical studies, I was able to get our family doctor to prescribe her morphine and I could help monitor her to make sure she was safe.  My daughter slowly stabilized.  She quit using opioids.  She had been using illicit fentanyl and heroin at the time and she quit them all.  Her life became more manageable.  I kept thinking, “This is a miracle that’s been around for fifty years that nobody’s telling anybody about!”  

Two Different Journeys

While I was learning a lot about methadone and all of its good properties, my daughter was learning other things by going to the clinic.  She quickly learned how to fake her pee tests.  At this point I thought testing her was a great idea so that I would not have to do it.  I wasn’t evolved enough to realize how humiliating that experience was and how often the tests were inaccurate.  She was taking other substances, not in any kind of chaotic way but she was using other substances. And, if caught, she would be kicked out of the program for doing so. 

 She figured out that since she was prescribed Vyvanse, when she was using illicit stimulants (the tests weren’t as sophisticated then)  that all she had to do was bring her prescription to the clinic every month to explain her urine test being positive for that substance. 

She also figured out that the clinic was the best place to score other drugs.  The back parking lot was literally filled with dealers.  She would go in the front door while I was waiting and right back out the back door.  It was a one-stop shop.  The clinics are magnets for dealers. 

The clinic required counseling, and I thought that was great at first because I wanted her to get counseling.  But during the time she went to the clinic, in five years she had twenty different counselors!   Their backgrounds were ridiculous: they had no serious educational credentials. And how could she be honest with the clinic counselor when they had the ability to punish her for speaking the truth?  She learned how to work the system.  It was a matter of survival: if she didn’t work the system, they would turn her in and cut her off of the medication she needed to survive.  

By fudging the clinic system she was able to get to the maximum number of takehomes (doses you can take home and not have to report to the clinic on a daily basis to get.)   The way the clinic was set up she was forced to be a liar and a dealer.  It created this environment for her to continue to use these skills that really weren’t productive.  Still, I was just thankful for all of her positive changes, even though she was occasionally using other illicit substances.  There was real change happening in her life. 

She Needed the Life-Saving Medication, Not the Dehumanizing Clinic

She did much better when she had takehomes because she didn’t have to be in the unhealthy clinic environment.  She only had the maximum that was allowed at the time: ten days.  She did much better when she didn’t go to the clinic every day.   When COVID hit she was able to get 28 days of takehomes, and that was the best she ever did, being away from the clinic and in charge of her own medication.  Not feeling the shame of the environment that the clinic had created.  Having to continue those negative behaviors didn’t feel good to her.  But she needed methadone, the medication that saved her life.

As I started to share this success with others in my online support groups, I was met regularly with the “this is just trading one drug for another” commentary.  And, I would always respond with “My daughter has her life back.  She no longer steals, manipulates and hustles for her drugs.  She is working and has a purpose.  So, if this is trading one drug for another - I will take that trade any day.”

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