Originally Posted by
RsBeet26 
I am just looking for some advice or support for my utter frustration. I can clearly say that the biggest possible hinderance to my sobriety is my methadone clinic. I have been there for over 4 yrs now and have been requesting a dose reduction for 2 1/2 of those yrs! I have remained 100% clean since the first day I took methadone, but now after completely turning my life around (including holding a great job for years and pursuing a masters degree) I am entirely fed up with methadone and my clinic.
I have been thru 5 counselors, half of which left there jobs after a couple of months, the other half were completely incompetent. One used to sit on his cell phone and flirt with girls during individual counseling sessions, the other would never speak a word to me unless she was asking the specific designated questions on her checklist. If I wanted to bring up the subject of getting off methadone she would completely ignore me and give me dirty looks. When I told her she was making me feel frustrated and uncomfortable she told me "that attitude won't get you anywhere", and continued to ignore me. The staff at my clinic is completely unapproachable and everyone treats you less than. There seems to be some power control issue with most of them. I have started to experience panic attacks when I go there in the mornings, and I can not get anyone to listen to me whole heartedly. I have been told 5 times that my dose would be reduced, once by the supervisor who assured me she would personally make sure it would happen. Not once did it go down. I finally have a decent counselor, but he has been trying to get me in to see the Dr for 3 months now for a consultation for a dose reduction. Everytime I see him though, he is up to his ears in paperwork, and just does not have the time to deal with my situation. I accidental missed my meeting with him last month, so that put me behind another month as well.
Another huge issue is the fact that sometimes it can take HOURS to get your dose. I came incredibly close to loosing my job a number of times and have known several ppl who have. Ironically, on my wedding day, they had a 4 hr wait. I tried to calmly explain my situation to see if I could get hurried thru the line, but it was met with nothing but rudeness and laughter that I even asked. I was late to my own wedding because of this clinic!
Sorry for the ranting, I just feel so helpless. I am positive this clinic does not care about anyones overall success, and I would take it as far as to say they make me feel less than human. I could write you a 10 page essay on the negative experiences I have had. I want to go above my clinic to get my dose reduced if necessary. Where do I turn for help when no one at my clinic will help me? I want to at least get reduced low enough to switch to suboxone from a private DR. I need out of this place, it is starting to impact my life as negatively as the pills did in the first place. There is no way I can survive another yr here.
Hi, I go to a methadone clinic too. I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties you've experienced at your clinic. The really shouldn't be making it so difficult for you to start dropping your dose, but with many clinics, they are a business who wants your money. If you wean away from the clinic, they know they'll lose someone who's paying them. But they should let you wean off without hassle. I'm sorry too about the rudeness that you've experienced from them. This is something which used to bother me there also, is that the staff at the clinics, including the nurses and the counselors, do not place a high level of importance on trying to treat you with manners, sympathy, or even always respect. I've gotten some pretty rude treatment from some of the staff there myself. The staff knows that no matter how they treat you, you will still be coming back and paying them their money because you'll be sick without getting your doses. So, that very important factor makes the methadone clinic different from other businesses of service where the staff there can always fear that they'll lose customers and business if they don't treat the customers the right way. I would never do this, but there was another site where there was a methadone patient talking about suing their clinic for their shabby treatment, and several of the responses explained how difficult it is to succeed in suing that kind of a place, especially when you're likely to be looked at as just a junkie by the legal system when making such a move. And like I said before, the clinic staff knows that no matter how they treat you, that you'll be back because of your dependence on needing to dose. Overall unfortunately, it's very easy for them to get away with being rude, unsympathetic, and verbally unpleasant to the patient. What I've also noticed is that the staff do not always treat every patient the same when it comes to levels of friendliness or rudeness, again it's because for the reasons I explained that it's easy for them to get away with it, and they know you'll be back to pay them because you won't be able to handle suddenly not dosing, and they know that it's almost impossible to successfully sue them if any of their patients ever think of going there. So often, how you get treated at the clinic will usually be similar to how you get treated by anyone that you'd meet in a non-business serving situation, and like anyone that you would just see on the street. Basically how it stands, they can choose who to like or dislike, and that overall, they really don't have to be nice.