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#62
Subject: Weather Emergency
From: bdoll@earthlink.net
Date: 12/24/96

Hello Group!
Bobbi here, writing from New Hampshire! I just discovered NAMA last week and all that goes with it. I consider it a Christmas present from God!! I’ve been an addict since 1969 when my then husband, a Vietnam Vet, introduced me to the drug heroin. I spent two years strung out back then, got on methadone maintenance and stayed clean with it for almost eight years. I never used illicitly again after I went onto the program, but, ahhhhh—when I detoxed OFF of the methadone…

In ’83, after a few short “clean without methadone” years (during which I used too many codeine and Percodan for “migraine” and PMS!!), I picked up again. At this time I was a working nurse, had three beautiful daughters (ages 16,15 & 9), and was living a fairly stable life in Massachusetts. I don’t KNOW what happened. I know that sounds like an excuse, but it’s as honest as I can be. I just don’t KNOW what the hell happened… Within less than two years I had lost it ALL. The nursing was gone. The home was gone. The kids were gone. The live was gone. The integrity was gone. I ended up a street-corner prostitute on the upper East Side of NYC, and in the end, I died-for four and a half minutes. It was this that finally forced me into the decision to make a FINAL effort to get clean – or at least to TRY to… I didn’t want my children to have, for a legacy, a mother who died of an overdose as a hooker in NY.

I got back onto methadone maintenance. I’m there now. It was the hardest struggle I’ve ever been in. Deciding to go back on the program, I mean. I wanted to believe that NA was right – you can’t be REALLY clean with methadone. Fine. Dandy, but WHAT IF THEY WERE WRONG? Was it worth my life to find out? You see, I’d originally LEFT methadone maintenance because of the rules, regulations, controls, stigma, and pressure from well-meaning family and friends. If only I had not listened….I’m CONVINCED things would have been entirely different. My children would have been spared years of horror, pain, abandonment, etc. This time I intended to do what was correct for ME as an individual, and I know that the most productive, the most happy years of my life – the years I was most stable in an all around state – were the years I was on methadone! Thank God for hindsight!! This knowledge precipitated the smartest move I’ve made in my life in YEARS.

In these last five years I’ve gone from being homeless, addicted (to both dope and coke – injecting), without family (when I finally stopped I hadn’t even SPOKEN to one of my daughters in over a year and a half; they were completely fed up with me and my promises to stop the drugs and had all changed their phone numbers), unemployable, friendless, etc. (I’m sure you all get the picture very clearly), to being a married woman with a beautiful apartment filled with all the things I never, EVER thought I’d have again. I live a mile from my middle daughter who I am once again VERY close to. I provide child care 12 hours a day, 5 days a week for her 18 month old son, and have done so since he was 8 weeks old! After all that I did to her and to myself, this wonderful person has found a way to fogive me and to trust me with her most precious possession – my grandson!! Talk about miracles… All of this – ALL OF IT – I attribute to the miracle of methadone maintenance and its potential to effect REAL change in an addict’s life. I thank God every single day for what I have.

I knew pretty much what I was getting into when I got back on, too! It was the bullshit and the stigma that chased me away before, and I knew THIS TIME that there had to be a commitment – a lifelong commitment – to staying with the program no matter what the pressure or inanity I had to face. The RULES make me crazy! Having my life controlled by people who are ill-informed, ignorant, or even downright antagonistic at times, was not something I looked forward to, but neither was dying in some abandoned building…! It has been just as miserble and obnoxious as I expected it to be, but I’m here; I’ve persevered, and I will continue to do so, but now, at last, I have a way to fight back!!

I discovered NAMA quite accidently, and let me say to anyone reading this who doesn’t know what NAMA is, PLEASE, go IMMEDIATELY – RUN!! DON’T WALK!! to http://www.methadone.org and check it out!!! It’s the answer to the prayer of any addict in treatment on methadone who resents being treated like a child, or worse, a continuing USING ADDICT because of the methadone consumption! I wrote an e-mail in response to a posting in the alt.hard drugs newsgroup. It led to a correspondence and education that I will be eternally grateful for!! I believe there is some kind of a God; and I believe that NAMA was my Christmas gift from Him!

Now – on to the “pick-up during weather emergency” problem! As I said, I live in New Hampshire. We moved here from upstate NY last May when my daughter had Justin (grandson), and the fun REALLY BEGAN for me! I left NY on a 4 day schedule with three take home bottles a week. I came to this state as a TRANSFER – NOT a new patient, but I was TREATED as a new patient. All the clean urines, all the major changes in my life, all the hard work and forward progress – well, it counted as SHIT! I still had to come in seven days a week for the first 9 months! And my program is in Massachusettes to boot, because there are NO programs in New Hampshire. Methadone is as illicit here as heroin is, I’m told! A legitimate, educated, licensed DOCTOR can’t even prescribe it for PAIN control to terminal patients. Cute, huh? Talk about being made to feel stigmatized…? So, last year, during the WORST winter in recent history, I had to drive 46 miles rount-trip each and every day to get to my clinic. A couple of times, during blizzards, I had the same experiences as the patient in NC. You have my deepest compassion, believe me!! Anyway- I MADE IT! Never missed a single day! And, now, this winter, I’m only going three days per week. I get four take home meds per week, and yes, my clinic is one of those that eventually lets one get to the point where you can come in only one day a week, but the requirements and the time needed for such…????!!!! Let me just say that there is NO ONE AT ALL on Level E (as it is called) and never has been yet! By the way, I intend to be on it!!

So we struggle on at an almost impossible uphill angle. It’s completely unfair; we deserve better-especially once you consider what odds we have beaten in order to GET CLEAN! Only time and work can change it for us, BUT IT CAN BE CHANGED!! And pages like this one are a great step! We need to band together, to help each other. Each individual has so much to offer to the world and any life that is wasted or lost to the ravages of addiction is an irreperable loss. I believe in my heart that we are standing on the threshhold of a massive change in the way addiction will be treated in the future. The “problem” has become TOO big to just ignore or to apply half-assed solutions to! Too many noted and important people are coming forward (or simply getting caught!) with the truth about their addiction! It will help lead to change, and we need to help it along. I, for one, intend to do my part! I’m sick to death of being treated as a second (fourth or fifth??) class citizen because I’m on methadone; I deserve better than that. I SHOULD be getting applause for the insurrmountable odds I’ve managed to overcome! And so should YOU!

Sorry this got so long-winded, but the whole subject is so very dear to my heart, and I’ve been silenced too long. I apologize for taking so much time here, but well, it needed to be said! May all have a wonderful Holiday Season, and I hope to hear from anyone (by e-mail, too, if you prefer) who can add to this!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

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