My daughter was taking methadone in pill form for her unrelenting pain but was so ashamed to be taking methadone she switched to oxycodone. On more than one occasion she was accused of being a heroin addict by medical professionals while on methadone. So now she takes oxy that is not as effective at relieving her pain.
- Carol
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I don’t believe in methadone.
- A healthcare provider
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I was taking methadone for pain. When I told my mother, she said I shouldn’t tell anyone in the family.
- Theresa
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When Lee Lee's Baked Goods opened in 2001, it was surrounded by empty lots and its main customers came from a methadone clinic across the street. "They were a pain but they kept me going," Mr. Lee said. Now, the clinic has closed and the corner of 118th street and Frederick Douglas Blvd is filling up with luxury apartment buildings, coffee shops and patisseries.
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I’ve been on methadone and I can’t get to a clinic every single morning or else I can’t do anything else with my life. I was on Suboxone but it was expensive for me and I couldn’t afford other basic stuff. Heroin is easier to get and cheaper than both.
- Ryan
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You advocated for Nurse Jackie to die at the end of the series. Why did you feel so strongly about that, and was that informed by your own experiences with addiction?
I have very personal feelings about that stuff because of my own addiction, but also that of many people in my life who I love. It was important to me, personally, that it be taken seriously as the epidemic that it is. I thought, “Well, look. If you guys have her doing drugs and not going to any kind of therapy or meetings or rehab with any consistency, this can’t end well.” Because that’s not fair to the viewership, who may be watching and thinking, wait a second, that’s not what happened to my family. I really wanted it to be more clear that she died at the end, but Showtime very much wanted to leave it ambiguous, so we came up with some sort of compromise.
- Edie Falco in an interview with Jake Nevins at the Guardian
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Methadone made me a prisoner, it’s the only way I can sum it up. I couldn’t go anywhere because I had to go to the program six days a week. Even when there was a time I was only going three days a week, I was still in prison. So it doesn’t matter if you go one day a week, you are still in prison.
- Francine
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Imagine if people had to take their insulin, or chemotherapy, or birth control pills and they had to have a person watch them take it. Most people would think it was a horrible intrusion.
- Deborah Small
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The construction by Argus Community, Inc. to convert 730 Saint Nicholas Avenue from a historic two-family home to an outpatient methadone clinic appears imminent. We oppose the siting of this clinic in a residential row house area. HARLEM HAS MORE THAN ITS FAIR SHARE OF ADDICTION FACILITIES.
- From a flyer by the Sugar Hill Concerned Neighbors Group. Their campaign to block the methadone clinic from opening in Harlem was successful.
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''Over a period of time, hopefully within the next two, three or four years, we will phase out and do away with methadone maintenance programs in the City of New York.''
- Former mayor Rudy Giuliani, 1998
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In Malaysia, enforcement bodies such as the police and the National Anti-Drug Agency conduct on-the-spot urine testing for drugs among suspicious persons, including patients on methadone treatment. When a patient on methadone is caught by enforcement agencies with positive urine screening tests for illicit drugs, they are put in lock-up for up to 14 days. The arrest may lead to a temporary discontinuation of methadone during the lock-up as well as job loss after release. Many people experience severe withdrawal from methadone while in lock-up, which can worsen their perception of methadone treatment. Furthermore, if their urine test is confirmed to be positive for illicit drugs, they might be incarcerated either in prison or an involuntary drug rehabilitation center.
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Methadone is better than jail, better than “life on the installment plan,” going in and out of jail like so many people do who have addictions. But it is not good. It eats up your body. And Suboxone maybe works with less hardcore addicts, but I’m pretty sure it’s a temporary solution. Many of these people will go back to heroin eventually.
- Sandie Alger
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Methadonia is the borderland between high and straight, where recovering heroin addicts on methadone "maintenance" exist. Passing the time on benzos and other prescription drugs that enhance the methadone, addicts find themselves in Methadonia for years, or decades. Selected for the prestigious New York Film Festival and featured on HBO, this unflinching, intimate film reveals the culture of addiction through the eyes and lives of men and women stuck in Methadonia, holding on to the hope they will wake up one morning and not think about getting high.
- The description of Michel Negroponte’s film Methadonia on Kanopy
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''The expectation for the alcoholic is to be abstinent and the expectation for the heroin addict should have the same goal. I believe that society has been rather lax in terms of dealing with heroin addicts. It's very easy and inexpensive to give a pill of methadone for life to people. But the time has come to liberate these addicts from that kind of expectation.''
- Dr. Luis R. Marcos, president of New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation, 1998
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Giuliani Orders 5 City Hospitals To Wean Addicts Off Methadone
- Headline in the New York Times, August 15, 1998
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NAMA Recovery Calls on Federal and State Officials to Help Patients Get Medication During Tropical Storm Barry
NAMA Recovery and our chapters have begun to receive calls and messages from Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) patients in the areas affected by Tropical Storm Barry.
The majority of clinics are giving medication through Sunday, July 14, 2019 when weather reports are predicting severe flooding following the storm. Patients are reporting that they are not being given medication because they cannot pay for it.
There are some clinics that are already experiencing flooding in the surrounding areas making it impossible to get there.
This should not be a repeat of Katrina when every clinic in the New Orleans area was flooded and patients were not able to get medication for a week or more.
- National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery Press Release July 11, 2019
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Monitor patients’ response to methadone medication treatment through individual counseling and toxicology review.
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Supervise the collection of toxicology samples for all patients as required by federal and state regulations.
- Job responsibilities for methadone counselors at Montefiore Medical Center Outpatient Substance Abuse Treatment Program in the Bronx
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