World Anti-DrugTransnational Internet contest - "Maya"

I learned about methadone two years ago before the program of MRMT¹ was launched. At that time, this topic was widely discussed among the addicts and almost no one believed into the fact that drugs will be provided legally, but I personally hoped for this to become true. Finally, in 2003, I was one of the first to hear about the launch of this program. The next day, me, Slavik and Olya applied for the program at the NCA². The therapy restrictions were severe enough, i.e. the experience of the injecting drug abuse must be no less than 15-20 years. Before applying for this program, the addict must have been treated no less than one or two times in state institutions and his analyses must have shown the presence of opioid drugs in the body. We had to wait for more than a month. When this information was confirmed, we were placed in the hospital in order to define the required dose of methadone. In 10 days, I was the 19th in the list of accepted.

Since that time many imperfections were revealed in the program, which started to break people passing the therapy. Few years later after the launch of the program, the addicts started to be accepted on the very first day without any special conditions except for the presence of heroin in the body. Sometimes I see how young people, who held the syringe once or twice in their lives and who haven’t been high enough, start to come. Among them are people who were drinking hard before the program and came just with a hangover. They heard about the place, where drugs were provided for free and then came. But methadone solely doesn’t lead to euphoria, therefore people start to search for cheap supplements, and the cheapest one as a rule is diphenhydramine. As a result 25% of the patients die. They gain sores that cannot be healed in the end, all of them urgently need a psychiatrist, people gradually go to seed, and the fear of water appears. They can barely take care of themselves (like washing their faces), their blood becomes black and thick, and finally they slowly die.

There are tons of examples, apart from those who inject cocaine, drink “dolls” and alcohol. Even if the person has no strong reason to stop, as for example the death of a close one, he needs to avoid the use of supplements. If you come for the therapy, you have to break off completely. Young people do not pursue this goal. They ignore the opportunity of any help during the shakes, because the majority of them still want to get high and they need methadone for that. Moreover, the person needs to stay in the program for no more than one or two years, since the blockade starts and drug addiction disappears. Then they have detoxification3, and a person has a chance not to come back. This is my personal experience.

You might be interested why I don’t leave this therapy, but I haven’t allowed any supplements for more than 5 years. The answer is simple – I’m often physically sick and methadone partially relieves my pain and it slows me down. I’m really afraid of detoxification³, the process of relief itself. I’m too weak right now. When my immune system increases, I will leave the program.

It’s worth mentioning that methadone is better to be prescribed two times per day, since it’s easier to lower the dose this way. Methadone helps during 36 hours, but when you decrease the dose, you go on minimum, i.e. try to bear this pain during the first days as much as you can. If you drink all at once in the morning, you will suffer at night and the next morning you will feel even worse. I talk a lot about it, at all the levels and I’m not the only who raises this issue. But who is going to listen to us? Doctors need patients, so the program won’t be closed in the end, they do deserve understanding. They need quantity, but quality loses as usual. Everyone forgets that these are the fates of human beings, although no one can be blamed for this. Alas…