Well, haven't been writing in a long tome. From time to time I come to read some open forums just to know what young people think and do... It's often somewhat irritating. I don't like to read bullshit about methadone from people who don't really know much about it. Many of you are simply just too young to understand, or you must have been on program very small amount of time (getting to know only people who abuse their dose, takehomes or take heroin in top of methadone). By the way, methadone works such way, that if ones dose is optimal, one doesn't even feel heroin. And that doens't mean that one is already high on methadone, it means one simply won't get high
WEll, on the other hand, it is relatively usual that person new to the methadone program, don't fit to it in the beginning. Some could abuse their doses and try to fool around. That's OK for some period of time. But in maintenance one should start thinking their lives. Many understand that after some time and... Some hangarounds unfortunately never understand, and these are the people who give only bad reputation to methadone. I understan that tere are also people who are living in continuous chaos (are too poor, homeless etc), and for them there are not many options to straighten out their act. But, methadone is true life saver and it makes so many life tolerable and put that in right direction that everyone should at least think about these things. If you don't know much about methadone (except what you see in your narrow perspective) you should start studying it a little. Take a look at Dr. Dole and Nyswander, and how methadone was started to use clinically. These people (Dole et al) did study and they studied addicts and tested, for exemple, several opiates to their patientst. Those patients were typical long term users (who got always back to using), most of them middle aged. Well, only methadone produced unseen effects.... Take a look and read.
And to these things I just read here... if someone is on methadone program only a month and wants to start tapering, then one shouldn't be on methadone in the first place. You are not long term user. Maybe you are hooked, but it's quite obvious you haven't used years. You could not clear your metabolism, brain chemistry and your behavior in a month then. There should be some other options out there....
WEll, I for one have been about ten years on methadone and you wouldn't know it, if you see me. I get take homes and am working in a steady job. I have never given anything of my takehomes to anyone else, not a single milligram.
And then one thing about that dose thing: there is no small or huge dose per se. There are appropriate doses and inappropriate doses. And appropriate dose is not something which is similar to every people. It depends on many things: your body weight, metabolism, habit etc etc. I'm in fairly large dose, in milligram-base, but that's appropriate, because I'm fast metaboliser and not a small guy... I'm probably more alert than ordinary joe. There are people who have been on methadone thirty or more years, and they are no different than comparing group of "normal" people. Methadone is not poisonous! In fact buprenorphine is.... No, just kidding. But Bupe may be much harder to your liver.
Gotta love Canadian healthcare...at least some of the time. I still have to see my doctor regularly of course to get new scripts, but only once every 6 weeks or so.
