DOSE:

90 mg

oral

Methadone

(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

95 lb

If I ever wrote a biography, it would be called 'I am an I.V. Leaguer'. This is because I both graduated from an ivy league school and have been a junkie for the past six years. Up until six months ago, I was slamming three grams of heroin a day. Luckily, my rather lucrative job kept me from committing any crime. I was the heroin addict no one warned you about...living a completely normal life..as long as i had my heroin (when the dealer had to go re-up, I couldn't go to work. Violent withdrawal would hit within six hours). Anyway, a minor problem developed...I almost lost my arm. And this was the good arm. I spent a week in hospital on IV antibiotics (had a doctor friend write me a Dilaudid script and had another friend bring me smack). Add to the fact that by now I was completely out of veins, and I decided that I had to kiss my love goodbye and go on methadone. After having tried to detox 12 times unwillingly within the six years on various methods and failing, I knew methadone was my only choice.

I had heard the rumors about it..how you feel nothing..how it just keeps you well..how you still crave heroin..blah blah blah. Well, let me tell you. I think this is a lie perpetuated by those that are on methadone (as well as those in the drug rehab system) so, on one hand, the government doesn't find out that methadone is fun and then take it away, and #2, so that people continue to waste money going through bullshit 'clonidine 'n' valium' detoxes or '24 hour naltrexone shootup comas and then be violently sick when you wakeup quick detoxes' or, the new trend 'buprenorphine under the tongue which does little to help detoxes'. Or, my favorite, 'NA Christian Science Bullshit'. The earlier poster is RIGHT. You will not get a rush from methadone. But he is wrong about one thing...SOME methadone users still feel the effects every day of their medicine. For me i wake up kind of dopesick, not terrible, but I definitely couldn't do anything if I wasn't getting my dose.

About half an hour after drinking up, I feel warmth in my legs, a warm feeling in my chest, and this feeling like I could go to work, I could do my errands, that life is nice and easy and not the hellhole I thought it was before my dose. My pupils constrict to little pins, I feel warmer everywhere, and I achieve a pleasant nod if I want to. Also, on methadone I can tolerate boredom a lot easier, don't feel edgy or restless at all, and can fall asleep at the drop of a hat while experiencing some pleasant edge-of-consciousness dreams. Emotions are rather distant, everything has a bearable, soft sheen to it. Nothing is too intense; being on methadone is like having a silky yet fairly effective shield around me, while being on heroin was like being totally covered in an airtight velvet brocade through which NOTHING--pain, bad feelings, etc--could penetrate.

So yes, methadone is like heroin lite. I still miss heroin because the only problem with methadone is that it acts as a blocker so that shooting heroin now feels like nothing. But it is far from the truth (at least for this methadonian) to say that methadone 'feels like nothing' for the addict. If it truly felt like nothing, I would have gone back on heroin in one day, skin popping my shots instead of intravenously using. The reason I don't is because being on methadone is EXACTLY LIKE skin popping heroin (no rush, but a lot of pleasantness) without fear of arrest or the tremendous cost (my heroin habit was about two hundred dollars a day, my methadone habit is three hundred A MONTH.)

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 29829
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Mar 18, 2004	Views: 87,869
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Methadone (166) : General (1), Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11), Various (28)