#22: Christmas at the Clinic.
On any given day, 300-350 people show up at the addiction treatment clinic about a mile from downtown to get their daily dose of either Methadone or Suboxone.1
Unlike many of my friends on the street, some of these patients have a good job, a roof over their heads, and don’t need to worry about where their next meal is coming from. In some cases, their colleagues would be shocked to know that they are receiving treatment for the disease of addiction. So it’s unfortunate, but understandable, that they aren’t willing to talk about it as openly as someone who has a “socially acceptable” illness. (Maybe that will change one day—in the 1950s the word “cancer” couldn’t be used in the New York Times.)
The Clinic is open from 6 am ‘til 10 am—a bit earlier for people who have to get to work by 6 or 6:30. On Saturday, the doors close at 9 am.
Before you receive your prescribed Methadone or Suboxone, you might have a random drug screen or need to take care of some paperwork. If you do have a take-home, your lockbox will be checked to make sure you have the key and have kept it secure. Depending on all of this, you might spend anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours in various lines before you receive your dose.
If you’re drunk or stoned or otherwise impaired, you’ll have to leave.
All of this makes sense. The Clinic is trying to help hundreds of people every day get free of excruciating addiction. The straight and narrow has to be kept pretty straight and narrow.
On Saturdays, even those who get their doses daily are given take-homes for Sunday.
On holiday weekends like last one—when Christmas fell on Monday— everyone is given take-homes for two days.
Many of the Clinic’s patients take the free town bus to get there. For reasons that no one seems to be able to explain, the bus schedule changed last weekend, so the one that many of my friends rely on to get there by the 9 a.m. (Saturday) deadline didn’t start running until 10 a.m.
That’s why, at 8:15 on Saturday morning, Sally called me. She and PT were frantic because they’d just found out about the bus schedule change and their borrowed car was out of gas and would I PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give them a ride to the Clinic?
I know that people who are addicted will tell me just about anything to get just about anything. But, as annoyed as I may have been about being asked to give them a ride early Saturday morning, at least it was to the addiction treatment center. So, it seemed less stupid than some of the things I’ve been asked to do.
I picked them up, drove to the Clinic, dropped them off, did some errands, and came back.
For reasons I’m still trying to figure out (and that baffle some of my other friends on the street), one of them was able to get their take-homes, but the other, who came out sobbing, wasn’t.
This would seem within the vicinity of logic except that the one who did come out with take-homes had told me a few weeks before that they already had take-homes—which would mean they probably didn’t need to go that Saturday in the first place.
Regardless, if they actually did get their week’s take-home on Saturday, they certainly didn’t need to go again Tuesday (three days later) when they texted me desperately ALL CAPS AGAIN about needing gas to get to the Clinic and then drive elsewhere to escape an abusive relationship.
I may be dumb and stupid but I insisted that I would no longer give them any cash, although I might be willing to meet them at a gas station to pay for enough gas for them to get where they claimed to need to go. Although I threatened to follow them until I was at least sure they were heading in the right direction.
Needless to say, they didn’t show.
I’ve heard about several people who actually did oversleep or miss the bus on Saturday and had to go three days without treatment. Which means that, to avoid going into withdrawal, they would have had to resort to street drugs or, at “best”, unreliable street versions of Methadone or Suboxone.
My friend Bruce actually admitted as much to me—he always tells me when he “slips”—and how badly. Fortunately, he resumed his treatment Tuesday morning and, when I last saw him, another of my friends was offering him a tent so he wouldn’t have to sleep outside for the next week—when Economic Services expects to be able to give him a voucher for a room.
Still, I can’t help but think about the fact that he, and undoubtedly several other people in recovery, were walking around downtown this last shopping weekend before Christmas, holding cardboard signs instead of shopping bags, focused on trying to find some way, any way, to manage their addiction.
And now New Year’s—another three-day weekend—is coming.
The Clinic serves a total of about 500 people but after a few months of going reliably and testing clean they “earn” take-homes, so they no longer have to show up every day.