Stigma Against Methadone Essay Example for Free

Stigma Against Methadone Essay The purpose of this research is to identify a stigma against methadone users and those in the healthcare field who are trying to help them become drug free. Methadone is a synthetic drug brought to America in the 1960’s to help with opiate addiction. During the fifty years since then, it has been a very successful treatment drug, but a stigma has developed that to use this drug is to be considered a â€Å"junkie†. This is not the case; this paper will also discuss ways in which to educate about and overcome the stigma against those who work with or take methadone. What is a Stigma? According to sociologist Erving Goffman, â€Å"a stigma refers to characteristics that discredit people†¦ the stigma can become a person’s master status, defining him or her as deviant† (Henslin, 2012). Whether or not the accused person actually takes part the activities and behaviors the stigma depicts, they are still discredited, judged, and even ostracized because of others like them who do participate in the stigma’s behaviors. Anyone associated with a deviant behavior automatically gets grouped together, whether they take part in it or not, hence the stigma. What is Methadone? Methadone is a man-made drug originally synthesized in Germany in 1937. Thirty years later, in the 1960’s, it was introduced to the United States as a treatment for drug addiction. Since then, for over fifty years, methadone has been used to help drug addicts get clean of opiates and regain stability; during that time, there has been no evidence that taking methadone for long periods of time causes damage to the body (Drug Policy Alliance, 2006). The Drug Policy Alliance, an organization committed to identifying, acknowledging, and promoting health-centered alternatives to drugs (2011), supports the use of methadone to treat opiate addiction and states that when used appropriately and a proper dose is reached, opioid â€Å"cravings stop, without creating the effects of euphoria, sedation, or an analgesic effect† (2006, p. 8). In other words, the human brain has receptors that when stimulated by drugs, create a drug user’s â€Å"high†. Methadone covers those receptors so that the user does not feel the need to take drugs, yet they will not get high from the methadone either. This is called â€Å"the blockade effect† and allows for drug-dependent people the opportunity to stabilize, maintain a job, buy a car, get an apartment or housing, and keep healthy relationships, among other things. A Stigma against Methadone Methadone is used for both chronic pain and opiate addiction, yet the majority of society has the assumption that if one is to use methadone, they must be drug addicts. Yes, there are many people in society who are trying to free themselves from drug use, but there are others who take methadone simply because it helps them with their chronic pain when nothing else does. Also, when society hears the word methadone, a picture of an addict getting drugs off the street and overdosing from heroin and cocaine comes to mind immediately. However, this is not the entire picture; at a methadone clinic in Westbrook, Maine, only twenty five percent of the patients who come to get their dose are people who are detoxing from street drugs. That means that there are an additional seventy five percent dosing every day. Why are they patients at the clinic? Because they are there to clear themselves from drugs that their own physicians have prescribed to them. Even though three quarters of the population coming in every day are there because of their doctors, and not because they were addicted to street drugs, patients still have a difficult time entering methadone maintenance treatment. Walter Ginter, director of the National Alliance of Methadone Advocates (NAMA), reported the following to Alcoholism Drug Abuse Weekly: Many of the public think of methadone as just a ‘substitute’ for another addictive drug and that even methadone patients themselves sometimes doubt that they can be in recovery, as long as they are on methadone†¦ partly because they have so little support in the community. The stigma is so great that nobody wants to say they’re a methadone patient. Even people who are successful in treatment don’t want anybody to know about it. (2007, p. 1) Many patients who enter treatment start thinking of tapering off methadone almost as soon as they begin their treatment, for the desire to get off methadone and away from the stigma associated with it is so great. The fact of the matter is, however, that seventy percent of patients who taper off methadone too soon or too quickly will relapse into drug use again (Ginter, 2007). Healthcare providers who work in methadone clinics and assist addicts in their recovery are subject to judgments as much as the patients are, even among fellow healthcare providers. A lot of patients look to their clinics to help them find â€Å"methadone-friendly doctors,† so that they can share the fact that they are taking methadone without having to fear judgment and reprimand. One patient at the clinic I work at has a doctor who discovered that she was taking benzodiazepines for anxiety along with her methadone, which can be dangerous when mixed in large amounts. The patient’s dose was not high enough to be quite as dangerous, but her doctor decided to stop her prescription for benzodiazepines immediately, with no tapering down; one can only imagine what that act did to the patient, both physically and emotionally; the patient presented at the clinic extremely anxious and shared the following with the dosing nurses when they asked if she wanted to talk about her situation with them: They (the doctors) just don’t understand. They don’t know that they can’t just take you off one drug cold turkey (the benzodiazepines) while leaving you on another (the methadone); it just doesn’t work like that. They just don’t care about people like me (anonymous patient #1, 2012). I have also been subject to the stigma and prejudice against methadone, just because I work with the addict population; when I first obtained the job, friends, family, and strangers alike would ask where I worked, and then promptly changed their expressions from interest to shock, horror, and even revulsion. It would have been quite amusing to me if it weren’t for the fact that their reactions were towards my patients. I once even had a friend’s mother say to me, â€Å"you be careful – don’t trust them for a second. They are dangerous people. † I would immediately start educating them about what these patient were really like and how I believed that it was a privilege to be helping them with their addiction treatment. In addition, I would throw out the statistics of how many people were coming in to get clean from doctors’ prescriptions, to show that not all of the patients were â€Å"junkies† and that they all chose to be in treatment to take control of their lives again. This helped to ease fears against my working there, and since then everyone asks how work has been going, with sincere interest, rather than with suspicion or doubt that I could actually enjoy working there. Though many healthcare providers who work with the addict population speak out against the stigma and the judgments against them, to defend both themselves and their patients against unjust prejudice, there are some who say nothing about where they work or what they do for work so as to avoid the negative attitudes directed at them from that moment on. Though it is understandable to say nothing about working in methadone treatment or defend the patients working hard to get clean, it does nothing but add to the stigma, and will make it that much harder to overcome in the future. Methadone Helps despite the Stigma I have worked in a methadone clinic for the past six months, and just in that short time, I have already witnessed extraordinary transformations. The nurses and I don’t just dose the patients and have them leave; when the patients come in and we give them a quick once-over assessment to make sure they can dose, we also talk to them. We are sincerely interested in how their life is doing, and though every person has ups and downs (even those who do not have an addiction), so much of the time I will hear of how someone’s life has changed so much for the better, and that they are so appreciative of this one thing that has helped them to live their lives again. One patient stated the following to me just a couple of weeks ago: I’ve got my life back again – I’ve got my family back, I’ve got an apartment, I’ve got a new car. I’d probably be dead right now if it wasn’t for this clinic. Methadone is the reason that I’ve been clean for seven years and will continue to be in the future (anonymous patient #2, 2012). Another patient who was coming in for her last dose at the clinic before tapering out for good, shared what she was feeling on her last day: â€Å"I finally have my life together again. It’s been eighteen years of being miserable and now I’m finally ready. For the first time in so long I can be happy, and I’m ready for that† (anonymous patient #2, 2012). She was a little nervous about what was to come, but the determination to stay on track was easily visible on her face, and so far, she has been out of the clinic for almost three months without any problems or relapse. How to Help To help fight against the stigma of methadone users and the healthcare providers who serve to help them, education is the only option. By providing science- based education and materials from peers, patients, educators, and healthcare professionals, people can learn that methadone is simply the medication part of opiate recovery. Patients must have emphasis on the fact that they are not â€Å"junkies† just because they take part in methadone maintenance. This stigma creates problems when trying to advocate for methadone maintenance and its patients. The best way to advocate for methadone treatment is to have patients appear publicly to provide testimony that methadone is not just a drug to replace another drug, and that long term maintenance provides stability and opportunity for those who use it. The problem is, â€Å"it can be difficult for everyone to be outspoken about being a methadone patient as people in recovery are afraid for their own recovery, due to stigma† (Ginter, 2007, p. 2). Conclusion  By educating society of the benefits of methadone and dispelling the myths and stigmas about it, recovering addicts can be less afraid for their physical and emotional well-being, healthcare providers don’t need to feel the need to hide what field they work in from others, and society can see what methadone maintenance really is. With education, understanding, and eventual acceptance, society will see that there are significant changes taking place in the recovery field at this very moment and there will continue to be changes as time moves forward.