(“Counting on Methadone,” Community Word, December 2014)

I’m very frustrated at the way most people look at methadone programs. I was an IV drug user back in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. I went to prison twice for writing checks to obtain my drug. I knew when I got out the last time I would relapse very easily even with good intentions not to. I do believe that opiates rewire our brains somehow, and we can not feel pleasure or worth without our drug.

I got on the methadone program. I have had a productive life on it raising my two youngest children and going to college. Now I’m older and disabled, so I have to pay out of a fixed income every month. We pay $12 a day in Indiana to dose. There are only two clinics in the bottom of the state that take Medicaid. None take Medicare.

It (access to methadone) would stop so much crime and stealing if people could get on the program.

I need to stay on the program now for help with my chronic pain. It does not build up a tolerance and we do not need more and more. I have gone down on my dose, not up.

B.E.

Indiana