Methadone Clinic [Paperback]

David Steier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2005

Methadone Clinic is the story of Billy and Pamm, how they get involved, and how Pamm turns Billy on to this job as a substance abuse counselor at the methadone clinic she attends. Set in New York's East Village, it's an in-your-face slice of contemporary inner-city life. A must-read for anyone interested in the issue of substance abuse and recovery, Methadone Clinic hits a raw nerve. Written by a former counselor, the reader gets a behind the scenes look into heroin addiction and the methadone industry it has spawned. It is a gritty, true-to-life novel, written by one who understands the plight of the patients and the workers who serve them. As such, it is also a work of considerable social import.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David Steier grew up in inner-city New York and has been a writer since his college journalism days. Having worked at various jobs over the years, his two and one half year stint as a substance abuse counselor at a major New York City methadone clinic proved to be one of his more interesting gigs. His experiences as a counselor compelled him to write Methadone Clinic, a true, but novelized account of life within this obscure world. David Steier has also worked as a feature editor and as a freelance writer. As a feature editor for a midtown Manhattan advertising company, his feature stories and publicity copy were published in thousands of daily newspapers across the United States. As a freelance writer he has contributed to several publications, most notably Mystery magazine. An avid fan of beat literature, a chance encounter with beat icon and author Herbert Huncke in 1992 helped inspire him to write this book. This is his first novel.

Product Details

• Paperback: 164 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1418498726
• ISBN-13: 978-1418498726
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,221,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Revealing look at the darker side of methadone clinics and heroin addiction, September 17, 2007

By 

Steven Sponaugle - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Methadone Clinic (Paperback)

Methadone Clinic provides a glimpse into the darker, seamier side of heroin addiction and methadone clinics. Although the author, David Steier, said he has worked as a methadone clinic counselor, he does not claim this book is non-fiction. The New York methadone clinic discussed in the book primarily serves heroin addicts, with very few chronic pain patients. The heroin addicts, in this book, have almost no interest in becoming addiction free and are mostly dishonest, manipulative, inconsiderate, abusive and profane. The addicts realize that they will not be denied treatment, despite disobeying clinic rules, since clinic methadone prevents them from committing even more crimes, to obtain more expensive, illegal black market heroin.

The book overflows with profanity, which will offend some readers. The author, David Steier, describes how he frequently offered cigarettes to patients and how he smoked cigarettes, with patients, in his counselors office, with methadone clinic patients. Offering patients cigarettes would be prohibited, by most counseling programs, which would also prohibit cigarette smoking, on the premises.

Problems with methadone and other drug dealing, on and adjacent to the methadone clinic, are given a face, by descriptions of counselors being required to patrol the immediate neighborhood and facility grounds, and patients being prohibited from "loitering," in the vicinity of the methadone clinic. You would not want this methadone clinic in your neighborhood.

The underqualification, lack of education and experience,low pay and high turnover of methadone counselors are described, along with the ineffective supervision, lack of support and extreme pressures they face from management and patients. This book puts a human face on the abusive client and how they abuse and manipulate counselors.

The low pay and high counselor turnover, at Methadone clinics helps explain the following alarming information:

149 staff in U.S. methadone clinics were surveyed about their knowledge of methadone toxicity. Only 14% knew that a methadone maintenance patient's risk of dying was highest in the first two weeks of treatment, and only 15% knew that starting new maintenance patients on daily doses of 30 mg. to 40 mg. of methadone could be unsafe. (Maxwell, J.C., Pullum, T.W. & Tannert, K (2005).Deaths of clients in methadone treatment in Texas: 1994-2002. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 78(1), 73-81).

There appears to be no justification for the low pay and shortage of counseling and medical staff, at Methadone clinics, since the clinics appear to be highly profitable, with profits reported, from 16 to 50 percent of revenue, after taxes. CRC, treating over 20,000 methadone patients daily, reports daily profits per Methadone patient of $10.91 to $11.07.

This book mostly overlooks chronic pain patients, who are not abusing clinic methadone and may need methadone pain treatment, until they receive more effective pain treatment, with transdermal prescription pain creams, electroauriculotherapy, prolotherapy, or effective treatment of Lyme Disease, Lupus, fibromyalgia, Bartonella, Babesia, migraines, etc. These pain patients tend to be honest, self supporting, contributing members of society, to the extent their disabilities allow them to be. Without talking to the author, it is unknown whether his methadone clinic had patients like this or whether almost the entire caseload consisted of heroin addicts.

Since this is a novel, it is difficult to determine if some methadone clinics are as horrible, as the one described, in this novel. A very grim, depressing picture of methadone clinics is portrayed, in this novel.

I am rating this book a 2, since I feel it may portray a more negative picture of methadone clinics than they deserve. If the author is a whistleblower and some methadone clinics are this terrible, the book deserves a 4.

Steven Sponaugle