With her Master of Social Work diploma still fresh in her hands, Rachel Greene Baldino embarked on a year-long journey as a new professional in a methadone clinic. Her personal account of that year offers an eye-opening glimpse into a place some call 'methadonia'. For those who have been involved with heroin addiction or methadone treatment, either professionally or personally, a journey through 'methadonia' is a trip they'll never forget. The sights, sounds, smells, and emotions found in such a place are described, and Baldino's honest and open feelings about the work and the people at the clinic are explored. Recommendations for changes to the treatment system are made, and a glossary of key terms associated with heroin addiction and treatment is provided.
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Editorial Reviews
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...a primer for social workers and a tightly written page-turner that sweeps the reader along on Ms. Baldino's odyssey. -- Pamela Sacks, WORCESTER TELEGRAM AND GAZETTE
...an acutely personal account... revelation about addicts and... an insight into the feelings of the people who deal with them. -- Gene Mirabelli, METROLAND newspaper, Albany, NY
This book should be on every budding counselor and therapist's reading list! I only wish that I could have read this little gem when I began my career. -- K. Moses McCluskey, CADC, Heroin Times
...an acutely personal account... revelation about addicts and... an insight into the feelings of the people who deal with them. -- Gene Mirabelli, METROLAND newspaper, Albany, NY
This book should be on every budding counselor and therapist's reading list! I only wish that I could have read this little gem when I began my career. -- K. Moses McCluskey, CADC, Heroin Times
About the Author
Rachel Greene Baldino
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
If I was dope sick, I wouldn't shoot this book!,
By Hollis (Phnom Penh, Cambodia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Welcome to Methadonia: A Social Worker's Candid Account of Life in a Methadone Clinic (Paperback)
Poor Rachel, she has no idea of what harm she is doing with her privileged white guilt. This is the worst piece of writing I have ever had the misfortune of reading. Not only does it reinforce society's stereotypes about heroin users, it misleads future healing professionals to believe that heroin users are all hopeless losers, violent, criminal and anti-social freaks of nature. Well, we are not. And as both an addict and masters degreed mental health clinician I am sorry to know that one of my colleagues is out there writing such dishonorable work. I would like to let Rachel know that Methadone is a form Harm Reduction! And, furthermore, harm reduction is health care! Without harm reduction, all of her "clients" would have had HIV, Hep-C, or even worse, would not be "clients" at all due to overdose. I am out in the street having meaningful, therapeutic relationships with heroin users almost everyday. Drug users are the most creative, resourceful, passionate, intelligent, sensitive people I have ever met. They are funny, curious, intuitive, flexible, thriving, self-healing, crisis managing, competent, energetic, resilient survivors. And, most importantly, they demonstrate faith, vision and hope. Please, if you are a graduate student, don't give up on heroin users, or miss the awesome opportunity to work with one because of the book. Thanks Rachel for leaving my community, it is professionals such as yourself that keep users mistrustful of traditional service providers and isolated from life saving health care and the healing that one can find in relationship with a therapist who knows what they are doing.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
What Lack of Training Means in Methadone,
By Joycelyn Woods (New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Welcome to Methadonia: A Social Worker's Candid Account of Life in a Methadone Clinic (Paperback)
One of the greatest problems in methadone treatment today is that many professionals that work in the field do not have the adequate training to work in methadone treatment. Patients look to their counselor for direction and it only confirms to the patient that they unworthy when their counselor shows fear towards them.Most social workers who come from graduate school are taught that methadone is not real treatment. For example Drug Abuse: An Introduction by Howard Abadinsky (Hardcover - February 1993) attacks the integrity of Drs. Dole and Nyswander. "Eventually, the bad news came out. Methadone was not the "magic bullet." Neither Dole or Nyswander ever inferred that methadone was a magic bullet. They were scientists and would never have even used such a term. Unfortunately this is the typical textbook that socials workers learn about methadone from. No wonder they are not prepared with a basic understanding of methadone. But another dynamic is also working -- stigma. Who would want to work in a methadone program? Very few. At the start of methadone when the salaries in methadone were higher than other areas of non medical health workers (i.e. social work) then the professionals working in the field were the top in their area of expertise. However as methadone treatment expanded and salaries in other areas increased along with stigma, HIV infection and all the other problems that come in addiction treatment methadone treatment has gone to the bottom of the list for a counselor or social worker to work. Thus, the majority of counselors do not want to work in methadone and are only there to gain experience as Ms. Baldino did. Within a year they are gone and hoping to move up to child welfare or some other area. This book would be an excellent lesson in teaching the new counselor what not to do, or political scientists about the impact of stigma on the health system. It should be a call to professionals working in methadone treatment to improve training and treatment. Clearly Ms. Baldino was afraid of the patients that she was their to serve and she was afraid because she never received adequate training and saw her patients as different than she (Ms. Baldino wanted a button under her desk to call the guards). Perhaps Ms. Baldino should have been told to find work elsewhere since the supervisor of the clinic attempted to correct her fears a number of times. Not everyone is suited to work in a methadone clinic and perhaps this was the problem. This author suggests as an alternative Dr. Herman Joseph's thesis on Stigma...>In particular Chapter 10 The Patient's Speak -- shows a very different picture of methadone patients. As a patient advocate I can only recommend that other books are far better than this one and that this book should remain in shipping...
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Honestly written by a confused social worker.,
By Lisa Marie "Lisa Marie" (Southern New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Welcome to Methadonia: A Social Worker's Candid Account of Life in a Methadone Clinic (Paperback)
I know alot of people disagree with me, but I don't think Ms. Baldino meant any harm or had any idea what sort of impact this kind of a book could have on things. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with the book if you don't know a thing about methadone or addiction. But if you do, this poor woman looks like the devil. (And let's be realistic here: most addicts don't like non-addicts in the field of addiction in any capacity anyway, right?)As a former heroin addict and current methadone maintenance patient, I can attest that SOME of her book is accurate. But many of the suggestions and observations she makes are a result of just plain inexperience and ignorance. In the book, she said herself that she was freshly out of college when she got this job. I think she only remained in the methadone treatment field for a year or so. How much could she have really learned to write a 200-some page book? The bottom line? Take all of what she says/writes with a grain--no make that a BLOCK--of salt. The book has the tendency to make methadone patients--and the clinic she worked at--look REALLY bad.
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