Methadone for Veterans

[Duckfeet]

I don't know if there are any other veterans out there, on methadone. They used to give it out at a lot of the V.A. hospitals. As a matter of fact I never found one where they didn't. But somewhere in the last few years, they have been changing. For exammple, out here, we have to go to a private clinic, then get reimbursed. I'm having trouble going to the private clinic, simply because of the online world. If the V.A. pays for it, it gets all over your records and follows u everywhere...I just can't get used to that fact, and when I went up to the V.A. to talk about it, it also turns out I would have to go to group every week, and that they would immediately notify my primary care doc...

But it saves 300 bucks a month, the cost of methadone at my private clinic. I know I just need to buckle down and I can really use that kind of money...I live on a small veteran's pension, and that's a big chunk of it...It just goes against everything in my being to sacrifice that much privacy. I mean, just in the last ten years or so, all the records are linked together, law enforcement, Veteran's Administration, Social Security...I think libertarian, when I'm allowed to vote, I vote libertarian, this just *bugs* me. I didn't know if anybody else had to deal with it. Fuck, it also seems like the end of the free clinics....used to be free clinics everywhere: they *wanted* us on methadone, and it was a cheap price to pay. But somehow, now that they have a lot of younger, more affluent white kids, addicted to pain pills, seems like private clinics have popped up everywhere...

Ah, I just gotta get used to the fact my life ain't my own, I guess.....

Glad yer back DV, easy does it boy, you gotta lifetime to self-destruct...there's no rush ;-)

[AWOL]

Glad to be back amigo, but I just want to self destruct now ..... ya know.

PS: For anyone wondering, bangin methadone is a no-go. Just eat the shit. Not to mention the size of a syringe needed, but it just doesn't work out like one would hope. Thought I'd add.

Not that I'd know, I just read that somewhere.

[Ragdoll]

I was married to a vet for over twenty years, still close friends with the man...love of my life, I guess you'd say. Now and then I accompany him to a VA appt and some of the changes in the VA system lately really bug me.

Treatment for addiction can make BIG bucks and lots of sorry-assed SOB's are cashing in on that. Obviously, of course our entire medical system is in dire straights.

[nick]

Bro,you ain't gonna like this,but it's how I see it.If they won't let you into Canada and with your record,who gives a damn who knows your on 'done.

If you're on 'done.......do it right.

PLENTY worse things to be than a vet on 'done.

Much respect to you.

[nick]

Bro,you ain't gonna like this,but it's how I see it.If they won't let you into Canada and with your record,who gives a damn who knows your on 'done.

If you're on 'done.......do it right.

PLENTY worse things to be than a vet on 'done.

Much respect to you and try and remember that sadly we ALL have to compromise.

[Paregoric Kid]

they never give our vets the kind of care they should be getting, I would hate to see a day when the government runs all hospitals. I have a friend in the army who was wounded in Iraq by an IED and he came back and got addicted to heroin. if the hospital hadn't made it ridiculous to get referred to pain management maybe he wouldn't have had to turned to the street to get the medicine he needed. of course I've heard the VA is more generous with pain meds than active duty army hospitals. he had to go to rehab which was just some month long NA bullshit.

[Duckfeet]

Yeah, main problem with V.A., is that they tend to think "one shoe fits all," and since they bid on meds in quantity, now they are overflowing with hydrocodone...basically vicodin, is give for everything....and problem, for *me, is just, for V.A. to *pay* for methadone, I pretty much have to pretend my life is a total disaster, go to outpatient treatment, group every week, admit *defeat* in the way these counselers just *love*...and it's just not true...once I got on methadone, my life has been fine...I'm just a longterm junky, nothing else, and when the physical need is taken care of, I don't really *need* to go in every week and spill my guts and whine in front of strangers...but still, is me getting my way worth ten bucks a day? It is this month, but I gotta feeling it'll eventually get too costly at this nice methadone clinic just a couple miles away, and I'll sign up for the one across town, which the V.A. pays for...

I actually *miss* the old methadone clinics, which were in inner cities, only raggedy old heroin addicts in there, guys drinking white port out of paper bags, and selling dope in front...I think I'm just doing the old man thing, really: "Oh The Good Old Days..." shit....I need to get a grip and quit crying....


they never give our vets the kind of care they should be getting, I would hate to see a day when the government runs all hospitals. I have a friend in the army who was wounded in Iraq by an IED and he came back and got addicted to heroin. if the hospital hadn't made it ridiculous to get referred to pain management maybe he wouldn't have had to turned to the street to get the medicine he needed. of course I've heard the VA is more generous with pain meds than active duty army hospitals. he had to go to rehab which was just some month long NA bullshit.