What do you love about your clinic, and what do you hate?

[Contemporarium]

My clinic is fucking awesome. Since I live in a small town, the longest I've ever had to wait was an hour. Most times when I get there there isn't even a line. Just a nurse smoking outside talking to patients that have already dosed about life and stuff. They see a car pull up, they put out their cig, dose you, and if go back out for another smoke. It has a very family-esque feeling. However, I just lost my job and my clinic is 13 dollars a day.

What I hate is that since I've moved from Southern CA to Northern WV, the redneck junkies can be fucking dicks. And take homes can take fucking FOREVER, because some days there's only one nurse.

Anywho-what's your favorite thing and least favorite thing about the clinic in your area? I live in Wheeling, WV and my clinic is in Triadelphia, WV.

[nick]

I love my clinic because they give me drugs.

[Happy Pillmore]

My clinic is a grab bag. My counselor,who has less education in psychology than I, holds the patients in disdain, which she barely hides.
The nurse is very efficient at her job and gets people in/out quickly.
The Dr is a nut. Thats all i'll say but my wife and I have switched to the Dr in charge of the 8 clinics in the area.
The patients range from cool,old school heads and newbies who are trying to beat a heavy lortab addiction, or worse yet, just wanted to know how it feels.
Well 8 yrs later so now they know how it feels i guess. And the clinic encourages that bs. What happened to "do no harm". I constantly am thinking/threating to detox and hope that next week my PM dr will start scripting me my methadone along with my IR meds.
Good luck to you all.

So what do i love...not too damn much!

[port rhombus]

I love my clinic. Dosing = in and out within 5 minutes (often less, unless someone in front of me is getting 2 or more weeks of takehomes), in spite of there being a single nurse/dosing window. The nurse is such a sweetie. My counselor is great, and I basically only see her when I want to. No mandatory group sessions. Free coffee. $50/week self-pay. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. Oh yeah: all that and they give me drugs.

It's also a nice coincidence that my clinic is a ~20 minute walk from my apartment.

Living in a big city definitely has its pluses.

[chopstix]

Less than 10 minute drive
Unless someone has takehomes or I have to piss or see someone, I'm out within a couple minutes - usually less than two people in front of me
It's free as of the end of the month
It's by far the smallest and chillest clinic I've been to, which is good, cos I fucking hate kiliniks

[candy]

I get there at 4:45 a.m and no one else is there waiting. I go in get dosed, see my counselor, who I am surprised was able to get certified to do his job. He talks about himself for about 15 minutes. I sit there not really listening, think about other shit. Say, yeah a few times, nod my head a few times, sign the sheet that says I was seen and leave. Usually home before 5:30 am and got my take homes with me.

I don't live far from my clinic as well, which is a plus, but it is not in the greatest of neighborhoods. I come from Orange County into L.A. County and while not far away, it seems like I am walking into a different world. The clinic has a roach problem and was requiring that all patients be seen and examined by the doctor. It is not the nicest of clinics. The bathroom, used by both men and women is disgusting. Let's just say I have a little system worked out that I don't even touch the toilet at all on days when I have to give a UA.

The people are mostly nice there. Although there is one dude who also comes in early like I do and he gets pissed if I am there before him. It is first come first serve, and even if you are at the door before it opens, you are first to dose. Just the way it has always been, but this dude sees me there first and when they unlock the door he heads to the reception area where we get our cards to dose and jumps ahead of me before I could even say my name. I would have said something, but he looks like the Unabomber and I don't need the aggravation. Weird fucker, smells like shit. Not just like he has body odor, but like actual feces. It is awful to be anywhere near him. But, hey we all have our problems to deal with and maybe his is getting a good decent shower.

You have to take the good with the bad when you are on MMT. Some clinics suck really bad and some don't, but it is what we have to deal with if MMT is a choice you make.

[duck]

Less than 10 minute drive
Unless someone has takehomes or I have to piss or see someone, I'm out within a couple minutes - usually less than two people in front of me
It's free as of the end of the month
It's by far the smallest and chillest clinic I've been to, which is good, cos I fucking hate kiliniks

How is it free?

[Sweet Jane]

I love the nurses at my clinic, they're super friendly and always how you're doing,
Love the counselor that does the 12step group..shes great.
Line is usually really short..in and out in 5mins.

What I hate is that it's a 30min drive each way from my house,
my counselor is terrible, the absolute worst I've ever had in my 10yrs on/off clinic,
He's lazy as fuck, won't turn in paperwork..I filled out papers for my takehomes over 2mos ago, and STILL don't have them!!! Goin every day when I havent failed a UA in 18mos!!
I've missed 2 vacations b/c of him.. and I applied for a new counselor and they won't grant it..just all around bs..
Most of the counselors just don't care..
However, there are those few that truly do care

All in all, it's an alright place, just wish they would hire more competent counselors...

[Dr. McKay]

Well I'm not going to a clinic now, but several years back I was for about 6 months. Well it was a very small place. The nurses there were super nice.
At the time I had a bit of a coke problem too. I would come into dose high as heel from patying all night some times. A few times the nurse would tell me they need to do a drug test. They would always say .Well we are going to close up soon, so as long as you do it by the end of the week you will be fine.
So they would let me wait until Friday sometimes even the following monday to take a UA. They were basicly giving me time to get clean of whatever I was taking.
They did this everytime for me. not sure why they were so cool with me about it, but it was nice beucause I would have failed for coke and benzos every time.

that place is like 600 miles from me now, so if I ever get back on methadone it wont be up there (north carolina/charlotte) .

[Benz]

I love my clinic because they give me drugs.

Aye, we ALL want your clinic Nick.

Mine's not bad, I see a CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse) every six to eight weeks, have a talk & collect my script. The script's already been signed by a doctor.

I take the scripts to my local pharmacy & collect it daily Monday to Friday, take home the doses for Saturday & Sunday. I take 100mg at the pharmacy & take 50mg home. I'm a rapid metaboliser.

I would be picking up a week's worth at a time if I put in a couple of consecutive clean piss tests but I don't want them badly enough I suppose.

The CPN is very impressed with my progress. I'm not but the bar is low at the drug service. Having a full time job & coming across as well groomed & articulate obviously goes a long way with him.

The American clinics don't sound like a system I would be happy to be in. Drug services like maintenance should NOT be private enterprises.



Benz

[OC Rockets]

I love my clinic because like others have said- They give me my drugs lol. They do Suboxone and Methadone. It's about 25 min away, and there is a clinic that is about 5-10 mins closer to me but it is way more busy and run down than mine.

It's $50/week which is pretty cheap, and the nurses and counselors and receptionist are all super nice! They are friendly and helpful and they all do their jobs. Not to mention that the chicks are all really hot

The lines are always short or nonexistent except for Mondays and Saturdays. There are only 200 or so patients at the clinic I go to and the 2 other ones have 300-400 patients Usually you are in and out for dosing in under 5 min.

Also the place is actually really clean and nice looking.

The only things I don't like about it is the distance from my house (which there's nothing they can do about) and the fact that they don't do two separate lines on Mondays when all the new patients are there for intake and others are just there to get their dose. I hate waiting like the 5-10 min it takes every time there is a new intake in the line, when I could just get my ticket and go stand in line at the dose window.

Overall, though, other than a couple minor complaints, I love my clinic!

[Snoops]

Wow, how do I break this down?... And where to begin?

First off, my klinik is a five minute walk from the pad, and a hop skip in the coche.

It is run by some kinda ex-tweeker, stripper, NA Nazi. She's got fake boobs and thinks that makes her HOT SHIT! Even though her obvious fake bake is making her skin look like a leather burlap sack.
I loathe her, not so much for who she is. But that shes always fuckin' up my Medi-Cal, and she knows that my Medi-Cal pays for my MMT. So shes always giving me hassles about "When am I gonna pay up this month?"

Irritating as all hell....

The counselor to which I have been dealt knows less about addiction than she knows about life itself. As she is in her very early 20's and seems to know NOTHING of the definition of things like relapse, dependence, dosage variations (Her major claim is that 40mgs is MORE than enough Methadone for ANY patient, and claims that anyone on a higher dosage is "chasing the high")

I find this insulting. But who really wants to rock the boat and stir up shit with the person who holds the keys to your "wellness"? Know what I mean? Fuck it..... So like Candy, I do a lot of "Uh huh-ing and head nodding" until our pointless session (one in which I school her on the way of the junky walk) on the days I gotta see her mug.....

The doctor, one word..... Croaker. Moving on......

My dosing nurse, ahhhhhhh my morning time, single serving friend. She's the best, truly.
She's just really down to earth and just downright good people.
She works the klinik on the side, but has a really awesome Horse Farm (I love animals) where she breeds Mustangs and Quarter Horses, or whatever... I dont know a lot about Horses, but she is always giving me tips on what Horses to bet on, in this or that derby. Cool cool person.

There's some kid running the reception area, he's new and fucks up the order people arrived and creates lots of animosity and disorder amongst the junky ranks when he's really fuckin' it up. But he's alright I guess. Just new at his job. We all been there....

My klinik allows for scripted Benzos, but will put you out on your ass if you dont come up with some kinda proof.... I used a script for Lorazepam from 8/25/2011 most recently. So I get no guff when I pop positive, so I guess their great lack of attention to detail is a plus for me in that department as well....
z
Mostly though, it's in and out. It's just a pain in the ass on Mondays (takehome day) and days I gotta test and/or go to see my counselor. And its close. And I get drugs there. Three and a half out of five stars....

[makita]

At the time I had a bit of a coke problem too. I would come into dose high as heel from patying all night some times.

Boy that brings back memories. Showing up at the clinic at 5AM still awake (sometimes for the 2nd or 3rd day in a row) with blood all over my shirt, I have no fucking idea how I got dosed. I guess it helps to be the lesser fuckup in a clinic full of fuckups.

I don't go to clinics anymore (knock wood!) but when I did I tried 3 out of the 5 in my area. Generally stuck with one or two depending on which was closer to where I was living at the time, and whether the current Dr was an asshole or not.

Clinic 1: much more relaxed atmosphere, smaller, older, relatively easy to get away with UA tampering, had 1-2 GREAT counselors but it was hell to get transferred to them (you usually had to go through a few inept ones first). Pros: 30 second drive from my house when I lived nearby. Counseling not mandatory if you had your own therapist (and the right counselor who would just X you off every month as having seen them).

Clinic 2: more strict/professional in general but became easier to get away with shit if you'd been there for awhile because it was bigger and no one gave a shit. Pros: Longer hours, could sleep in, offered ORLAAM (when it was still around, god that stuff tasted like shit even in grape juice). Cons: Much sketchier population, slightly more expensive, long drive when we didn't live right up near there. Ultimately left because the guy who robbed my house was going there and literally taunting us about it whenever we'd run into him, calling us bitches, etc because we hadn't gotten revenge yet or ratted him out (we were dealing at the time and couldn't think of a way to fuck him without fucking ourselves), and the clinic refused to do anything about it. He ultimately went to jail for 3 yrs for beating up his mom, and got Dx'd with prostate cancer while in jail, where I'm sure he got no treatment and no pain meds. Karma.

Clinic 3: only went there for a month because they had all these ridiculous rules and classes you had to attend to get ANY takehomes: one was on managing money, it was the boringest 60 mins of my life. I guess I understand some people don't inherently understand how credit cards and interest work but for me it was torture. Also impossible to get away with anything there. Plus farther away.

If I ever had to go back, I'd definitely go with clinic 1.

[tyler5]

i dont have to pay for anything. so far my methadone intake has cost me 0.00$ except the gasoline i have to buy from my japanese car which gets a very good gas mileage.
usually it takes 2-4 minutes to gin, wait till the machine drips out the 120mg of 1ml/1mg methadone drink, colorless, odorless, tastes a little alcohol-y but only a little. there is always water available to drink it afterwards. if you go get takehomes it might take 5 minutes till they fill the bottles but most of the people here are on 40-60mg, i think im the only one out 200-300 patients in a countrys capital who uses 120mg/ml per day and their thinking of raising it for me. i wont be saying no thats for sure if i can get my hands on some benzos, the high is - to me - very good compared to 3-methylfentanyl. much more mellow, longer lasting etc. so, i'd say, everything in this country is very harm related. the reason why they want to up my dose is because i took a piss test and failed (fentanyl), so they think that it would be a good idea to increase the methadone so i wont get cravings to occasionally inject/smoke 3-mf. and i really do, once a week max. as opposed to 3 years of 24/7 use which cost a FORTUNE here. its EXTREMELY expensive and the dosages are TINY. you can make 28-34 doses from 1 GRAM. and this one dose can get a naive person VERY VERY HIGH to the point of out-of-consciousness nodding for a good time, not an OD obv, but a nice strong experience none-the-less. yet, there are also people who after 13-14 years of IV'ing 6-10x a day (usually upper level russian/chechen/azerbaijan/armenian fentanyl dealers who deal directly with the st. petersburg (russia) university students who make this substance and where it was initially found in the end of the 70's. it became available in Estonia on 2002 and till now, June of 2012, is the ONLY opiate available ANYWHERE on the street here. that is a known fact and heroin is impossible to find.
ONLY fentanyl, 3-methylfentanyl which is a potent version of fentanyl, to be exact. can be IV'd/snorted/smoked. IV'ing/smoking are the best ways to get the real rush. smoking produces a VERY good high while IV might have you out of it for a while and therefore you wont be able to fully enjoy the experience.

thats it from me, sorry for OT.

[Snoops]

^ I want some fentanyl-3methylfentanyl stuff... Where are all the St. Petersburg students at in my hood?

[Slime Machine]

im new to MMT, so maybe my hate section of this post will change with time, butr so far.... what i love about the place is that i typically get my dose in about 5 minutes.... sometimes less. sometimes its just me and another person in there and no sooner do i sit down that my name gets called :-) yet other times theres more people in there, yet itstypically just a 10, maybe 15minute wait tops. the people there, for the most part are very friendly and cool. theres a few douchey people, but 80% of the people that work there are easy to deal with. im always chit chatting with the ladies at the dosing window and my counselor is very sweet and kind.

what i dont like is that its 86$ a week, and im still outta work. luckily right now i have a family member helping me out, but when i do start working some shitty low paying job, im certain ill cry and bitch giving up such a large chunk of my check to cover my medicine cost. aside from that, the only other thing i dont like is finding a parking spot close to the clinic. because the place is next door to a hosptial and the parking in the area is always taken upfrom either the clinic ro the hospital, so i have to hunt around for a decent spot every morning aND when im running late and its close to when they lock the doors and im rushing aROUND Looking for a spot, i swear i wanna scream!

but yeah, so far i really like my clinic. i tell u what theres a lot of cute junky girls that go to my clinic, and soon ima work up the balls to talk to a few of them ;-) one girl even introduced herself to me today and asked what my naME WAS, so maybe tomorrow or soon ill get to talking to her and maybe land myself a girlfriend..... itll be a 'methadone clinic lovestory', lol..... (yeah i kno, im a DORK :-p)

[Deadfiend]

$85 a week...

[Michael]

It's the local pharmacy though I collect my scripts through the CADS system, once a month. I just go in have a 5 minute chat to my key worker and get my script and head off. I get takehomes on the weekend and holidays. Since it's just a pharmacy there's not really lines. I've never actually bumped into anyone else getting their methadone there. Though I have seen some bottles and cups so I figure people. Though they could be my next days ones.

It's a 5 minute drive or an hour walk.

[Seedy]

^^ like michael i dose at the local pharmacy. it's only a 5 minute walk but it's a busy central city chemist so i sometimes have to wait for the pharmacist to finish serving a customer. it's never more than 5 minutes though. they seem to like me as i'm always polite and well presented, def not the typical nz junky, so i never get any grief. the 'done is free but unfortunately i'm not eligible for take homes yet. it might be hard to get many since i live so close.

being a small city i worry about seeing people i know there but it hasn't happened yet. i really haven't got much to complain about, in fact i quite like my morning stroll, especially when the cute chinese girl is working there.

[antigonemuse]

they only good thing about my clinic was leaving...

[Chipper]

My clinic is fair but the prices seem high. The staff are tough yet don't disrespect us.

[clinton]

Nice nurses, nice counselors , nutty doctor, ancient type, actually gave bill burroughs his first meth script once he hit Kansas..
10 bucks a day
To get take homes you have to do a certain amount of counseling sessions in 6 months..
If you don't want to do the counseling you can instead do quizzes etc , I think 12 total get you a take home

They don't care About pot smoking

They're lenient on letting you pay when you can etc

They're also a five minute drive from my house, I can literally wake up and be there ten minutes later