Methadone Clinic
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
It was Christmas rush at the clinic, the busy season, and almost every day as soon as I punched in there was an admission waiting for me. All of these extra admissions meant that I had less time for my other duties, so now I was falling behind on my paperwork and had little time to stop my patients for mandatory counseling.The winter was rough on the clinic staff as well as the patients, and every night after work the thoughts in my head ran amuck.That one armed guy is crying because he’s been waiting for three hours to get admitted and he’s hurting. He needs his methadone. NOW!! Go up to the front desk to do a supervised urine but be careful when you give the guy the bottle because he ain’t got no fingers. No fingers? No fingers—not even stubs. YIKES!! Can barely keep from throwing up because so many of these patients are sickly and disgusting, like the admission I did for that Italian punk from Bensonhurst—his fuckin’ face is full of Karposi sarcoma lesions and why can’t he go to some fuckin’ clinic in Brooklyn—YECCH!! Nobody in this hell on earth is normal and it’s a never-ending horror show.On and on it goes, from the homeless couple with the croupy infant who need to get on the program so that they can qualify for SSI and an apartment in a city housing project and get out of the shelter to the old man who comes back to the clinic right after he’s been medicated because he just got mugged and he needs carfare to get home. He needs to see the doctor because they busted his nose and he’s bleeding all over the place but all he wants is a subway token…these lunatics are a real trip.Then, by the middle of January it seems to slow down a little which only means that I don’t have as many freaks to tend to; oh there’s still plenty of new customers, just not as many.By now I’m just going through the motions, which is good because it means that I’m becoming desensitized, like one day when I had to do an intake on this 18-year-old girl from Long Island. I didn’t even flinch when she stuck out her arms for inspection and I saw that they were all scarred up. Horrible jagged scars. Somebody new might have winced, I just noted it in her psycho-social history. Let medical ask her if she’s a self-mutilator.Oh brother, I think, when I have to admit this morbidly obese middle-aged Russian-Jewish lady from
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
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.
About the Author
David Steier grew up in inner-city
Having worked at various jobs over the years, his two and one half year stint as a substance abuse counselor at a major
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
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.