Doctors needed to help addicted

Many parents here in northern Maine are struggling to help our sons and daughters who have become addicted to the drugs that are present in our community. This area does not have enough doctors to treat our addicted children with Suboxone. The law allows any doctor to treat only 30 patients at a time with this medication. To my knowledge there are only two of these doctors in Aroostook County! If there are more, I wish they would get their names out so we can contact them.

Many of our children are on treatment waiting lists for six months or longer. Some families in this area have taken their children to doctors in southern Maine for Suboxone treatment, but they are no longer accepting our children because they have so many themselves.

Throwing these kids in jail is not the answer. They should be ordered into a drug rehab situation instead. They need to be placed on a program that will get them through their withdrawal, with appropriate counseling available. I know – if these kids steal and break into places they need to be prosecuted, but part of their sentence should be to go into treatment!

We struggle every day watching our son throw away his life, abuse his body, and try to keep it all together to work a 40-hour-a-week job – just to see his whole paycheck spent on drugs the day he gets paid. We are doing our best to show him “unconditional love,” as we are called to do in God’s word. We have many people praying for all the youth in our community. But we also need the help and intervention of more doctors and counselors!

Parents need to wake up and recognize what their children are into today! Our community has gathered parents, police, the recreation center, the local hospital and the Aroostook Mental Health Center to offer the help our children need. God willing, these young people will realize what they are doing with their lives.

– Anonymous in Caribou

Inmate looking for help

I recently started reading your Finding a Fix column, and I can relate to the young woman who wrote from the Charleston youth center and is soon to be released (Finding a Fix, 2/9/2006).

I’m a 28-year-old male who’s currently serving a 5-year sentence for class A robbery. I was dope sick, which is an addict’s way of saying I was withdrawing from heroin. I found my next fix by holding up a drug store for OxyContins. I’ve been locked up for almost four and a half years now and, like that girl, I’m scared to get out.

While I’ve been in prison I’ve tried to use my time wisely. I’ve gone to meetings and self-help groups, but on numerous occasions my addiction has gotten the better of me. I’m currently housed in the Supermax in what’s called a high-risk bed, which is a minimum of six months locked in a cell for 23, or sometimes 24 hours a day. It’s a prison within a prison, and just like the original reason I came to prison I’m also down here in the Supermax because of drugs. I overdosed back in Dec. and was put down here for suspicion of trafficking.

People say you won’t quit using drugs until you hit rock bottom. Well, I don’t know how much lower one could get. Since I’ve been in prison I’ve lost the woman I love to another man and I rarely have contact with my 6-year-old son. Now I’m locked in a cell all day everyday because of drugs and I still think about getting high.

It’s sad to say this but I think my rock bottom is dying with a needle jammed in my arm. I want to get out, stay sober, be a good father to my son and become a productive member of society, but I feel that the temptation is too great for me to do this without some sort of assistance. I’ve been a drug addict since the age of about 13. It started like everyone else, smoking weed and drinking, then moved on to crack at the age of 15, and eventually graduated to sticking needles in my arm by 18.

I’d like some suggestions for myself and others like me who are getting released after long sentences and don’t know where to turn for help. I’ve tried it all, from rehab meetings, halfway houses, and even the methadone clinic which, in my opinion, is worse than having a dope habit.

I’m interested in the drug Naltrexone, which was written about in an earlier column. But do doctors regularly prescribe this for people who are trying to stay sober? It was mentioned that someone being released from prison should see a doctor and be put on it two weeks prior to release. Well, obviously, the person who recommended this has never been incarcerated before. The medical staff in most prisons are underpaid and overworked and anyone who’s been here knows that it’s tough enough just to get a Tylenol, let alone a drug that is gonna affect me after my release. It just ain’t happening.

I’m also curious about this thing called “the pellet.” Apparently, it’s inserted under the skin and keeps you from getting high from opiates for three months or so. What does a procedure like that cost and who would someone contact if they wanted to have it done?

A lot of us addicts get out of jail not knowing where to turn, so we go back to what we know. I, for one, don’t want to become just another statistic who died from a drug overdose upon being released from prison, and I sure don’t want to be stuck in the revolving door of coming to prison which, unfortunately, happens to most drug addicts. So that’s why I’m reaching out now, so hopefully there will be no more Finding a Fix.

Please join our weekly conversation about Maine’s substance abuse problem. We welcome comments or questions from all perspectives. Letters may be mailed to Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04401. Send e-mail contributions to findingafix@bangordailynews.net. Column editor Meg Haskell may be reached at (207) 990-8291 or mhaskell@bangordailynews.net.