Treatment options for prisoners could change.
Julie, 37, sounded street-tough. She began with only brief “yes” or “no” answers before she let her guard down to tell more of her story. Arrested with enough drugs to garner a B felony, she was 26 when she landed in jail, then was transferred to prison.
“I was shooting up multiple times a day [when] I got arrested. I was lucky they had Suboxone in jail. They didn’t give it out to everyone, it was based on who the nurse liked.”
Julie said it’s important to understand how helpful even short-term detox medication can be “because most people assume Suboxone or methadone are helpful for deterring relapse but only when they’re used for long-term maintenance.” For Julie and other addicts, having access to Suboxone during withdrawal makes a big difference.
“I wasn’t consumed every minute thinking about how I could get more [opiates]. I wasn’t writhing in pain. I wasn’t trying to…get some smuggled in…. It gave me the opportunity to think about whether [heroin] was something I wanted to be doing at all.”
Julie began doing drugs at age 17. Before that, she and her parents had tried family therapy. “I had issues with eating disorders but therapy didn’t seem effective. I’m not sure that I was in a place where I was going to be receptive to it. I was a stubborn shitty teenager, you know.”
We asked if she began with pot and pills before escalating to injecting drugs. “No, I pretty much went straight to the hard stuff. I was…self-destructive. I smoked pot once, then did Ecstasy once, and then went right to heroin. I was dealing with some serious depression [and] wanted to be numb or dead. Heroin seemed to be a good vehicle for either.”
After going to a rehab, she was able to stay clean from age 18 to 19 but then she tried to commit suicide with an overdose of heroin. “I had such a high tolerance by then, it didn’t work. Another time I jumped off a bridge but still did not manage to succeed in killing myself.”
Julie said she went to a few AA meetings in jail, but prison was different. “People didn’t always show up. Prison can be a very difficult environment to have much in the way of 12-step support.”
She has stayed clean for her 11 years since prison. “In the beginning, I could’ve gone either way but I had a few moments of clarity. One was when the guy I was dating at the time was still using. He was visiting me and was noticeably high, doing and saying embarrassing and shitty things, and telling all the lies you tell as an addict. I was watching him doing this when I was sober, and looking at everything from that other side was one of the moments that made me realize I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I didn’t want to be the one putting people through this or embarrassing myself in that way.”
Regarding post-prison Julie said, “I was required by parole to do an outpatient program but that turned out to be counterproductive because I was in a new area and wouldn’t have known where to get drugs but I met people in that program who knew where to get them…. At that point, I was almost two years clean and was suddenly being drawn into that program with people who were only, like, two days clean. I did that for nine months then that was it.”
She said about 12-step meetings: “It’s not for me. I think there’s some principles of it that can benefit anyone who’s in recovery but it wasn’t a good fit. I don’t think that abstinence is the only approach, and it bothers me the closed-mindedness of the belief that it’s the only thing that works. I’m not trying to use, but I know people who decided to smoke pot and I don’t think that diminishes the fact that they are in a good place and they’re not doing heroin.”
Suboxone seems the obvious answer for assisting opiate addicts through withdrawal yet it remains elusive to most. According to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, “Each year federal, state and local governments spend close to $500 billion on addiction and substance abuse, but for every dollar that federal and state governments spend, only 2 cents goes to prevention and treatment.”
“I was shooting up multiple times a day [when] I got arrested. I was lucky they had Suboxone in jail. They didn’t give it out to everyone, it was based on who the nurse liked.”
Julie said it’s important to understand how helpful even short-term detox medication can be “because most people assume Suboxone or methadone are helpful for deterring relapse but only when they’re used for long-term maintenance.” For Julie and other addicts, having access to Suboxone during withdrawal makes a big difference.
“I wasn’t consumed every minute thinking about how I could get more [opiates]. I wasn’t writhing in pain. I wasn’t trying to…get some smuggled in…. It gave me the opportunity to think about whether [heroin] was something I wanted to be doing at all.”
Julie began doing drugs at age 17. Before that, she and her parents had tried family therapy. “I had issues with eating disorders but therapy didn’t seem effective. I’m not sure that I was in a place where I was going to be receptive to it. I was a stubborn shitty teenager, you know.”
We asked if she began with pot and pills before escalating to injecting drugs. “No, I pretty much went straight to the hard stuff. I was…self-destructive. I smoked pot once, then did Ecstasy once, and then went right to heroin. I was dealing with some serious depression [and] wanted to be numb or dead. Heroin seemed to be a good vehicle for either.”
After going to a rehab, she was able to stay clean from age 18 to 19 but then she tried to commit suicide with an overdose of heroin. “I had such a high tolerance by then, it didn’t work. Another time I jumped off a bridge but still did not manage to succeed in killing myself.”
Julie said she went to a few AA meetings in jail, but prison was different. “People didn’t always show up. Prison can be a very difficult environment to have much in the way of 12-step support.”
She has stayed clean for her 11 years since prison. “In the beginning, I could’ve gone either way but I had a few moments of clarity. One was when the guy I was dating at the time was still using. He was visiting me and was noticeably high, doing and saying embarrassing and shitty things, and telling all the lies you tell as an addict. I was watching him doing this when I was sober, and looking at everything from that other side was one of the moments that made me realize I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I didn’t want to be the one putting people through this or embarrassing myself in that way.”
Regarding post-prison Julie said, “I was required by parole to do an outpatient program but that turned out to be counterproductive because I was in a new area and wouldn’t have known where to get drugs but I met people in that program who knew where to get them…. At that point, I was almost two years clean and was suddenly being drawn into that program with people who were only, like, two days clean. I did that for nine months then that was it.”
She said about 12-step meetings: “It’s not for me. I think there’s some principles of it that can benefit anyone who’s in recovery but it wasn’t a good fit. I don’t think that abstinence is the only approach, and it bothers me the closed-mindedness of the belief that it’s the only thing that works. I’m not trying to use, but I know people who decided to smoke pot and I don’t think that diminishes the fact that they are in a good place and they’re not doing heroin.”
Suboxone seems the obvious answer for assisting opiate addicts through withdrawal yet it remains elusive to most. According to The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, “Each year federal, state and local governments spend close to $500 billion on addiction and substance abuse, but for every dollar that federal and state governments spend, only 2 cents goes to prevention and treatment.”