first medical appointment with the intention of asking to be put on methadone,’ he says.‘ At the appointment, without being given the opportunity to even discuss his preference he was given a script for buprenorphine and sent on his way. Unsurprisingly, he never picked up his first dose, and his trust in the treatment service was hugely affected. This could have been easily avoided had the clinician just asked a couple of simple questions.’
LOST COMMUNICATION Lorraine received OST under two different health boards in Scotland and had contrasting experiences in each. When she first went for treatment‘ the doctor was nicer, he used to speak to you like a human being. I had a nicer worker too.’
The doctor explained to Lorraine that if he started her on methadone she could be on it a long time, and may find it hard to come off.‘ He sat me down and explained a lot,’ she says.‘ It was nice that he approached it like that. He wanted me to have all
‘ If you get a worker who will talk you through everything you need to know, the difference is night and day.’
the information first so I could make the right choice for me.
‘ He’ d ask me if I wanted to go up a dose, if I was comfy on it, if I wanted to come down. It helped stabilise my life – I was shoplifting, in and out of jail all the time. So it removed a lot of the chaos and I felt like I was pretty in control of my treatment with that doctor and that worker.’
Moving to a different area, Lorraine had a completely different experience – a drugs worker who‘ kept knocking me back – for rehab, for anything basically’. It felt‘ really harsh’, like they‘ wanted to tell you what to do instead of listening to you.
Really speaking down to you all the time … You’ re struggling with drugs and they’ re giving you it tight all the time, accusing you of giving them a dirty sample, stuff like that.’
She resorted to taking the Medication Assisted Treatment( MAT) standards and‘ slapping them down’ in front of him, asking for a detox.‘ His attitude changed as soon as he saw them,’ she says.‘ He said oh yeah, I was going to get you a detox anyway. I’ d been fighting with him about it for a year and just him seeing that I knew what I was talking about changed my treatment straightaway.’
Lorraine’ s two experiences demonstrate the dramatic difference in potential outcomes.‘ If you get a worker who will talk you through everything you need to know, the difference is night and day,’ she says.‘ It’ s more like you’ re a person who can work with them to sort things, than you’ re a problem they need to solve. That kind of support can mean you turn your life around within a few years rather than being stuck in one kind of treat ment for most of your life.’ DDN
This series on Clearer Conversations in OST has been made possible by an educational grant from Camurus, who have had no involvement in the content of these articles.
Grateful thanks for input to this article: Emma, Julian, Louise, Red Rose Recovery, Lorraine, SDF, George Charlton, Reagan, Cathy, Fraser and Release
Clearer Conversations is an ongoing series and we would love to hear from you if you are willing to share your experiences of treatment – please email the editor, claire @ cjwellings. com
ON MY WAVELENGTH continued...
My care got passed on to the substance misuse midwives. They were amazing – discreet, compassionate... They treated me like a mum that was trying her very best to drastically reduce the harm I was causing.
and supervised, and they would monitor me to see if I needed more.
Methadone was the only option offered to me. My treatment provider didn’ t explain to me the correlation between how much methadone I was being prescribed and my heroin use, and I didn’ t know that it was a substitute that would help me get off using heroin. No one explained how it would stop some withdrawals physically, but my brain would still crave heroin and work against the medication. I didn’ t know that I would still feel agitated and that my thoughts and emotions would still be pretty much unbearable.
I had a pregnancy bump and was queuing up to take my methadone in front of everyone else that I had been hiding my drug use from. It was humiliating and I felt like the worst mother in the world and a murderer – I really thought I was killing my unborn child, yet I felt I had no choice but to use. I could now no longer function without the methadone in the morning and was taking heroin all through the day too. My habit massively increased, partly because my‘ secret’ was out and partly due to the shame and guilt I was carrying.
My care then got passed on to the substance misuse midwives. They was amazing – discreet, compassionate, and gave me all the information about harm to my baby: the facts, not just that I was killing my baby, but the harms that using was doing and how I could minimise the risk. They helped me reduce the amount of heroin I was using, and then eventually stop and stick to my script.
They treated me like a mum that was trying her very best to drastically reduce the harm I was causing my baby and put me on a reduction plan with realistic goals. Once I engaged and kept all my appointments with them, they offered me a detox bed, specifically for drug-dependent expectant mothers on a maternity ward, which I could stay on until our baby was born. I managed to stay substance-free until after the birth and although I did use again, my baby was born without withdrawals. I had done what I needed to do for her, which was a miracle to me.
I think the treatment plan saved me, I really do. It reduced the harm to my unborn child and it also helped me to keep my children.
Emma is now enjoying life in active recovery
14 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • MAY 2026 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM