Linda is a patient at Discovery House methadone clinic in Portland, Maine where she also volunteers with the Landing Project.

Q: When did you come to Discovery House?

Well, I was born back here and then my family moved to California, and I was about 10 then and about 13 I got into drugs. Smoking. Then smoking pot, then it slowly graduated to experimenting with different drugs and then I hit heroin where I stayed for a good 20 years.

I’ve gone from methadone places out in the west for years and years off and on you know. I wasn’t really serious about actually getting clean because I was still shooting dope on the side. About 10 years ago I started really seriously wanting to have a better life. Because the heroin and living on the street, um, it’s not an easy life, it’s very hard and very heart breaking. All the things you have to deal with…

You wake up in the morning…

Then I moved back here and my husband who was alive then, he had liver failure, he wanted to go back to LA and I took him back to LA and they put him in the hospital immediately. That was in February of 1998. He passed back in February. While I was out there burying my husband, somebody murdered my son back here. I was really trying not to jump back into the bag, but I didn’t succeed. I started using again.

“…it was always the methadone that would bring me back to myself.”

I came back here and I stopped using and I’ve been clean ever since. Thanks to the methadone clinic and the people I’ve been able to meet and talk to. A lot of the counselors, everybody is great to talk to. You have to find the right person to really open up, but if it wasn’t for the methadone, I’d be out thieving or whatever I could to get a fix. Then you wake up and you have to start all over, start the whole routine all over again. I very much believe in the Lord, and if it wasn’t for Him directing me towards people, places, I don’t believe I would be able to stay clean.

When I was in California, I was an advocate for methadone and the Ryan White clinic. I did speaking and raised money for both places. I spoke to keep the places going. Now I’m with Marty working on the Landing Project.

Q: What’s the Landing Project?

It’s to help people who are addicted, to lead them to an un-addicted life or a clean life, a life that they would embrace instead of saying, “this is hell on earth.” Which, when you are strung out, that’s exactly what it is, hell on earth.

To help someone with his or her addiction, to let them know there is a different world, a different part of you that you haven’t seen in a long time because you’ve been wrapped up so much in getting your next fix. You’ve lost that part of yourself. Once you get clean and you don’t have that feeling that you still want a fix, that you still want to get high, once you can get past that point… The Landing Project, it’s about us staying clean and to know that the methadone can help you start a new life- that you’ve fallen down, you’re down there when you’re strung out, but there’s always a hand to get back up. And that if you really want to stay clean and sober, it’s a great world out there.

You find things, just in the atmosphere, or a tree, or different things that you never thought of before, you’re too busy running the street. Get your drugs and hoping that the police don’t get you before you can get your drugs.

I’ve done a lot of jail time behind me, and county time, and big time… never say never, but I’m happy I know I won’t have to go back to jail.

Q: What kind of charges were you tried on?

Always drugs, under the influence, possession.

Q: How many times did you go through the court system?

Oh gosh... in the 20’s.

Q: And all of them were for drug charges?

Yes

Q: How often did drug treatment come up? Were you ever offered treatment?

They usually don’t offer you treatment

Q: Were these arrests in Maine or the west coast?

I’ve never been arrested here, because I’ve been clean here. All of them are from California, in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I got out of woman’s prison in California in 1992 and that’s the last time I’ve seen bars.

Were you ever sent to a treatment program instead of jail?

No, it’s usually mandatory when you go in front of a judge, they want you in jail. They say, “You need to dry out.” So they’ll put you in there for 90 days or 120 days and then they’ll put you on probation and that’s like having a noose around your neck because they give you just enough rope so if you screw up, you know, you hang yourself and you end up back in jail. “Well, you need another 90 day dry out…” It’s just a big circle.

The judicial system, in my opinion, wants to get the addicts off the street, so they shove ‘em in jail when they could spend a little more money and have better group policies, provisions for the prisoners on drugs. Help them to stay clean.

“I felt sick and hated it, but still went back to it. Heroin is a euphoric drug so you don’t think about things you don’t want to think about.”

Q: Looking back, why do you think you started using drugs at the age of 13? Why did it progress to heroin?

My father was murdered in 1978, he was stabbed 42 times with a screwdriver.

And this person who was dealing drugs just happened to be around me and he said, “Here, try this, you’ll feel a little better. I know it’s hard to go through a death…” I felt sick and hated it, but still went back to it. Heroin is a euphoric drug so you don’t think about things you don’t want to think about.

Q: What was the nature of the murder?

He must have known him because it happened in his house. It happened in Texas. I was living with my mother at the time.

And my son, I believe it was related to pot in some way. The police kept putting little things in the paper, for them to come forward if they knew anything because they knew it wasn’t a suicide. They made it look like a suicide, but it wasn’t a suicide. That was a terrific hard thing to take. Burying my husband and then three weeks later, Ben’s gone too…

And through it all, I’ve fell off the wagon for a few months and then would get back on methadone. I was always taking methadone. Every time I tried to stop at that point taking methadone I would go right back to drugs.

I would do both (methadone and heroin) and then I would stop the methadone and then I’d go back on the drugs and then finally I realized that the methadone is the only way to be able to be clean and sober.

Q: Are you still going to groups or a counselor?

Marty is my counselor. And I am working on the Landing Project.

Q: Do you still seem him regularly?

I officially meet with him also, and I have a couple of people, you know, that I sit and talk to. A counselor more or less, but different peers.

Q: Did you meet them through Discovery House?

I met them through a different project. I know that, I wouldn’t be sitting here today talking to you if it wasn’t for everybody helping me and the methadone program. You can’t do it yourself, it’s very hard to do it yourself. I’ve tried many times. I know a lot of people who have tried. I could never do it myself, it was always the methadone that would bring me back to myself.

Eventually I’ll detox, I can’t say when. My goal right now, is to help other addicts get out of the hole that you put yourself there through addiction, there’s a lot of people that want to get up and be clean again, there’s not enough people to talk to them- they might not feel comfortable with them, or think they’re a cop or whatever. But that’s very important to me- to reach out to other addicts, that they don’t live the life I did.

Q: What do people say on the street in Maine, can you get into treatment easily?

Right now there’s a waiting list.

Some people don’t know that much about the programs. They really should have more that one clinic. Well, they do have another one in Westbrook, but this place is- I think it’s the best.

Q: How would you describe the drug problem in Maine?

It’s bad. It’s getting a little better. For a while there was a lot of OD’s from heroin or pills. These are you know, the strong pills, oxycontins and all that stuff. I’ve heard of some people going as far as taking benadryls by the fistfuls just to get a buzz.

Programs are so needed instead of jail time.

Q: Do you think Portland is addressing the drug problem?

There’s different people trying to get different projects going for recovery.

Q: From your perspective, when did the oxycontin problem become a big deal?

About three years ago. But it’s lightened up a lot. A lot. From what I hear and things like that. I don’t hang around with addicts unless they want to get sober. If they are interested in getting sober I am more than willing to be there.

Q: Who pays for your treatment?

(State) insurance pays for it and I also have a co-pay.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to say?

People need to go, wherever they live, they need to go find a methadone program so they can get off the street drugs. Methadone may be a drug, but it’s the kind of drug that keeps you away from the street so you’re not using- you never know from one buy to the next whether that fix is going to kill you or not. People need to ask more questions about where to go to get help and counseling.

Methadone does work if you help yourself along with the medication, it’s good. I know people who have done, you know, 100, 200 dollars worth of drugs a day and who have gotten on methadone and gone back to work and held down a job. You can’t do that if you’re on the street fixing, you can’t do your job. But it’s a way to get on track and when you feel like you can handle life without the medicine you can detox.