April 28th 1998: The Magic Number

So today is the day. The day where I take the first baby steps towards change. As I mentioned before, numerous times, I am starting to hate the person I am becoming and I need to change. Today I began that process, today I took my first steps towards quitting heroin for good. Today I started methadone.

After school I went over to meet Chris, he said he would come and keep me company over at the clinic. And you know sometimes I forget it but I’ve got some pretty good friends. I mean who wants to spend their evening waiting by the methadone clinic, seriously? Who does that? Oh I also ran into Pash but he was just there to cop.

At 6pm We arrived at the Yau Ma Tei Methadone Clinic and I began the registration process for treatment. It seems ironic to me that the methadone clinic, my main source of dope for the last 2 years is, from now on, going to become my place of recovery.

For the next 45 minutes I went about the procedure for methadone treatment. Signing consent forms, speaking to the social worker and taking the always-fun urine test. After going through my drug history with the social worker I was supposed to go and see the doctor but he wouldn’t be there for another hour so I had to wait.

Sitting on the awkward, splintery wooden benches in the main reception area I ran into Phil Mcghee. Phil was one of those old school junkies (well as old school as you can be at 19) who had been in the methadone program for years now. After catching up with the normal, boring chitchat we decided to split a bag. Since I still had to wait a while for the doctor, we decided to go pick up.

I told Chris he could take off since I was just waiting around anyway and walked downstairs with Phil. The bag was pretty shitty. But then again the neighborhood has been dry for weeks now so what can you expect?

Phil and I copped and walked a couple of blocks down; we squatted down and fixed behind a giant cement column that held up an overpass. I could hear the cars whizzing above, people going places, doing things. Maybe I could be one of those people some day.

I stumbled back to the clinic, taking my time as wandered the streets that I frequented so regularly. I stopped at a guy I knew to buy some bootleg Marlboro Reds that had just come in from the Philippines.

The doctor was in by now and he asked me all the medical questions associated with long term intravenous drug use. Questions about AIDS, hepatitis and any multitude of disease you can get by shooting heroin. It didn’t take as long as it should of, I feel that the doctor was really just half-assing it. He spent the prerequisite amount of time with me and sent me on my way.

That was it. They gave me my card and my first dosage of my “medicine.” I’ve got to say that methadone tastes like absolute shit. But I downed that little 80mg cup like the big boy I was. I walked downstairs and sat on the stoop just waiting for the stuff to kick in. I have to admit I was fixated with my little membership card. It made me feel special, like I was now part of some elite junkie club and this was my all access pass. I fondled the card for some time, the number of it bring up some unexplained emotions in me #49089, the key to success? The magic number? I hope my feeling is right, I hope this is the magic number. My winning numbers that allow me to get clean… I just hope I can quit.