Welcome to Methadonia : A Social Worker's Candid Account of Life in a Methadone Clinic
Author: Rachel Greene Baldino
List Price: $15.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1929109024
Publisher: Independent Publishers Group (April, 2001)
Sales Rank: 195,646
Average Customer Rating: 3.39 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
a parade of white elephants
Ms. Baldino chronicles a year in the life of a rookie methadone counselor with utmost courage and unrelenting, brutal honesty. Her short vignettes should be required reading for anyone preparing for a career in social work, because Ms. Baldino doesn't ignore the white elephants in the middle of the dosing room; she takes them by the leash and parades them into our consciousness. She addresses the obvious pitfalls of turning drug counselors into virtual police officers; she probes directly into the criminal culture surrounding heroin abuse and how this interferes with the functioning of methadone clinics; she explains why transference is an improbable tool for eliciting change in heroin addicts, and how harm-reduction is not a good enough standard for treatment; she shows how addiction and sometimes its treatment irreparably damages the lives of clients' children; and she reveals the too often repressed emotions that lead counselors to compassion fatigue and eventual burn-out.
Ms. Baldino does not discount the positive effects of Methadone Treatment for those clients who are highly motivated. She celebrates recovery and appreciates the incredible strength it takes to battle addiction. Ms. Baldino simply sees a need for change -- a treatment modality that treats those suffering from opiate addiction with compassion and respect.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Honestly written by a confused social worker.
I know alot of people disagree with me, but I don't think Ms. Baldino meant any harm or had any idea what sort of impact this kind of a book could have on things. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with the book if you don't know a thing about methadone or addiction. But if you do, this poor woman looks like the devil. (And let's be realistic here: most addicts don't like non-addicts in the field of addiction in any capacity anyway, right?)As a former heroin addict and current methadone maintenance patient, I can attest that SOME of her book is accurate. But many of the suggestions and observations she makes are a result of just plain inexperience and ignorance. In the book, she said herself that she was freshly out of college when she got this job. I think she only remained in the methadone treatment field for a year or so. How much could she have really learned to write a 200-some page book?
The bottom line? Take all of what she says/writes with a grain--no make that a BLOCK--of salt. The book has the tendency to make methadone patients--and the clinic she worked at--look REALLY bad.
Rating: 5 out of 5
A Worthy Contribution of the Field of Addiction Medicine
What is most striking about this well-written work by Ms. Baldino in the bravery and honesty with which she descibes her experience as a young therapist working in a methadone clinic. Where other reviews have criticized Ms. Baldino for the feelings of fear and sadness she describes in working with methadone patients, I praise her for this honesty. She describes the emotions she experienced in working with these patients with such openness, not to condem patients of methadone clinics, but rather to facilitate the reader's understanding of her subjective experience. What's more, she uses her experience as a therapist, particularly the challenges that she faced in providing treatment to patients, to illustrate where many drug treatment programs are lacking in the services that they provide. Along these lines, one of the most valuable contributions that Ms. Baldino makes through this work are the specific and thoughful policy changes she recommends that would improve the effectiveness of treatment programs. Similar Products
Surviving Heroin: Interviews With Women in Methadone Clinics
Heroin
Book Index