I open my eyes quickly and make sure it is still dark out! With a glance at the clock and the fact that is still dark out I can rest easy. If the sun was up, I would have gone into full panic, immediate sweats, and an uneasy twisting and turning of the stomach would have commenced, until I was positive the clock had anytime before 10 AM on it (the time they stop dosing at the clinic).
It's 4:25 AM, I have got plenty of time to get dressed and get over to the clinic. Yeah! Yeah! I know it isn't open till 5:30 but it is all about the ritual with junkies. Getting my fix in my glory, or not so glorious days, was half the rush-half the high-most certainly half the addiction. For most, those little or major quirks have carried over to our daily lives, as well as scoring our daily government allotted fix. Part of my routine and the routine of many others is to get there a half an hour or so before the doors open, to make sure, "WE CAN GET TO WORK ON TIME!" Truth of the matter is, most of the people I talk to don't work and the ones that do like myself, don't normally have to be to work till about 7AM. Most of us are there because the ritual of getting in a line, while a drug dealer yells at us and informs us of what is going on, "No Shorts, No Change!"(meaning if you don't have enough money get off the line and don't walk up with a handful of nickels and dimes expecting to get straight...) is to hard to stop. All this madness is, like I stated earlier part of the high. Only now instead of some inner city youth or suburban wannabe gangsta telling you what to do, it is some overweight, angry at the world, desk jockey, following government regulations and guidelines. The no money, no dope thing is still the primary rule.
Taking it off the street and giving us a "healthier alternative" doesn't change that fact that you can't get your dope without money, unless you have good insurance or Medicaid. Business is business and methadone is big business, especially here in Florida. Having been on a methadone program in NY for a while and now in the Tampa, Florida area there is a huge difference between the clientele. In NY, a good portion of the clients, in the early to mid 90's at least, were your typical junkie.
You all know what I am talking about. The toothless, wretched and depraved soul that wandered the streets begging for money with some sad ragged coffee cup, offering sexual favors, or to wash your car windows at a stop light with a bucket full of urine! Thanks to the contributions of the brilliant minds at Purdue Pharma for Oxycontin, Mallinckrodt for roxicodone, and the State of Florida for having more investor owned rather then pharmacist owned pain care clinics then any other state in the Union, the face of addiction has changed and the methadone clinic is not the same place it used to be. 
Now on my morning adventures I see men and women in BMW's, Lexus's, and Range Rover's getting their dose while wearing Gucci suites, D&G shoes, Armani shirts, and John Bartlett ties. Teenagers barely out of high school(because they won't allow anyone under 18 into the program-I want to thank God that they have some moral base but I am sure it is more about legalities and red tape then actual personal responsibility) are more and more common. The teens I speak of are not the worn looking stoner or burnout from days of lore, but teenagers wearing varsity sports jackets, cheerleader shirts, and preppy rich kids in boat shoes and mommies Jag! The face of methadone and the junkie have been forever changed.Each morning this culmination of different personalities, walks of life, and social classes make for interesting stories, events, and hijinks's. Some are sad, some are funny, but most of all it is the madness that we as addicts endure. All in the name of methadone we gather, Like Sheep for the Slaughter, We All Line Up...
