My name is Adriane. I’m in Alliance’s CHOICES program because it gives me structure and community. I’ve been taking methadone for almost 30 years now, first to stop using heroin, and lately because of the pain I experience from gout and arthritis.
I started taking heroin in 1989, after smoking crack for some time. It was so hard on me, hard to afford, and dehumanizing. My kids and I had become homeless in 1988. I love my kids, but I didn’t feel the same love I tried to give them when I was a kid myself. I cried a lot as a kid. My father wasn’t one to give love and affirmation, and my mother wasn’t into motherly love, although we did have a good relationship during the last six months of her life when she was dying in a hospital, and it was nice to bond.
Throughout my life, I’ve used humor to mask depression. People see me as a comedienne, and I like to make others laugh, but sometimes I feel frustrated that people don’t take me seriously in the moment.
I worked all my life, I worked in banks, the post office, and NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority). Sometimes people don’t realize that people using drugs like crack and heroin can hold down jobs, even if they’re experiencing homelessness.
I never regretted starting methadone treatment, and it helped me stop using heroin, but it wasn’t enough for my soul. I found Alliance after two of my daughters and my son came here for help with counseling and housing. I like doing the harm reduction groups here with Joel, Eddie, George, Tom, and them. Tom can tell if I need to say something about my depression or issues I’m dealing with. Alliance has lifted me at times when I needed it, when I was feeling suicidal.
I like the arts and crafts projects and the activities like potting plants. I appreciate helping others and this place gives me that urge to want to help people. Is life easy? No. I will probably rely on methadone for the rest of my life -- and I’m almost 75 years old. But I am always learning from life, and I’m trying to keep growing.
This Wednesday, I’m taking a trip with my kids to Florida, and then a train trip alone as part of an AARP group, going across the U.S.