Methadone clients fighting to keep clinic open
Kelly Tunney | Herald-Standard
The empty counseling room at Addiction Specialists, Inc. features inspirational signs and posters to help clients achieve their goal of sobriety.
One of the rooms in the 24-bed inpatient rehab facility which staff lament is closed to suffering addicts in the midst of a heroin epidemic.
Jamie Ryan operates the daycare for clients at Addiction Specialists, Inc., and worries what will happen to clients who lose their counseling relationships and support systems if ASI is closed.
Krista Wilson, an ASI client, has gotten a full-time job as a cook and is attending college for the culinary arts. She attributes her turnaround and successes to the support she's gotten from Rosalind Sugarmann at ASI.
An "Imagine" sign sits on top of the Coke machine in the lobby for the Mary E. Steratore Treatment Center.
Barbara Manion, operations manager at Addiction Specialists, Inc.
Sarah Williams was an ASI client before becoming a rehab tech and counselors' assistant at ASI.
Methadone clients are fighting to remain at Addiction Specialists Inc. after an insurance contract was pulled from the facility and a federal indictment was filed against four people who work there.
“This place has helped more than it has hurt,” said Lou T., a former ASI methadone patient who got clean and became a counselor. “It’s a methadone clinic. Yeah, things happen, but not only at ASI. At the end of the day, when you see one person clean, you have done something.”
The methadone clinic was the subject of an FBI raid Oct. 8. Since then, the North Union Township clinic cut its inpatient rehabilitation facilities and Suboxone distribution center. State Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs spokesman Jason Snyder said the department did not force shutdowns at ASI.
The clinic is operating under multiple provisional licenses issued by the state, offering methadone treatment and therapy.
Many clients who use the facility to receive treatment for opioid addiction insist ASI offers the best place for them.
“The thought of this place closing down, it just breaks my heart,” said Krista Wilson, who has been a client since 2008.
Clients, parents and staff echoed the same sentiments during interviews March 30, saying ASI’s therapy, support groups and treatment programs are unlike any other to combat addiction.
“I wish people would come and see the good,” said Katrina McGuinness, whose son has been a methadone patient for three years.
After those interviews, a new indictment was filed naming two more ASI workers, counselor Lou Polito, 60, of Uniontown and clinic director Brandon Eicher, 40, of Smithfield.
Owner Rosalind Sugarmann, 61, of Allison Park and Dr. Dominic DiLeo, 67, of Uniontown were charged with illegal distribution of controlled substances. Polito was added to the indictment Wednesday with allegations he participated in the illegal distribution of Suboxone, a drug, like methadone, that is used to treat opioid addiction. DiLeo is also charged with illegal distribution of Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication that can cause overdose when combined with methadone.
Eicher is accused of healthcare fraud with Sugarmann. The indictment alleged that Sugarmann and Eicher forged documents during an audit which did not allow the insurance provider, Value Behavioral Health, to recoup payments from sessions with more than 10 patients.
VBH spokeswoman Amy Sheyer said the company was ending its insurance contract effective June 15. She did not specifically address the fraud allegations.
“We have worked cooperatively with state and county governments as a part of this process,” she said in a written statement.
Methadone clients said they are angered by the allegations against Sugarmann, and do not want to be forced to leave ASI.
“I don’t know why, as a taxpaying citizen, I have to uproot my life because of something perceived or actual that someone has done,” said Angela M. of Hopwood. “It’s terrifying. Maddening.”
Angela is a retired registered nurse and mother of three grown children.
“But trust me, I’m every much as much an addict as some guy who is under a bridge,” she said.
She said she tried “everything” to break her addiction to opioids before coming to ASI. Angela said she stayed in the clinic’s “partial program” for six months, although it is set up for an eight-week program. Patients stay at the clinic for six hours a day Monday through Friday, and later stay three days each week.
“None of my drug dealers offered me therapy,” she said.
Now, she said she takes methadone and spends one hour each day in therapy.
“I think I’ll probably be there forever,” she said of her therapy sessions. “If I invest one hour here, the other 23 are so much safer for myself and society.”
She said that at one point during her time as a patient, her insurance lapsed and she had no money to cover her treatment.
“(Sugarmann) said, ‘I don’t want your money. Be here at 11’,” Angela said.
Another client, James, said he received treatment at ASI for two years for free. Now he has been receiving calls from VBH asking him to transfer to Polaris Renewal Services in Perry Township, he said.
“This place has been a safe place for me for years,” he said. “I don’t know what to do. I feel like I don’t have a choice. It sucks.”
Clients said Sugarmann, who they call “Roz,” saved their lives. They said they can’t believe the charges and can’t imagine she would do anything illegal. Many said she would answer their phone calls in the middle of the night when they needed help, gave them places to stay and gave them second, third and fourth chances to turn their lives around.
“In the midst of her own storm, she teaches others to dance in the rain,” said Jamie Ryan, a former patient who now works at the clinic’s daycare.
Tommy McGuiness said he went to a $600,000 treatment facility in Florida before going to ASI. The expensive facility didn’t work, he said. When he first met Roz, he said he didn’t want to be clean. The 25-year-old started on pills when he was 15. He lives in her halfway house in Uniontown, and she lets him stay rent-free when he needs to, he said.
“Suffering addicts are a dime a dozen, especially in Fayette County. But people like Roz Sugarmann are one in a million,” he said. “I can’t picture myself without having Roz in my life. That’s what I’m going through in my life is I’m losing the people that matter most to me. Now there’s a time in my life where Roz needs me.”
His mother, Katrina, said their family groups taught her about addiction. She said she fears for her son if the clinic closes, and thinks her son fears for himself.
“If this place closes and he’s not getting that therapy anymore, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “He’s going to regress.”
Paula, whose daughter did in-patient rehab and now uses a low-dose of methadone, said she felt like life was not worth living until her daughter came to ASI. Paula now attends family meetings where she learned to stop enabling her daughter.
“I don’t know what happened in the other part of the building, but I know what happens in group,” she said. “I listen when they all speak. I hear their cries for help.”
She said she has observed the community the clients form and the relationships they develop with their counselors. She said she understands why people feel negatively about methadone clinics because she felt the same way before she gained more knowledge in family groups.
Other clients said the treatment helped them rebuild relationships with their families and set them on the right path to start a career.
Wilson said she rebuilt a relationship with her mother and works as a cook. She said she went to 20 different rehabilitation facilities, but they were impersonal. She said they would call patients by a number. She calls ASI “a family.”
“The thought of me transferring and going somewhere else, it scares me. It makes my anxiety go through the roof,” she said.
Darian Harris, a patient for four years, said before he was at ASI, his family refused to see him, even when he walked to their house on Christmas. He was not allowed to see his daughter, and now he has partial custody of her.
“Without Roz, my daughter probably would have buried me by now,” he said.
Lou D., who has been a client for 10 years, said he now has a relationship with his grandchildren and a job.
“I drive from Pittsburgh, and I’m always afraid that when I come around and turn the corner the place will be locked up,” he said.
He said he takes a low dose of methadone in the mornings.
“I’m not really concerned with getting off right now. I know if I want to, all I have to do is ask. But I’m not at that at that point right now,” he said. “My life is going OK. I don’t want to rock the boat.”
Polito said ASI uses a “9, 12, 18” program which allows patients to decide if they want to reduce their dose in nine, 12 or 18 months. He said 26 of his patients got off of methadone in his six years at the clinic. He said he has had about 200 patients.
“When you’re talking about getting off of methadone, it ain’t easy,” he said. “It’s the hardest drug to get off of.”
He said therapy involves deep, tearful discussions that dig into the reasons behind an addicts’ addiction.
“I tell them, ‘I’m you. You’re me. I just got here first’,” he said.
He said he was an ASI patient before getting off methadone. He said he is concerned about his patients if the place closes down, saying they should not be put out during a heroin epidemic.
“It’s like a ghost town here anymore. This place used to be full of rehabilitation, full of life. That’s what this place is all about is bringing people back to life,” he said.
Lou T. said he was leading a group therapy session when the FBI raid started. He said he initially asked the man if he wanted to join the group before seeing “FBI” on his shirt.
“I guess I was in shock,” he said.
Operations manager Barbara Manion said for 17 years, they were “perfect.”
She said the clinic grew throughout the years and received permits and cleared inspections through the process.
She said she thinks problems arose when they began distributing Suboxone.
“I don’t agree with the way Suboxone operates. Suboxone doesn’t have the same oversight,” she said. “I don’t think we were a ‘pill mill,’ I just think we didn’t know what to do with it,” she said.
Still, she said, she thinks the citations look worse than they are. She said the investigation into the clinic is disregarding the patients.
“Addicts are afraid of change,” she said. “This is really scaring them. They don’t trust other facilities.”
Patients said they are afraid of what will happen to them and to each other when the clinic closes.
“I hope this opens some eyes and they give this place a chance,” said Sarah Williams, a former patient who now assists the counselors. “Addicts are never going to be completely normal, but they have a shot.”