Table 3.

Perceptions of opioid agonist therapy with methadone

Domain	Representative quotes
Personal safety	“You’d walk out to the clinic and there would be a roll of dealers… Someone actually slashed me on my neck for a phone.”
Impaired cognitive functioning	“I knew I didn’t wanna do methadone forever. It’s like paralyzing, hypnotizing. It’s like being on heroin. I find the Suboxone to be more activating, like a little of high. I don’t find it down at all.”
Side effects	“Hearing about the after effects of methadone, it turned me away. I don’t want to leave one evil, and go to something more evil… we turn from a street junky to a government junky.”
Daily dosing of methadone	“The bad part was having to go there every day. And some days I couldn’t because of my job. I didn’t want them to know I was on methadone. I know I was protected under the law but they could still find reasons to fire me. There were days when I had to open the store at 7AM. Methadone program opens at 9:30, so, I’d be sick all day. Sundays were horrible for me. I was sick all Sunday into Monday morning. I would just kind of ride that out.”