32 churches and no methadone clinic: struggling with addiction in an opioid ‘treatment desert’
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Heather Menzel squirmed in her seat, unable to sleep on the Greyhound bus as it rolled through the early morning darkness toward Bakersfield, in California’s Central Valley. She’d been trapped in transit for three miserable days, stewing in a horrific sickness only a heroin addict can understand. Again and again, she stumbled down the aisle to the bathroom to vomit.
She hadn’t used since Chicago. She told herself that if she could just get through this self-prescribed detox, if she could get to her mother’s house in her hometown of Lake Isabella, Calif., all her problems would be solved.
“I’ve been through a lot of horrible, crazy stuff,” said Menzel, now 34. “I’ve been raped. I’ve been beaten up. I’ve been in prison. But trying to kick heroin on the Greyhound on the way home was the worst experience of my entire life.”
When she finally arrived at the Bakersfield bus station at 6 a.m. that day
