BENNINGTON — Tucked into a nondescript strip mall downtown, Bennington’s new methadone clinic has seen about 70 patients walk through its one-way glass doors since opening in late June.
Inside, the building’s four hallways form a loop, offering patients a literal road to recovery. First-timers walk in to their right and visit with doctors in offices along the corridor one by one. They can get their first dose of methadone, a medicine prescribed for opioid use disorder, that day.
It’s the first time that people who live in Bennington County have access to the medication in their own backyard, which opens up access and provides stability for people, health officials and recovery coaches said.
With the clinic’s opening, Vermont now has a methadone clinic in each region of the state after building plans were complicated for years, said Kelly Dougherty, deputy commissioner of the Vermont Department of Health. The Bennington clinic offers a glimpse of how methadone can help people in recovery.
In past years, it was a job on its own to get on meds for recovery, said Dylan Jonhson, a recovery coach at Turning Point in Bennington.
One of Jonhson’s clients spent hours each day on the bus to a clinic in North Adams, Massachusetts. That trip would take up most of the client’s day, he said. And if they missed the bus, it could cause painful withdrawals and put their path to sobriety at risk.
Now, that client goes to the local clinic in town, which has offered them much more stability.
“They just got a job this week, and I guarantee you it’s because they didn’t have to go to North Adams,” Johnson said.
Many others also made the trek to North Adams regularly, said Sean Cossey, the clinic’s director. Now, Cossey’s trying to slowly funnel those people to the new clinic to make their lives easier. About 20% of the clinic’s clients so far have never received treatment before, he said.
“The only thing I can’t do is make them walk in. But if they do walk in, they’ll be met with respect, they’ll be met as a person,” Cossey said.
The clinic’s opening has been mostly celebrated by the community, Cossey said. About 50 people showed up for a July 23 ribbon cutting ceremony, he said. Then U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., and Rep. Paul Tonko, D-N.Y., came to tour the facility on July 29. Their visit sparked a roundtable discussion among local recovery groups about treating opioid use.
“Success rates in recovery are pretty low,” Johnson said. But methadone is considered the gold standard — and it’s important that people in town have the option for treatment, he said.
In 2024, 183 Vermonters died from opioid-related deaths, and five of those deaths happened in Bennington County, according to data from the Vermont Department of Health.
While many embrace the opening, there are still some in Bennington who have a stigma about methadone, Cossey said. He’s confident that stigma comes from a lack of education.
“We’re giving out medication to people that suffer from a clinically diagnosed disorder,” Cossey said.
It’s a highly regulated medication. The clinic was built around its pharmaceutical safe, Cossey said. That was just one required specification to follow regulations from The Drug Enforcement Administration. A $3.9 million grant from the state that lasts through July 2026 helped the clinic meet the requirements.
While methadone isn’t the only medication used to treat substance use disorder, many consider it to be the most effective. People who have been using opioids start by taking the medication every day at first, then wane off of it very slowly, Johnson said.
“It’s basically impossible to quit cold turkey,” Johnson said.
Methadone significantly reduces symptoms of withdrawal, which helps those prescribed the medication stabilize their life as they begin recovery, Johnson said. That stability can help people find housing, repair relationships in their life or gain employment, he said.
Johnson himself uses his experience in recovery to help others navigate the journey. He tried quitting without medications 15 to 20 times — but each time he “failed spectacularly,” he said with his eyes closed as he raised his hands in the air.
He then started taking suboxone, another medication to treat opioid use disorder, and it has helped him remain clean for 6 years. Johnson said it helped relieve painful body aches and gastrointestinal issues he suffered as withdrawal symptoms.
Now, he considers himself a success story and tries to help others through their own recovery. Johnson said he continues to take suboxone in small doses and hopes to be able to discontinue the medication completely soon.
Other facilities in the Bennington area, like small clinics or doctors offices, have offered other medications to treat opioid use disorder for years. But many think methadone has unique potential to help those in the early stages of recovery.
The stigma comes from the fact that methadone is technically a psychoactive drug, Johnson said. But if someone has used heroin for years, they will not feel a high from the medication, he said.
Other medications, like suboxone or buprenorphine, have blockers that stop people from feeling high if they continue using opioids while on the medication. With methadone, people can still feel the effects of other drugs. And that’s partly where the stigma comes from, Johnson said.
Patients at the Bennington clinic are closely monitored and must provide urine samples regularly, Cossey said. Patients prescribed methadone also receive counseling resources and are assigned a case manager, he said.
Patients take doses in a room about the size of a telephone booth in front of an employee who sits behind a counter. After the medication is ingested patients stay for about 20 minutes while medical professionals observe them.
Cossey said the facility is still reaching its full potential. There are still a number of staff positions available that are proving difficult to fill, he said. With more staff, the facility will be able to serve up to 400 patients, he said. Whether it’s someone’s second or tenth time in recovery, there’s no judgement, Cossey said.
“We try to meet them more than half way,” he said.
