Metadonmöten & Subuxonesessioner

The aim of this study was to depict and analyze the interactions that take place between patients and staff in a healthcare setting providing maintenance treatment for opioid addiction. More spe-cifically, the aim was to make the ritualized elements of the interaction visible and understanda-ble. The study was conducted at a maintenance treatment clinic located in the south of Sweden, through participant ethnography methods. During a period of roughly two months the author was present once or twice a week, mostly during weekday mornings, observing the daily life at the clinic. The data was then grouped into four analytic categories: Medication or Misuse, Lib-erator or Dictator, Tough Love, and “Basically They´re Just Kids”, and interpreted with help of Randall Collins’ theory of interaction ritual chains, with some complementary assistance of Nachman ben-Yehuda & Erich Goode’s theory of moral panics. The study shows that the dis-ciplinary nature of maintenance treatment is ever present at the clinic. However, the author inter-prets the staff to have adopted something of a parental role vis-a-vis the patients, as a strategy to induce emotional energy and tie it to the moral foundations of the organization: the sober way of life. With this approach, it seems to the author that the members of the staff are able to form close connections with the patients, as a strategy for ensuring the welfare of the patients as well as to make the disciplinary aspect of their daily work something less than a mere display of power