Suboxone Treatment Could Work for You
Any struggling opiate addict might consider the idea of Suboxone treatment in order to help overcome their addiction. This is a treatment in which the person who is addicted to opiates takes a medication every day instead of using their drug of choice. Thus, Suboxone is a maintenance therapy in that it is replacing the other drugs.
People might take this treatment who are addicted to different types of opiates. For example, someone who is hooked on heroin might end up on Suboxone, as someone who is addicted to prescription painkillers. It can be used to treat any opiate addiction.
The real question is whether or not this type of treatment is the right answer for someone. Most people who are hooked on opiates do not really need a maintenance therapy in order to recover. This is evidenced by the fact that many addicts get clean and sober all the time without resorting to such an extreme measure. So when does it make sense to look into this as a possible solution?
Most would agree that there are two cases where it makes sense to consider maintenance therapy:
1) The addict has tried repeatedly to get clean and sober and cannot do it using traditional recovery methods.
2) The addict suffers from serious chronic pain that is actually a severe limitation in their life without medicating it.
Of course, if both of these criteria are met, then it makes even more sense to try Suboxone.
The pill itself contains two medications, one of which is an opiate blocker (to help prevent abuse of the pill) and the other of which is a partial synthetic opiate. This partial synthetic opiate is not the same as full opiates, such as Methadone or Heroin or Vicodin. Full opiates can medicate the brain’s opiate receptors and flood them and overpower them until the person becomes so high that they go into a coma or stop breathing. But a partial opiate like Suboxone does not work that way in the brain, and does not overpower the opiate receptors in the same way as full opiates. So instead of getting the addict high it merely fills up the tank, so to speak, and helps to keep cravings and withdrawal symptoms at bay.
Because this pill is relatively new to the world, it is still quite expensive with no generics available. As such, many opiate addicts cannot really justify using it, because they can almost always get their drug of choice for the same price or even cheaper. So to some extent there are market forces in play here that dictate how much acceptance there is for this particular medication, because it is fairly expensive.
And then of course there is the controversy of whether or not an addict is really “clean” if they are using a maintenance therapy like Suboxone or Methadone. Based on what I have seen in working at a drug rehab for 5 years now, I would say that anyone using Methadone has to be really careful in terms of abuse, because they could easily be self medicating in a way that is clearly not healthy. Some people do take Methadone and it changes their life and they do not really abuse it. That is great. But it is a fine line and you have to be careful, that is for sure.
As for the Suboxone, I truly believe that there is even less abuse potential, and I think that anyone who is struggling that can actually benefit from the drug should do so. If it keeps you clean then it is worth it. But to be honest, I have seen a lot of people try to use Suboxone maintenance as their solution for opiate addiction and fail miserably at it. That is an informal opinion based on non-scientific research. I have simply observed a lot of people who do not do well using this therapy, though I am sure there are some success stories out there. But by no means is it a magic bullet, because I have seen dozens and dozens of failures with it.
But it is worth a try if everything else fails. If it works for you then it is worth the cost.
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