Methadone: Bad Boy of Drug Treatment: What Works & What Doesn't

Don't believe everything you hear - get the facts about methadone treatment

"Aren't they just getting high at taxpayer's expense?"

"Does methadone really 'eat your bones'?"

"I thought Suboxone meant we wouldn't need methadone anymore!"

"Do they have to stay on that stuff forever?"

Methadone is not the "liquid handcuffs"- addiction is the handcuffs- methadone can be the key to those handcuffs, if it is used effectively.

Methadone is one tool in opiate treatment. As with any tool, it can be used or it can be abused. In trying to control opiate addiction, we need every tool we can get.

LEARN-

Mistaken Beliefs of the General Public

One of the most destructive factors in methadone treatment is the disdain conveyed by many of our client's families, health care and social service providers, as well as much of the recovery community.

Misinformation Addicts tell Each Other

Many of the myths about methadone are perpetuated by the clients themselves. Some clients are willing to believe whatever they hear in the parking lot more than from the staff. The clients who use treatment successfully aren't the ones hanging out in the parking lot badmouthing the clinic. They are back at work, and they won't advertise their success, for fear of being shamed about their choice of treatment.

What Doesn't Work in Methadone Treatment

Some things don't work very well-mostly "old school" ideas like shaming, or trying to treat the addiction without treating the psychiatric problems.

What Does Work

There are a lot of effective new ways to help people really change how to deal with "trigger thoughts", and self destructive beliefs about themselves and the world, and how to control uncomfortable emotions like anger, anxiety, and depression. In the last 20 years, we have learned a lot about how to help people change-

Some Hard Decisions

Some problems in addiction treatment have to do with larger cultural issues- many addiction problems start with prescriptions for pain or anxiety. We need to learn, and to teach our kids, that not everything can be fixed by a pill- -

The Future of Opiate Treatment

It won't be just Suboxone, or just methadone, or just Narcan patches. In opiate treatment we will need every tool we can get.

Addiction can't be contained by jail, and it won't be ignored. It will continue to pull down our culture until we acknowledge its power, and grapple with it in realistic and effective ways.