I just left this reply on another thread, but Im going to copy it here because it is our experience with vivitrol. Short and sweet though: Id recommend.
--------
I can tell you our experience with naltrexone. My husband suffered a sports injury and that got him started on pain meds. I don’t think he ever advanced to heroin, but before he quit he did try out Bezos (Xanax) and coke. When he decided to end his use; he first tried to stop on his own. He didn’t make it through that as he started to get really ill. From what we were told by the doctors, the life threatening severe withdrawal symptoms he experienced were from the benzos; not the opiates. The opiates just make you completely miserable but in most cases the withdrawals wont actually kill you.
After his attempt failed; he did not want to go through severe withdrawals again. So what we ended up doing was opting for a treatment called Rapid Detox specifically for the opiates. (It didn’t handle the benzo use; but they had other ways to assist him with this while he was hospitalized). Im not sure if you are familiar with this procedure. A lot of people are not.
Basically, you are put under sedation, all the monitors and everything just like if you were in the ICU are available to you. The meds they give you to eliminate the opiates from your body would cause unbearable pain if you were awake. The whole process is hard on your body, and that is why it is done in the hospital, and with full monitoring. The procedure takes about a day, and then my husband stayed in the hospital for about 4 days. And its expensive and not covered by insurance.
Maybe more than you wanted to know; but at the end of the process once all the opiates are removed; you are injected with naltrexone. This is what my husband did. So as far as side effects from this; he really hasn’t had any. If he did it was in the very beginning when he was still suffering some from the benzos and we attributed it to that. It was not bad.
You understood the way it works…. Im not a scientist, so this may not be technically correct, but the drug latches onto receptors and prevents opiates from attaching if you were to take them. Because of this, you cant get high.
After my husband went through the detox he entered a non-12 step rehab.
He did 90 days which included some outpatient, and now he is about 5 months clean; back home with me and out son, and he is back to work. He does continue to get counseling once a week, and has made a lot of lifestyle changes. We also worked a program of marriage counseling simultaneously with his rehab which was very helpful to us. We continue to do this, but only once a month now. As for the naltrexone injections; it was suggested that he take it for at least 6 months, and the reason for that is because it is also suggested ( and may be required in some places ) that you get follow up counseling – sort of like to double team you and make sure you work through the issues that got you hooked to begin with. I guess they figure 6 months time and you should have made enough progress, and also broke the mental chain of addiction to where statistically you’ve a better chance to remain free of opiates. But, my husband did not want to continue taking it. It was just a mental thing for him. He had this feeling like by taking it, and knowing it was blocking the high it would somehow interfere with the work he was doing mentally/emotionally in rehab & he didn’t want setbacks later on when he would go off the injections. So he only took it for two months, and then he had time to feel confident the shot was not really what was bringing out the changes in him. He had to do what was best for him, and well it appears to have worked for him so far, so I cant argue.
And also, I should tell you about me. Initially while he was actively using I did a lot of reading and research, and then once he went into rehab I started working with the family counselor there. It helped me a lot to work through my own issues, worries, and teach me healthy ways to deal with my husband’s recovery and our future. Now I see a therapist about twice a month.
Anyway, hope sharing our experience can help you just a bit. If you have more questions that I can answer, just send me a note.