gorrie

Just looking for personal experience.

A year ago my AB was a chronic daily 24/7 users of oxys. I see that methadone might of been a route for him.

Since then AB has just been a weekend user. Out of 7 days he uses oxy's once maybe 2 times. But he goes 2 weeks without using as well. Paydays tend to be a trigger for him.

Everything I have been reading state the the methadone maintenance program is geared more towards the daily user.

Is this the case? Or have others successfully used the program when only a weekend user.

My concern is that AB is taking an addiction with occassional use to a full blown addiction to methadone and haven't to use every day.

logo

I was on methadone for 2 years 2 different times for opiate addiction. Methadone will block the effects of other opiates. I became a slave to Methadone. I had to take it every day 7 days a week at $13 a pop with no days off. I had to dose every day that was the rule at the clinic. Detoxing off of methadone was a 16 day detox. Cold turkey. With a lot of pain and misery. The second time I detoxed off of methadone using suboxone. It took 6 weeks of tapering and was for the most painless. The cost of this detox was over $1,000. There is no easy way to detox from opiates. When he gets sick and tired of being sick and tired maybe he will go through what he has to go through to get clean from opiates. NA worked for me and a few good clean friends. Logo

gorrie

logo, thank you for your response.

This is AB's first true try at recovery - just hoping he is giving himself the best shot.

It is odd, but he is defending his methadone treatment like he used to defend his drugs.

Mind you I am not attacking the treatment - I just asked for him to wait on his decision until his assessment at an intensive outpatient program monday.

In the end it is his decision and his recovery and his addiction.

KuanYin

In my opinion, Methadone is a good alternative to full blown opiate addiction. My AS is currently in Methadone Maintenance, and has taken his Methadone every single day for the past 18 months, driving a long distance from his home to the clinic daily until after one year he was eligible for take homes. When he was only on Methadone, he functioned extremely well. However like many addicts, he is a dual diagnosis, (has mental health issues underneath) ... and for whatever reason, he slowly started to use opiates on top of his 160mg/day dose of methadone. The other poster is right, Methadone is an opiate agonist, meaning the methadone blocks the chemical receptors in the brain so that the person does not feel the effects of the opiates. But what addicts figure out is that they take larger and larger and larger quantities of their DOC (oxy/roxi), or they take xanax bars with Methadone, or smoke weed to create that altered state they've become accustomed to. Now the problem with Methadone is, it is a respiratory system depressant, and so are opiates and the benzodiazepines (xanex, valium, k-pins), and even though the Methadone is blocking the opiate receptors in the brain so the person does not feel the euphoria, those opiates are still in the persons body and still negatively affecting (depressing) their respiratory system. Thus you may hear labored breathing, a wheezing sound, noisy sleeping.

Methadone can be a safe and effective, harm reduction approach to opiate addiction, if used correctly. Hopefully the clinics out there are providing lots of patient education.