Suboxone’s complicated relationship with traditional recovery | Suboxone Talk Zone: A Suboxone Blog

This is a great article for those readers on Suboxone.  It will help you better deal  with those in 12 step recovery who profess to have a more “authentic” recovery because they didn’t use Suboxone. Along with the great things this article points out,  It’s also good to remember, too, that it is a RARE individual these days who doesn’t use ANY drugs/medications while in recovery: from cigs to coffee to antidepressants to “non-narcotic” sleeping pills.

So that our readers don’t think I agree with the section on METHADONE, I would like to address that section  which states that methadone is “just” another antagonist and that it doesn’t prevent craving or drug obession.  The author seems to be implying that being on methadone is somehow different than being on Suboxone.  That being on methadone is essentially like being on heroin or OxyContin or Diluadid.

I am sure that most of us on methadone that are doing well will know this isn’t true.  Of course, the writer of this article has not worked with methadone patients, in a clinic setting.   So he has no real way of knowing the joy that dr. Payte (one of methadone’s greatest Doctors) described in this quote: “”From a clinical perspective, few practioners experience the satisfaction of participating in a process that restores and enhances quality of life to the extent of methadone treatment.  After thirty years, I still marvel at the corrective properties of methadone on the human brain…..”  I am sure that this quote describes the same feeling that the Doctor writing SuboxoneTalk describes when treating Suboxone patients.

Of course, there are the scientific facts that make methadone different than other agonists TOO: it’s long acting, maintenance doses help restore endocrine function to nearly normal, tolerence to sedation without tolerence to craving reduction or increased withdrawal symptoms and opioid blockade created by methadone. The truth is, methadone IS different than other opioid agonists.  Thats why it works.  That is why Dr.’s Dole and Nyswander chose it when they started the research into methadone treatment.   They were actually studying something completely different than opiate addiction, when they stumbled upon the “corrective properties” of methadone.  It’s what a lot of us describe as “magic”.  The seemingly overnight loss of obsession, craving and NEED.  We all know the wonderful, warm world of an opiate high: but we also know the perpetual hunger for MORE with other drugs.  The NEED to feed that hunger goes away with methadone and suboxone and that is what makes them so wonderful.  When we were on other opiate drugs we could concentrate on little else.  It was hard to imagine there would ever be a time in our lives again when we could find contentment, happiness or confidence that didn’t involve getting high.

Dr. Dole had subjects maintained on morphine.  They spent their days sitting in the TV room waiting for their next shot.  Obsessing over the amount, how often and how high they could get.  When it came time to humanely detox his participants he gave them methadone.  When he saw the miraculous things that happened while his subjects started on this drug, he decided to start a study of methadone as a REPLACEMENT drug like insulin.  One of his patients started to work towards a GED.  Another found a job and housing.  Another, an artist, started to paint again.

So I guess my question is:  Shouldn’t we just be happy that we now have OPTIONS?  Those with other addictions DON’T yet have options, I consider myself LUCKY to have TWO MEDICATION options… every single day I am thankful my addiction can be put into “remission” while people with other addictions struggle for this peace day in and day out.  I certainly don’t consider my treatment (or any one elses) more “worthy” of the term recovery.

Imagine two cancer patients fighting over who’s “remission” is more authentic, who’s treatment is “better than”?  If they are both in remission,they are both happy, healthy and without cancer (in our case drug obsession) wouldn’t that be just plain ole SILLY?

Really all we all have to consider is our OWN recovery and what it means to us.  We know our truth, and because of that there really is no need to compare.

AFTER it’s all said and done I think this sentence FROM THE SUBOXONETALK article says it best:

“”But for now, the treatment community would be best served by recognizing each other’s strengths, rather than pointing out weaknesses.”"