Hi There 123,

I did not feel that you were being critical nor do I feel as if I was being attacked. My comment regarding Methadone was not directed at you at all.

It would be very nice if we(addicts) were not demonized in society. It is something as addicts, whether it is regarding our use of Methadone or illegal activity we face all the time.

The myths of Methadone, it is a subject we have been discussing for some time now. Methadone is not an opiate, it is a synthetic narcotic that is derived from an opiate. I don't believe either that Methadone is like heroin at all and never have I ever felt I was trading one addiction for another.

When I was using heroin, I had no other purpose in life but to use. I took form my family, I stole to buy dope, I did whatever I could to get high each day. I felt nothing and when I did feel something, I used more and more to avoid those feelings. Methadone is a choice that we make as addicts addicted to narcotics. It is funny to me how many heroin addicts demonize Methadone as something so bad. I hear comments all the time from heroin addicts who describe their own Methadone treatment as something so bad, they are trading one addiction for the next, but yet everyday they go to the clinic wait in line to get dosed and go home to do it all again the next day. I am not putting anyone down here at all, so let's get that clear. So why is it that they don't choose another option to get clean? Is it the lesser of two evils? Maybe.

 

Look at it this way. When your watching T.V. at home and you are bombarded by ads for soap or food or a car, most likely what you see, you are going to buy. Tide claims to clean your clothes and get them outdoor fresh, well hey we all like the outdoors, so you buy it! The same goes for Methadone and those who oppose it or for those who agree. I think for the most part Methadone gives those individuals a chance to get through some otherwise difficult times. So often I hear people say that Methadone is harder to kick. The only difference is Methadone takes longer to kick or the withdrawl can last longer. But in fact when asked those who describe it say the physical symptoms were not as bad, it was the length of  time that was hard. I think more people would make an informed decision if they were getting better messages from those around them. Who is going to make a good decision when their buddy is telling them Methadone is much worse. Not often do you hear anyone say, "Well for me it was difficult and I would not choose it,  but you may have good success!" Not very often. We are a society that  goes with what is in or with what we are told is best. Hey the bigger the ad the better, Right?

My concern is that we need to be speaking from our own perceptions and instead of steering someone away from making a choice regarding Methadone Treatment, we need to support treatment! The internet has become the place where people go for information and someone will be less inclined to choose Methadone Treatment if they are only getting the negative view.

 

I have been on both sides of the coin. I have tried almost all the treatment programs available, except for rapid detox, and  Methadone is the best option for me at this time. I don't expect everyone to jump on the Methadone bandwagon and sing its praises, but I do hope to hear from those on it talk about how their life has changed for the better.

The system is not equipped to deal with the physical aspects of addiction. Methadone clinics run like a business and many of us find that to be less than humanizing, but a business it is. Most clinics only get partial funding from the government. Meaning they must make up for the rest of the costs somewhere else. Methadone is the cheapest drug to make, only pennies per dose. Hey, I am not sticking up for the system. I have been working in it and trying to fight it for a long time, but when you look at what it takes to keep the system running, it makes more sense. When I first went on Methadone, I went to a clinic in Long Beach, CA. It was run down neighborhood and this particular clinic had hundreds on the program. I payed 150.00 dollars to get Maintenance. Relatively cheap for Methadone. At the clinic I am at now, they only serve a few hundred if that and their cost to keep the clinic running is outrageous. I now pay over 200.00 dollars. I spent almost as much to use heroin in a few days.

I look at it this way. Being on Methadone gives me many more choices than I had being on Heroin. I have never once had any euphoria and although sometimes I feel a bit tired, it is a feeling I can deal with. I think if there was a better understanding of how opiates worked in the body and the effect they had long term, it would be easier for many to make a better informed choice. What do the clinics offer, some pamphlet with cartoon characters talking about risks and statistics! Appealing???? No, I agree more information needs to make its way into clinics. The counselors need more training and the costs can be too high. At my clinic, they were going to charge me $30 for a doctors visit I did not need. I fought it. They said that I needed a physical and I told them I would get one with my insurance and send them the doctors notes. When they threatened me with admin detox for non-compliance, I asked to see the the Mandated Guidelines for Methadone Administration put out by the state. Well, they backed down quickly. Why? In CA, there is nothing in the Guidelines that states I could be put on Admin. Detox because I refused a physical that is not a requirement of the Maintenance Program, I had one the first day. The clinic was looking to make a few extra bucks.

 

I don't want to tell anyone what to do, but I would rather see that they had all the information they needed when making a decision.

Cheryl

 

I really liked what Leo had to say about accepting personal responsibility for my failures in my half assed attempts at recovery.

 

Methadone Maintenace was used as a stepping stone for me and provided a service in order for me to get clean. I guess you could call it a success story in that I did eventually leave it behind me.

 

In all honesty, and this is just for me, I didn't really know if I could be clean at the time I was on Maintenance. I didn't make a committment to anything but not being sick anymore...in between getting high.

 

To kick methadone FOR ME was harder because it WAS longer.  I don't know receptors from shiola ...All I know is that I feel like I did before I ever used anyhting at all having been off all substances for a while now.

 

I know some people need to get on methadone and I will SAY THIS VERY LOUD..BE CAREFUL. Know what you are getting into...Methadone is not the only show in town and there are other treatment options.

 

I care about the  kids - the young addicts that walks into their first clinic not knowing.... that while they are looking for a way to stop being sick...they could be signing on for a very long time.

 

I am sure Claude and Cheryl may disagree, but that's my experience.

 

I too don't want to tell anyone what to do, but I would rather have them be well informed than blindly sign on.

 

Peace

Hey Curio, Curiosity,

I agree with what everyone has said here regarding Methadone. There is no right and wrong here. For someone who is 20 years old, I might take a look at their past use and suggest just kicking it and a 12-step program. Someone who has only been using a few months does not necessarily need to be on Methadone.

I hate to talk numbers and statistics, but heroin is one tough drug to stop.

I went through all the traditional types of recovery before I went to Methadone. I had been using for years before I made that decision and with several attempts already trying to kick in the "cold turkey" fashion, I had decided Methadone was the best and safest option for me. It is an option and I would suggest to someone to try and kick, if it was something that had not been done.

It does not take long before we develop an addiction. For someone with multiple tries at detox, Methadone may be the one thing that affords them the opportunity to get clean. Then we all have our own perception of what is clean. 12-step programs say Methadone is a drug and addictive, one is not clean.

I think it is a decision left up to the individual. If someone came to me and asked me what I thought of Methadone, my answer would be, "it is working for me now and I am not using heroin!" I would help them weigh out their options and make sure they had all the info.

The system is not perfect and I would never claim it to be, but as I said we are a society that "goes with the flow!" Rapid Detox, the ads claim it to be the answer to addiction and the best way to get off of narcotics. What they don't tell you is the risks. In Hollywood in a Hotel room a doctor has been detoxing patients in this so called Rapid Detox. Over a few days he sedates them with a general anesthesia and after a few days they are over the hump. But the big problem is that this person is administered a narcotic-antagonist and when they leave after a few days and go use, they drop over and die.

For fun, I called one of these so called Rapid Detox Centers here in L.A. and I asked for information. Oh, they fed me all the promises and I would be cured of my addiction. Those were the receptionists exact words, "I would be cured of my addiction." So, I asked her what would happen if I use after this is done?" Her answer, "Oh, you won't, you are cured!" I pursued on, "What about overdose if I do use?" Again," You won't use again, it is guaranteed!" I hung up literally stunned. I called the AMA and the Better Business Bureau and found out this one doctor has 31 complaints and 4 ongoing malpractice suits. All 4 claims are for OD's that happened after he did his magic cure. One only a few blocks away from this hotel.

It is just the way we work, we go for what is in. If we hear something negative regarding say, Methadone, we are less likely to not pursue it as an alternative.

If I was new here and reading through the posts and came across the messages regarding Methadone and how bad it is, I might decide it is not for me. Or is it. My point........It did not work for you, but it may work for someone else. If you look at the statistics, Methadone still ranks up there as having the highest success rates in terms of opiate addiction and that includes the number of people who detox off without returning to using. More often that not, we hear the negative side and not enough people coming forward to say, "Yeah it worked for me!" Why? Once again, no one wants to be associated with something perceived as negative.

Look back through time. If you did not have Jordache printed across the back pocket of your jeans, you were just not cool. It is that way with everything. If it promises to cure you, fix you, make you better in some way, we jump at it! 

 

I am not asking anyone to drop what they are currently doing and go on the nearest Methadone Maintenance Program. My only jive, Ask for the info. I went to a conference a few years back and they talked about Methadone and the counselors described their frustrations. The information they did put out, ended up in the garbage or torn up in front of the clinic. Patients or clients were not interested, they stated the number one priority as, "Getting in and out as quickly as possible!" So, is the info there or are we just too busy or just not interested. We all want a quick fix, when it comes to everything we do.

 

And this is just my opinion......

I think anyone who attempts to stop heroin use and make changes is doing the best thing for themselves, but there is no right and wrong in addiction treatment. If it works it works, for you!

 

 Thanks,

Cher,

I’ll try and address your points one by one.  By the way, I just went back and read this whole thread again, and realized that we’ve already said a lot on this subject.  I’d recommend everyone to go back and read the entire thread again if you haven't recently, as it cleared up a lot for me about what's already been said, etc.

I’m about 98% sure(I’m not really 100% sure of anything.) that methadone is an opiate.(all wording aside please: it acts in exactly the same way as an opiate, although it’s synthetic)  This is almost never directly said within the clinic system, and perhaps the recovery group community.(I wouldn’t really know, as I’ve never been in any kind of rehab program, or NA, etc.)  None of my counselors at my clinic have known this when I first started with them.  They’ve had to call down to the doctor to find out once I presented them with this information.  It is usually described as a medication that blocks your opioid receptors so you won’t get high on heroin while using it, or removes the symptoms of physical withdrawal, etc.  See my posts above.(message #18 of this thread for instance)  I think you’ll notice that most methadone clinic documents won’t directly say that it isn’t an opiate.  In fact, you can usually find that it is an opiate in medical texts.  In support of my claim, look at our very own HoH “opiates�?section, which lists methadone near the bottom:  http://groups.msn.com/HeriticsofHeroin/opiates.msnw  Also see MedicineNet.com’s definition here: http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=11661  Or I invite you to call your doctor and see what he/she says.

Methadone will make you feel high if you take enough and/or don’t have a high tolerance.  Consider that when you are admitted to a clinic, you are necessarily already addicted to opiates, and therefore have a high tolerance.  You will get sick if you don’t keep taking it.  This goes hand in hand with feeling high.  It’s just that if you are already opiate dependent, then you don’t really get high anymore unless you’re sick.  I know that when I started methadone I wasn’t really getting ghigh any more from heroin.  Unless I did a shitload of it, of course.  Same thing with methadone; you will get high if you do enough of it.  If you did some without a prior heroin addiction, you would get high, and develop an opiate dependence with repeated usage.  This is the difference, by the way, between methadone and insulin for diabetics.  It’s through the use of opiates that you develop the physical need for opiates.  A diabetic does not need insulin from the use of insulin.  This is the very definition of addiction for many.  If methadone were illegal and costly, it would cause the same problems as heroin.  You would have as little choice in the matter as with heroin.

If you were to take heroin a little bit at a time in exact amounts and lower your dosage ever so slightly each day, you wouldn’t feel as much physical pain either.  But from what I’ve found from kicking, a long protracted “reduction cure�?will cause you to feel worse overall.  You’ll feel a little pain all the time, and it will slowly drive you mad.  This is why I’m suspicious of slowly tapering off methadone.  It’s the fact that it’s a slower acting opiate that perhaps makes it harder to quit.  Although I’ve been hoping with all my heart that it’ll be easier to quit methadone than I suspect, it’s not looking too good.  I’m thinking of switching to Buprenorphine.  I’d like to find out more about rapid detox too.  Has anyone here actually tried that before, or know of any reliable sources of information on it?

It’s possible to take opiates occasionally, or even somewhat regularly, in smallish amounts and for years, and still not be addicted.  It takes long, repeated usage of a considerable amount to cause withdrawals.  So someone could go through a light habit and then switch to methadone for a while and then quit, and not even feel that bad.  We all are at different depths of addiction.  So it becomes confusing when someone says that they’ve detoxed off methadone before and it was easy, and then someone else says it was a living hell.  We naturally tend to over-generalize things, and I think that explains the difference in opinion.  The clinics should of course tell you that the longer you’re on methadone, the harder it will be to quit.  But that goes against their need for a profit.  It’s really pretty sad, seeing as opiates tend to sell themselves to the addict.

You said that you wonder why people that dislike methadone don’t choose another treatment option.  What other options do you suggest?  Even if I did think methadone were a bad thing for me, I’m not sure what my other options are.  I don’t think I could have gone through kicking heroin again when I started maintenance.  What else is there, that works?  Nothing I can think of.  Plus, methadone makes you feel good(it gets you “well�?, so it’s the perfect option for most addicts who don’t really want to get clean but can’t afford to keep doing heroin.

For me, I find that I can do OK on methadone.  My life is much better then it would be if I were still using heroin.  I hope to use it like Curio did, as a “stepping stone�?to something else.  But there’s something missing in my life.  There’s this haze over my consciousness, which subdues my emotions.  It’s almost imperceptible.  Opiates do a great job of covering up their effects.  As William Burroughs says, every junky has a particular blind spot to their addiction.  I mostly know what I’m missing from what I vaguely remember of my life before all this started.  But it’s been so long.  I sometimes think I’m confusing my feeling lethargic and emotionally empty with getting older.  I just hope I don’t completely forget what I’m missing.

Oh, I wanted to ask you, a clinic in CA does have the right to require that we take a physical somewhere every year, right?  Thanks.

Onthe1

Claude,

Do you mean earlier in this thread?  If so, yes, that's what prompted me to do further research.  You said methadone acts on the mu receptors.  If you're referring to something else, plz post.  Thanks.  I'll post again if I figure out more.

 

Onthe1

Hi 123,

Being a nurse, I have tons of medical books on Pharmocology and Drug Handbooks as well as a PDR(Physicians Desk Reference) which is the same book your doc may use when prescribing Methadone. It clearly states in all of the books I have looked in  that Methadone is a Narcotic Analgesic or Opioid. Methadone does not block the receptor and I think this is the cause of your confusion. A drug such as Narcan, blocks the receptors. Methadone binds to the receptors, which is why when you use you cannot get the high produced as you normallt would if you were not on Methadone.

Of course one can get high on  Methadone if they take more than the prescribed dose. Let me re-iterate this; More than the prescribed dose. In saying that, I could get a buzz if I take more than the prescribed dosage of say, Benadryl or Nyquil. If someone was to come into the hospital with pain and was to receive Methadone by I.V., the preperation for Methadone given IV is very different to that taken orally and the usual dose would around 2.5mg for the average sized adult. . When someone comes into the Methadone clinic to get on a Maintenance Program, they may start at 30-40mg and go up over a short period. All clinics must start the dose at this level, if they do start at a higher level, they must document why, what their rationale is for this dose. Reason being, most patients will either play down their daily use and that the dope out there varies in purity.

 

Since heroin or opiate addiction started becoming a real problem, we are talking many, many years ago, Doctor's, researchers, and others in the field began to study the effects of opiates on the brain. In fact treating opiate addiction with opiate addiction is an old, old study. In times of the civil war, there were hundreds addicted to Morphine. Hell, they doped them up and sent them back out to fight. What they learned is that opiates change the perception of how one feels pain and that includes the emotional response as well. So, these soilders became addicted to Morphine and no one knew what to do with them. So the docs decided that they could wean them off by giving them Morphine and lowering the dose each day by small increments until either their symptoms were gone or they could handle them. Being that they learned that Morphine not only changed the perception of the physical pain, but that it also changed the way these guys responded to the trauma of war. This concept is why Methadone use became so popular and that it worked so well. It was a very long acting drug, had minimal side-effects, and allowed the user to deal with the emotional pain they were dealing with. Pain that may have led to drug use in the first place. Opiates change the perception on pain on a emotional level and if you talk to most addicts, they will tell you about either a traumatic childhood or a traumatic event or feelings of low self-esteem. This all makes opiates very desirable. Hey, who wants to hurt. This is why Methadone is so successful, because it allows someone to deal with other problems without having to deal with the withdrawl symptoms. Now, I am not going to say, this works for everyone and I agree that most clinics are not appropriately staffed to handle the problems the clients may be dealing with, but when it is successful it can be really helpful.

 

Whether it be Methadone or Bupe or some other type of treatment, the benefits outweigh. Obviously Methadone is keeping you clean or to a greater extent, but when you look at it from  statistics, Methadone has the highest rate of success at this time. Some of the newer drugs will hopefully catch on and give addicts more options. To keep pushing that attitude of it is only replacing one drug for another can be dangerous, especially to someone who has had multiple attempts at getting clean or detox. Which is my point to all of this.....We all have a right to our own opinions, but we are more likely to go with what we hear to be the best. I would much rather see someone make a choice to get on Methadone, than to continue using because he felt he/she felt they had no other options. How many people are on the internet searching for help. I said it in an earlier post, it is the largest resource for information and the info is easy to get for anyone.

Hey, I never say to anyone, Methadone is the only answer, for ME it is right now!

 

It all sounds like better living through chemistry. We are human beings, and for a very long time the pharmaceutical companies are getting rich by adverstising their band aid fixes on many different illnesses.

 

I just had lunch with a woman who is in her 24th year of methadone maintenance. Interestingly enough, she stated maintenace for her is a "lifestyle" in and of itself.

 

She gained 80 lbs, in the last 2 years and has a myriad of other physical problems...she doesn't even recognize herself anymore and feels "flat" emotionally. She rambles in her speech and thought process and feels stuck at this point. Last year she detoxed down to 8 mlgs. and the idea of getting off terrified her. She is back up to 80mlgs. Everyone she has talked to that is on methadone as long as she has been has similar complaints. She too had tried every other form of abstaining from heroin and has resigned herself to methadone maintenance.

 

She's alive. I guess that's all that matters.

 

 

Well, she's alive, but that reminds me of something I’ve been thinking about, how alive she really is.  The feeling I get on opiates, as we seem to agree on, is that my emotions are heavily subdued with this kind of cloud over everything.  Again, it's barely perceptible.  The opiates themselves seem to cover up their effects almost perfectly.  But the net effect is somewhat like the feeling that my life has much less meaning.  The last seven or eight years(two years on and off heroin, and about six on methadone) seem like they hardly even mattered.  They mattered some, sure, and this feeling is partly because of what I've done in those years too, which is to say not much.  But I think methadone has a part in that too.  I can't help thinking sometimes that if I'm going to spend the rest of my life on methadone, my life is just not worth that much compared to what it would be otherwise.  I’m not saying I would kill myself, at least not if I stayed where I am right now on an emotional level.  No, it’s just a shame that I can’t feel everything.  Quitting to me has become a question of if I want to experience life to the fullest or not.<o:p></o:p>

 <o:p></o:p>

The really scary part of your story there is that she has problems thinking clearly.  I can understand that being emotionally subdued can make you kind of not care enough to really think things through, but I've never heard that methadone actually causes any permanent kind of damage like that.  Have you?  I mean, if she were to quit, could she gain back her mental faculties?  That's what I really want to know.  I'm hoping to someday return to a non-opiated life so that I've just sort of taken a break for these last several years.  In terms of side effects, the worst I've heard about methadone, besides it's addictive quality, is that it causes your teeth to decay.  I've gotta believe that, since I've needed six root canals in the last several years.  My dentist says he's never seen teeth decay so fast.  I do brush my teeth and floss at least once a day, by the way.<o:p></o:p>

 

Onthe1<o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

Cher,

I do realize that opioids/opiates bind to receptors, as they are agonists.  And yes, I know that Narcan is an antagonist.  What I was pointing out was that methadone is often referred to as blocking the effects of heroin.  I feel this is misleading beacuse it is not an antagonist, and only blocks the effects of opiates in so much as you are already "opiated".  "Narcotic analgesic" and "opioid" are terms that to me don't rule out the possibility of the substance being an opiate.  An opioid is a synthetic opiate.

 

Benadryl (diphenhydramine) makes me feel dizzy with just one pill, but it's not an "opiated" dizzyness, IOW it can't get me "well" if I'm dope sick.  By the way, I needed to buy a lot of Benadryl recently and noticed that it's much cheaper to buy it in the form of generic sleeping pills which contain the same amount of diphenhydramine as Benadryl, and have no other active ingredients.  There aren't any other ingredients in these that are not listed as active and would have any significant effects, are there?  I have another question too.  You said the average adult dose of IV methadone is about 2.5g.  What is the average adult dose of the oral liquid for those without a tolerance.  Just curious.  Oh, I saw some nursing handbooks at a local bookstore recently, with pictures of lots of pills.  I'm sure you know what I'm talking about; there were lots of them.  I was thinking of buying one of these just to have that information at hand.  I guess I'm just wondering if you had any comments on them, like if one in particular is a good one, or maybe there's a website with the same information so I don't even need one.  The pictures are essential so you can see what is written on the pills.  Thanks in advance.

 

You said that patients tend to downplay their daily usage of heroin.  Did you mean the opposite, so they would get more methadone?  I know that's what I would probably assume if I was going into intake.  I would assume others did the same so I'd get enough and not be sick.  When I actually did start on maintenance, I unfortunately assumed that I could just be as accurate as possible and they would respond in turn.  It took about six months for me to discover that I needed a higher dose than the 40mg I started at, and that I could set my own dose to whatever level I wanted.  I can't help wondering if that played a big role in my continuing to use for so long after I started maintenance.

 

That's some interesting history you gave.  I would have to argue with what you said about "methadone being so successful" though.  If you mean compared to other current treatment options then I might have to agree.  Of course, it depends on what you want out of your treatment.  If your goal is to be completely opiate-free someday, then it becomes a tricky problem.  I'm really not sure one way or the other.  On the one hand, it will let you live a relatively normal life again, but the longer you are opiate dependent, the harder it is to quit.  I'm not saying you can't quit after being on methadone for 40 years, but it's going to be a lot harder.  If methadone weren't available, what would someone like that have done instead?  They might be dead.  A definite possibility, even though it's way overblown by our media.  OTOH, they might go through a little hell and then be clean for the rest of their lives.  Or somewhere in between these two extremes.  But my point is that it's really hard to know what's gonna happen.  That's why I really wouldn't want to push methadone on anyone, or tell them it's no good either.  I'm afraid I really have to disagree with what you call the "danger" of saying negative things about methadone on this forum..  You're hoping that the uninformed will notice your positive comments and try methadone based on what you say, but it works the other way around too.  It can have very negative consequences.  For an example, see Curio's last response, where maybe someone thought they were going to be cured of opiate addiction, but ended up addicted for life instead.

 

As for myself, I was only using for about four months when I signed up for maintenance.  Before that I was clean for about three months.  I've gotta think that maybe it would have been better to just quit everything.  But even so, if I can quit methadone in the next few years, I will still consider it a success.  If I'm turning into a "lifer" now, it'll be a failure.

 

btw, just for the record, are you methadone advocates volunteers?  You don't get any material benefit from that position, right? (other than helping people, of course)

 

Onthe1

In response to the original question way back b4 we rambled OT, I don't think ne1 mentioned the link in HoH's links page(a helpful and large list btw) to a list of substances and how long they last when it comes to UA's:

 

 

The times seem a bit short, but now that I think about it, none of my expereiences with my own UA's disagree.

 

Onthe123