Medication Assisted Sobriety

Let me put the disclaimer right out there to start with: This is strictly my opinion and my opinion only. I have no research or whatnot to back up my own opinion.

There are programs out there like methadone maintenance programs to help me heroin addicts sober. I don't know off the top of my head how successful they are, but in the grand scheme of treatment and sobriety, every little bit helps. With the treatment we have today, there is still only about a 50%-50% shot at actually getting sober. I believe this to be the reasons that insurance companies are not always hyped about paying for treatment services. I have heard on average it takes people 4-5 times through treatment to really get it. If that is true, we need some help.

So, there are a couple of medications out there like Suboxone, Antabuse and a few others that are suppose to be the more "take a pill, magical" cure. Antabuse makes people projectile vomit if they are taking it and choose to drink. Suboxone is a drug to assist with cravings and if people relapse, I believe Suboxone decreased the "high" sensation that people get. There are side effects and pretty grave ones if you ask me, but if you are so chronically ill and dying from your addiction anyway, why not try? One of the bummers here is that you have to be taking it to work. If I really really want to drink today and I don't care about the consequences, you can bet your last dollar bill, I am not going to take my Antabuse and do whatever the hell I want. Again, the work of recovery comes in here whether it be AA, religion, Women in Sobriety, counseling, addiction treatment, group therapy.....all of these have been proven to work when the patient is willing!

Here in lies the main problem with medication assisted sobriety: no medication, no pill can ever replace the work  that needs to be done in changing one's life. I just hope when people are put on drugs like this, they know that. If there was a pill to stop alcoholism, that would be wonderful, but we are far from that. So, there are some pretty hardcore abstinence advocates out there that don't believe if you are taking any synthetic time of drugs to assist with sobriety, you are not actually sober. I am inclined to disagree on this one. I take 2 anti-depressant which are artificially stimulating dopamine and serotonin in my brain, does that mean I am not sober? This is exactly what drug do, albeit on a much grander scale.....Additionally, I know opiate addicts who have had surgery and were prescribed opiates for pain management. They took the medications AS prescribed for the short term and immediately got themselves back to an abstaining standpoint. They do not lose their sobriety date in the eyes of AA. If an addict thought they had to suffer through surgical pain with tylenol....bad things start happening. It is when the drug starts to be abuse again (taken in higher doses, longer than prescribed, obtained illegally) - sorry you lose your date, time to start over.

I am of the opinion, good God, let's give a person any leg up we can to get them sober. The people I have seen in my treatment and in AA were, and still are dying from this disease. The annual cost of treatment, ER visits and the cost of nonproductive people are in the billions per year. A pill is in no means the end all and be all, but if it can reduce cravings and give a beaten down person a chance at getting sober, I say why not? I do think it should be short term in use. All those drugs unfortunately can be abused or sold on the streets. If I remember correctly, doctors have to receive a special certification to prescribe methadone and suboxone because of their abuse potential. Yes, it should remain highly restricted and not the first line treatment. In reality, the number of suicides, overdoses, etc related to substance abuse is on the rise way faster than the treatment accessible to people.

Personally, I would have liked a medication to help me get past those first 6 months. I got put into a monitoring program - that was probably one of the most helpful things to get me to a clearer mind. The brain is just really whacked out in the first 6 months. No matter how much I, personally, desired to be sober, I just couldn't get past my own addicted mind. I was still obsessed and making excuses left and right for why I needed to drink. I needed some major consequences. I got them, eventually. I fear to think what would have happened to me had I not taken the path that I did. I honestly think I would have attempted to move out of state and continued my drinking binge farther for the people who cared about me. If I had been offered a 3 month supply of a drug to help take craving off of the table, I would have taken it. If I had been offered a drug that made it impossible for me to feel drunk, I think I would have taken it. I don't really care if you think that I am sober or not doing this, I would have been trying to do what I thought I needed to do to stay sober.

Anyway, I will get off of my soapbox for the time being. Hope all is well with my readers out there, again, as always, I am grateful to have you.

XOXOXOX