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Is Methadone Harder to Quit than Heroin?
Methadone is a common drug that is given to help a person get through a heroin detox. However, it is not accurate to say that methadone is easier or harder to quit than heroin, but it can be effective at helping people get through a drug detox.
About Methadone Addiction
Methadone is commonly used in a medically supervised environment to help people overcome opiate addictions. Methadone maintenance treatment is extremely beneficial to the medical field in helping people through opiate withdrawals, but it is an opiate drug itself, and people who abuse the drug and who do not take it in a medically supervised environment can develop an addiction the drug.
Methadone is an opiate itself and when taken in high doses can cause the euphoric and pain blocking effects that people like when they abuse opiates. Methadone in legally prescribed doses is typically not addictive, but when people continue to abuse the drug they may develop an addiction to it.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, methadone is a long-acting artificial opiate that acts on the same receptors in the brain as heroin does. Adversely, methadone unlike heroin, has a slow onset and long duration when taken orally and as directed. Prescribed methadone is not intoxicating or sedating when taken in the right doses and does not interfere with ordinary activities like driving a car. It does, however, effectively suppress opiate withdrawal and relieve drug cravings that cause people to relapse.
Due to the fact that methadone is an opiate, it does have potentially addictive properties, but its dosage is medically supervised.
When a person develops an addiction to methadone, they will continually seek out and use the drug. Over time, they may begin to develop a dependency to the drug which will cause them to go through withdrawal symptoms once they stop using. However, they clearly will not be able to receive methadone maintenance treatment to help them through their withdrawals, but there are other treatment options.
Is Methadone Harder to Quit than Heroin?
An addiction is a brain disease that requires treatment to cure, so no matter if a person is addicted to heroin or methadone, addiction is the disease and there is no difference behind the mentality of using the drug. However, there may be a difference in the physical withdrawal symptoms from the two drugs.
Heroin is a bit stronger than methadone, but if a person is abusing large amounts of methadone then they will receive the same level of strength as heroin. Withdrawal symptoms from heroin and methadone may be the same, but if a person has been abusing heroin for a long time and is taking higher doses of the drug than the person taking methadone, their withdrawal symptoms will probably be more intense and they will probably last longer than the methadone user.