How Methadone Treatment Centers Help People Overcome Opiate Addiction

Both heroin and prescription pain pills have contributed to today’s ongoing increase in opiate addiction rates. According to the American Family Physician, anywhere from 500,000 to one million Americans struggle with some form of opiate addiction in any given year.

Both types of drugs produce debilitating effects on the mind and body when abused. For people wanting to break an opiate addiction habit, it’s not uncommon for a person to go through multiple failed attempts at rehab.

Methadone has an established track record for helping recovering addicts overcome opiate addiction. For many addicts, methadone treatment centers offer a much sought after solution for the withdrawal effects and drug cravings that persist well into recovery.

For those just entering recovery, methadone treatment centers can provide detox treatment help. Once a person makes it through the detox stage, methadone treatment centers can also help him or her maintain abstinence on a long-term basis. Where other opiate rehab treatment approaches have failed, methadone has become a last resort for many long-time opiate users.

Methadone Treatment & Opiate Addiction

The potential for relapse runs high for long-time opiate addicts in recovering. Many a person has gone in and out of rehab, muddling through failed attempt after failed attempt all in an effort to break an opiate addiction.

Methadone helps people avoid cravings and mitigates withdrawal symptoms, allowing them to participate meaningfully in other treatments, work, school, and other parts of life.

Compared to other opiate addiction treatment solutions, methadone treatment centers do a good job at keeping recovering addicts engaged in the recovery process. Methadone does this by targeting the same brain cell processes most affected by long-term opiate use.

Opiate addictions wreak havoc on brain chemical processes to the point where it can take years of abstinence before chemical levels actually return to normal. These ongoing brain chemical imbalances account for why it’s so difficult for some people to maintain abstinence for any length of time.

In effect, methadone treatment centers provide recovering addicts with the type of physical supports needed to regain control over an opiate addiction.

Methadone for Detox Purposes

Whether going through a methadone treatment center or going it alone, the detox stage becomes a mandatory first step to breaking an opiate addiction. No doubt, withdrawal effects and drug cravings pose the biggest challenges to making it through the detox stage.

Methadone treatment centers use methadone as a replacement therapy drug. As methadone occupies the same brain cell receptor sites as heroin, it can help alleviate the withdrawal and cravings effects that result when a person stops taking heroin. In this way, recovering addicts have a better chance of making it through the detox period.

Methadone for Maintenance Purposes

As a long-term maintenance treatment, methadone treatment centers can administer daily doses of the drug for as long as a person needs it. This treatment option works particularly well for people with long histories of opiate addiction.

After a certain point, long-time opiate addictions leave brain chemical processes in a constant state of imbalance. This condition can last for years into the recovery process.

Without methadone medication therapy, the risk of relapse increases considerably. For these reasons, methadone treatment centers often become the very last resort for people battling long-term opiate addictions.