Why You Should Get Methadone at a Methadone Treatment Center

For people recovering from chronic opiate addictions, methadone medication therapy offers a real chance at living a drug-free life. Methadone’s ability to counteract the damaging effects of long-term opiate use gives recovering addicts the needed physical supports to maintain abstinence for the long-term.

Methadone can be administered through methadone treatment centers as well as through day clinics and physicians’ offices. While methadone’s physical effects remain the same regardless of where a person goes, the psychological effects of addiction can still challenge even the most determined person in recovery.

Methadone treatment centers provide a range of treatment services designed to help recovering addicts work through addiction’s hold on their lives. Using a coordinated treatment approach, methadone treatment centers offer a continuum of care that addresses each person’s individual treatment needs.

Methadone Treatment Benefits

Methadone doctors are aware of the proper methadone dosage requirements.

Methadone’s mechanism of action works in much the same way as opiates in general minus the addiction potential, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. In effect, methadone “occupies” the same brain cell receptor sites as opiate drugs, and in the process relieves the drug cravings and withdrawal effects so often experienced in recovery.

Methadone treatment centers use methadone as a type of ongoing therapy to produce the following effects –

• Prevents a person from getting high should relapse occur
• Restores a person’s ability to function normally in daily life (work, family obligations)
• Daily dosage effects last for 24 to 36 hours
• Reduces the likelihood of relapse

As program participants must frequent methadone treatment centers on a daily basis, treatment providers are better able to make dosage adjustments as needed.

Treatment for Co-Occurring Conditions

People recovering from chronic opiate addictions have likely developed other medical and/or psychological problems from the damaging effects of drug use. Throughout the course of recovery, both medical and psychological problems can compromise a person’s efforts to stay away from drug use.

Methadone treatment centers employ a coordinated treatment approach that’s able to address each person’s individual treatment needs, according to Health Canada. People in need of medical care for serious conditions can receive needed medical treatment. Likewise, those struggling with psychological disorders, such as depression or anxiety can receive needed psychotherapy help.

Long-term drug use, more oftentimes than not, predisposes a person to developing psychological disorders. When this is the case, recovering addicts have an especially difficult time maintaining abstinence from day-to-day. Using a coordinated treatment approach, methadone treatment centers are better able to manage the symptoms of a psychological illness during the course of addiction treatment.

Continuum of Care

While physicians’ offices and day clinics do offer methadone treatment, many who receive treatment along these lines must still apply for help with other agencies in order to have all their treatment needs met. In the process, a person must start all over again in terms of multiple application processes as well as listing any other agencies with which they’re currently working.

Methadone treatment centers typically operate as part of a network of treatment providers and community service agencies. In turn, these centers work in tandem with other agencies and can act as a central hub for a person’s overall treatment needs. Methadone centers can also be an excellent resource for getting referrals to non-treatment-type services, such as childcare, legal system services and vocational assistance.