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“It’s been too long.” “You’re just substituting one drug for another.” These are the issues I hear usually on the clinics I oversee in the Bronx and throughout the town. These phrases come from the frightened voices of oldsters, spouses, and kids involved about their family members receiving methadone remedy. However with the opioid disaster nonetheless raging, it’s time to confront the myths about methadone and acknowledge it as a lifesaving software.
In 2022 alone, there have been greater than 100,000 deaths from drug overdoses in the US. In New York, somebody dies from an overdose each 90 minutes. To place this in perspective, extra New Yorkers died from overdoses in 2021 than from suicides, homicides, and automotive accidents mixed. With statistics this stark, we can not afford to disregard any type of remedy, particularly methadone, which has been the gold commonplace for treating opioid use dysfunction because the Sixties.
Methadone works by decreasing opioid cravings, assuaging withdrawal signs, and blocking the euphoric results of different opioids. Analysis exhibits that methadone can cut back the danger of overdose loss of life by greater than 50%.
At Samaritan Daytop Village, we’ve been supporting individuals in restoration for over 60 years. We all know there isn’t a one-size-fits-all method to remedy. Every individual requires a customized plan, which is why we provide a spread of setting for assist, together with community-based outpatient and residential services, and various kinds of remedy, together with particular person and group counseling and drugs, with methadone taking part in a key position, together with, suboxone and vivitrol, for a lot of of our sufferers.
We had been one of many first within the nation to combine treatment in residential companies and we now have expanded methadone entry to all individuals who obtain care in any of our residential applications, together with in counties that traditionally had restricted entry to the treatment, like within the Bronx. With our many years of expertise, we all know methadone works, together with in long-term use.
A number of the individuals we serve have efficiently accomplished remedy in as little as a yr, whereas others have been on methadone for over a decade, whereas main fulfilling lives, working, elevating households, and contributing to their communities.
Whereas methadone is secure and efficient, together with in long-term use, solely a small proportion of opioid customers get the remedy they want. Many are deterred by unwarranted stigma connected to methadone use.
Critics typically declare that methadone is simply swapping one habit for one more, and that folks on methadone are by some means nonetheless trapped by their substance use dysfunction. In addition they suppose it have to be a short-term remedy. The actual fact is that Methadone, when used as prescribed, is secure, efficient, and thoroughly regulated by the federal Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Providers Administration (SAMHSA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Sufferers obtain individualized care, with doses adjusted primarily based on their wants and counseling required alongside the treatment. The concept methadone remedy promotes dependency is just not solely improper however harmful—it discourages individuals from accessing a life-saving remedy.
Methadone provides people the prospect to stay regular, productive lives. With the steadiness methadone gives, many individuals maintain down jobs, restore relationships with family members, and safe steady housing. It permits individuals to keep away from the high-risk behaviors related to opioid use, selling well being, wellness, and long-term restoration.
Misguided issues about methadone additionally spill over to the clinics that dispense methadone. Many individuals concern that these services convey crime or unhealthy situations to their neighborhoods. Nevertheless, these fears are unfounded. I do know as a result of we now have been operating these clinics for years. Methadone clinics are extremely regulated, and their presence in a neighborhood gives a crucial service—serving to these in want get their lives again on monitor. With so lots of our neighbors impacted by habit we must always not demonize locations the place they will get the care they want.
