Addiction Treatment
The solution to improving addiction treatment is to use more of what we already have.
Suboxone, or to put in generic terms, buprenorphine/naloxone, is a miraculous response to the opioid epidemic. It works incredibly well when it is made available to people who are addicted to opioids. It is least effective when it is not available, or it is provided for too short a time in medical detox facilities.
Suboxone is also not effective when patients are pressured by society, friends, family, and even medical professionals, to stop taking it or not to start in the first place. The mixed messages put out that confuse the issue of medication-assisted treatment are life-threatening.
Even well-meaning doctors start to doubt if they are doing the right thing. However, a doctor who sees the response in many patients over time when they are provided Suboxone therapy will come to the conclusion that they are, without a doubt, helping their patients to achieve success in recovery.
In addition to MAT, including naltrexone for alcoholism and naltrexone or buprenorphine for opioid addiction, there are many other ways to help and save lives. Harm reduction is another revolutionary concept that is pushing away the old and dangerous idea of “tough love.”
Life-saving Narcan, or naloxone, is being made more and more available to the people who need it most, to ensure that more opioid overdoses can be reversed. In some parts of the world, monitored drug use is acceptable to provide a safe environment for people who are not ready yet to quit. Harm reduction is proven to prevent disease, injury, and death.
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