opiate withdrawal

[Aaron r]

There are many chemical variations of the generic term opiate and numerous delivery routes into the body. When talking opiate addiction at a methadone clinic, the normal association is with illicit intravenous heroin. Heroin can also be smoked. No blood borne viruses with this method. There is also addiction to prescribed painkillers such as morphine. These can be short and long acting tablets and patches generally. This can be from "doctor shopping" or people described as pain clients. Pain clients are usually due to chronic pain from physical injury or disease. Some people will abuse non-prescription opiates like codeine. Usually with the codeine comes paracetamol or NSAIDs overdoses. Newborns of opiate addicted mums can be born addicted. Some people seem to like to shoot up street buprnorphine bought off someone who spat it out of their mouth. This is by no means exhaustive but hopefully I have shown that when talking about opiates you need to be specific and this does not take into account the variation of people within each group.

I think your next question is something like, "Why do I expect people to treat me well when I am feeding them poison?". Please clarify it for me.

The local manager gave a definition which matched the knowledge of the audience. Aaron

 

[Gonzo]

I am sick and tired of dealing with recalcitrant, rude, self-absorbed, obnoxious and aggressive liars who have no interest in their own wellbeing.

Why would you expect clients interested in their well being at an institution which enables and maintains their addiction to opiates?

Gee whiz, go2, you surprise me with such an emotional blockage and myopic thinking.

I would expect people at a methadone clinic to care for their well being for the same reason I expect you do not have black and white thinking.
It's what they do there.

In the case of a methadone clinic, it's for harm reduction that may lead to the client seeking full treatment and therefore is designed to help one change away from dangerous practices.
In the case of the forum, it's for open minds.

Surely you don't think all clients of a methadone clinic are unworthy of such expectations.

The very fact that someone goes to a methadone clinic demonstrates a desire to change away from the drug seeking world of addictions that encourage unhealthy lifestyles and practices toward a more responsible one, notwithstanding those who are court ordered to attend and are not there voluntarily. .

Everyone I know who works at a methadone dispensary care tremendously about their patients and believe in harm reduction. And everyone who enlists in the program signs a contract that stipulates the client's expected behaviour.

I would think that when people say they are going to do something and have signed a contract to that effect, that it is fair to expect they mean what they say until otherwise proven.

As well, I think it fair to expect non-belligerence and non-abusive behaviour from people who have chose to leave the street drug world behind.


You seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater because the system is not perfect.

If people refused to work in imperfect systems, nothing would get done in a large part of our societies.


When it comes to methadone clinics, it would be much better if those who are court ordered go to a separate program so those who are serious about trying to make changes in their lives can work with fewer impediments and the staff that serve them would feel much better about the work they do.

And it would be ideal if these methadone model be only one phase of a multi-phase, multi-disciplinary approach to actually move the users away from addiction completely, but we're just not there yet.

Perhaps you could appreciate it more from a harm reduction perspective like safe injection sites and needle exchanges

If you have a better approach, then please lobby law enforcement to help champion the cause while you convince policy makers and legislators to secure funding and the appropriate laws.

Then, we could move over to a better system. Or, join in the efforts to connect methadone treatment with a publicly funded, multi-disciplinary treatment system that tailors treatment to the specific needs of the individual addict.

But be aware that it took a lot of fighting just to get methadone clinics publicly funded and there's not a lot of money to throw around. .

I have witnessed methadone clinics prevent a lot of suffering related with the use of street drugs and, for those who are there voluntarily, I have seen them offer the possibility at stability so they can finally reach for things that otherwise seemed impossible, like employment, self-esteem, better health, and even happiness.

I think it's great that a young woman no longer has to prostitute herself to get a fix to stop withdrawal, thanks to methadone and that she can better care for her baby.

I think its wonderful that IV drug users can switch over to a drug that helps them avoid diseases like hepatitis and free up their mind to think, for the first time in a long time, what careers might interest them.

And I love that another guy will not lose his job now that he no longer has to shoot up in the bathroom at his place of work.

It is not a panacea, that's for sure. But I don't see much wrong with it when you consider the current options. Not everyone can just quit. Those who can are in other programs.

The dream for my pharmacist who runs a methadone clinic is that his clients will someday join an actual treatment program. But until that happens in any significant way, he suffers from the clients who cheat and steal while he provides caring support to those who truly desire positive change in their lives.

Gonzo

 

[Aaron r]

Beautifully said Gonzo.

 

[go2]

When talking opiate addiction at a methadone clinic, the normal association is with illicit intravenous heroin.

You are exchanging legal opiate Methadone addiction for the illegal opiate Heroin addiction. An opiate addict is an opiate addict. You are maintaining opiate addiction for harm reduction to society, which may be justified. I am not addressing harm reduction, but the fiction that you are treating addiction.

The local administrator of the Methadone Maintenance Treatment facility defined successful treatment as, “The addict doesn’t steal your TV.”

The local manager gave a definition which matched the knowledge of the audience.

The local Methadone clinic administrator provided the same answer when I asked him the difference between methadone and heroin. There is no difference with regard to the drug’s effects given identical method of delivery. Pill popping rather than slamming dope doesn't change the fact of drug dependence addiction.

I am sick and tired of dealing with recalcitrant, rude, self-absorbed, obnoxious and aggressive liars who have no interest in their own wellbeing.

Why would you expect clients interested in their well being at an institution which enables and maintains their addiction to opiates?

I would expect people at a methadone clinic to care for their well being for the same reason I expect you do not have black and white thinking.
It's what they do there.

Gonzo, I am referring to aaron’s assessment in bold. It is my opinion that maintenance of an opiate addiction is not treatment. It is a system which supplies the drugs at a cheap cost to opiate addicts so they will not harm the pathocratic society which creates an endless supply of traumatized human beings who wish to escape the reality of this world into the fantasy world of addiction. Escape is not treatment.

Methadone Maintenance Treatment serves the pathocracy by creating a fiction that government cares for the well being of its citizens. The pathocracy creates addicts and pretends to care for them by offering cheap opiates. Let’s be honest about Methadone Maintenance. It is part of a ponerized system. Methadone Maintenance Treatment’s very name is a contradiction. Maintenance of an addiction is not treatment of an addiction no matter how the government or for profit drug administration clinics wish to spin their motive.

The people who staff the clinics do care about about the addicts. This does not mean the system they work for cares about addicts. Methadone distribution is about harm reduction. True! The society makes drugs illegal so they can justify and create a police and legal system of oppression which harms addicts, perhaps more than the drugs harm addicts.

The very fact that someone goes to a methadone clinic demonstrates a desire to change away from the drug seeking world of addictions that encourage unhealthy lifestyles and practices toward a more responsible one, notwithstanding those who are court ordered to attend and are not there voluntarily.

The demonstrated desire of an opiate addict arriving at the door of the Methadone Clinic is to avoid the legal and financial consequences of obtaining heroin on the street. He or she goes to the methadone clinic to maintain the opiate addiction free of legal sanction and financial burden. If one wishes to end an opiate addiction one stops taking opiates.

Perhaps you could appreciate it more from a harm reduction perspective like safe injection sites and needle exchanges

Yes, that is my point. Methadone maintenance is not treatment, it is harm reduction. It is difficult enough for an addict to become honest about drug use, especially when they are told harm reduction Methadone dispensaries are treating opiate addiction. It only legitimizes denial.

If you have a better approach, then please lobby law enforcement to help champion the cause while you convince policy makers and legislators to secure funding and the appropriate laws.

Legalize drugs and provide real treatment for those who wish to end drug dependency!

Gonzo, thanks for the thoughtful response. You present the hopes and the reality of the staff and the addicts who live on the front lines
of an epidemic of drug addiction.

I think honesty is the antidote to the denial that shrouds drug addiction and its treatment.

Edit: quote brackets

 

[Gonzo]

Hi go2,

yes, we live in a ponerized society where BigPharma, drug cartels and intelligence agencies make mega bucks off a system designed to keep people under their collective thumb through addiction.

However, to say oral methadone is equivalent to heroine by saying we are merely replacing one opiate for another is erroneous.

Oral administration of methadone does not create the high one gets from shooting up heroine. The same is true for other opiates. Many prescription opiate addicts graduate to intravenous use due to the instant high as the drug goes directly to the bloodstream and doesn't have to be metabolized through the liver. It's an instant and much more powerful effect.

Moving from IV use to oral, legal and supervised use allows a person to hold a job, raise a family, and avoid the dangers associated with the acquisition and use of IV street drugs. It is far better this way than the alternative of intravenous use.

Yes, it is not ideal! But, since we agree we live in a society where the state deals in street drugs for several selfish benefits, this is the system within which we have to work. We don't have a choice. We don't have the luxury of being able to send addicts to South America or Africa for botanical remedies and we cannot seem to get our governments interested in any locally administered cure for obvious reasons.

While we wait for a utopic society to form, which we know won't happen as long as there are psychopathic influences, we have no choice but to work with what we have. To discard a tool that has been shown to reduce violence, suffering and ill health, crime and other societal costs just because it is not ideal is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

You don't seem to realize how you appear to be taking an all or nothing stance on this.

As well, the all or nothing stance seems present in your apparent thinking that eliminating addiction is the only form of treatment. Changing IV addiction to a the much safer oral opiate addiction sounds like a treatment model to me, especially when the objective is to increase one's health and one's personal and social abilities. As well, if it were coupled with counselling with the objective of eliminating addiction, an addict is in a much better starting position with greater chances of succeeding.

I hope you can come to the realization that treatment does not necessarily equate cure.

Doctors "treat" dying, demented patients every day with no hope of them being cured. Rather, the objective of the treatment is for the patient to be comfortable and retain a degree of dignity. Can we not apply a similar logic to methadone treatment?

Thanks,
Gonzo

 

[go2]

You don't seem to realize how you appear to be taking an all or nothing stance on this.

I am not taking an all or nothing stance. I think harm reduction is a legitimate objective, but I insist on honesty. Your Methadone Maintenance is harm reduction, it is not treatment in the sense that the addicts becomes free of drug dependency. My concern is that those who honestly desire to free themselves of drug dependency are diverted from attaining the objective of being drug free, by the fiction that substituting addictions is a cure or treatment. I have seen many addicts and alcoholics die as a result harm reduction mythology. Many will die anyway. I applaud your harm reduction efforts. They work for some, but for others it keeps them from the psychic change necessary to live in this world fully conscious and drug free.

 

[Aaron r]

Opiates are not alcohol go2 and the 12steps are not the only way. If this statement pushes your buttons ask yourself why?

There is nothing stopping a person from reducing off an opiate treatment program. Let me repeat that. There is nothing stopping a person from reducing off an opiate treatment program. Once again. There is nothing stopping a person from reducing off an opiate treatment program. Aaron

 

[Gonzo]

go2,

Perhaps some frustration is growing and this should be taken down a notch. .

You seem to have been originally arguing that Methadone was not a legitimate treatment but now you are further defining to say:

"it is not treatment in the sense that the addicts becomes free of drug dependency."

If I missed somewhere where someone was presenting it as such and you are arguing that they are wrong, as opposed to methadone treatment being wrong, I apologize.

I have yet to hear someone position such a treatment as if it were designed as a standalone method to free oneself from addiction.

In fact, you are the first person I have encountered that thinks so.

It would, however, be easier to quite methadone than street IV drugs, since a lot of the psychological attachment is gone.

Speaking of attachments, why are you so strongly attached to this notion that methadone is somehow pushed as a cure all? There are several treatment models around. The methadone method is usually for those who are not in a position to quit for various reasons.

Gonzo
Gonzo

 

[Nienna]

You don't seem to realize how you appear to be taking an all or nothing stance on this.

I am not taking an all or nothing stance. I think harm reduction is a legitimate objective, but I insist on honesty. Your Methadone Maintenance is harm reduction, it is not treatment in the sense that the addicts becomes free of drug dependency. My concern is that those who honestly desire to free themselves of drug dependency are diverted from attaining the objective of being drug free, by the fiction that substituting addictions is a cure or treatment. I have seen many addicts and alcoholics die as a result harm reduction mythology. Many will die anyway. I applaud your harm reduction efforts. They work for some, but for others it keeps them from the psychic change necessary to live in this world fully conscious and drug free.

Go2, your comments are very emotionally charged. You may want to look at the fact that you are "insisting" that another do things the way you say. It is a very narcissistic statement, don't you think? And I would agree that your thinking is very black and white. If you cannot see this, maybe it is time for you to step back from this subject for a while until you can calm down.

 

[go2]

There is nothing stopping a person from reducing off an opiate treatment program. Let me repeat that. There is nothing stopping a person from reducing off an opiate treatment program. Once again. There is nothing stopping a person from reducing off an opiate treatment program. Aaron

Please read davey72's quote below.

It would, however, be easier to quite methadone than street IV drugs, since a lot of the psychological attachment is gone.

Please read davey72's quote below, which states the methadone clinic has resisted his desire to recover from opiate addiction.

Aarron,the only thing i disagree with is that the methadone clinic with AADAC that i go to will even resort to scaring the crap out of me to keep me from getting off the stuff. I think that is one of the reasons i have been on it so many years now. It is largley psycosomatic for me.

I want to thank all for this informative discussion. It illuminates several sacred cows including my own as noted by Nienna Eluch. I will take some time to reread and consider our words and my insistence on honesty. Thanks for stopping my further identification with this subject, Nienna Eluch, excepting one last gasp. I will leave the thread with a question, "How can opiate addiction be a treatment for opiate addiction?"

 

[davey72]

Go2, Hence lies our karmic school. I have recognized this type of philosophies from everyone i have ever spoken with at aadac. Honestly, I think the fact that i am able to take a valium once or twice a week, "without getting kicked off cold turkey because my urine is dirty" is the only thing keeping me sane right now. I am not abusing them, which is new to me. That and the occassional ary-jane cigarette. I am actually doing pretty good now. i think it was due to the fast comedown from the bulk of the dose. I had to normalize. I will be fine if i continue this way. Working also is a key thing.sweat it out.
As far as these links, well i have already looked at all of that many times, but the only thing that doesnt seem to be a load of bs, is the link i was censored for at the beginning of this post. The amino acid therapy, and a few others sound good,"in theory", but how does a layman like me attain all this highly expensive therapy? I would also love to have my blood cleaned out, or rapid detox. I can even have this done ion my city, but i don't ever seem to have an extra 5 grand.

 

[davey72]

This mindset you harbor is also very damaging, i have to say, as it keeps a person down, sub-servient, and in the system. An addict already has no self esteem, so it is really hard to beleive you can do otherwise when you are constantly having this type of philosophy hammered into you.Everyone is different. I am finally able to see through the lies, but it has taken me years. Most are not that lucky, and by most i mean about 95% are on it for life. It blows me away how my thinking in that regard has changed. Used to be thaT even when i was normalized, i had to be at the pharmacy as soon as i awoke, cause i was sick, and now i am able to go for coffee with my buddy first while i am withdrawing.
This is quite a change in my thinking patterns.

 

[Aaron r]

Who were you addressing in your last post Davey?

 

[davey72]

Don't get me wrong, as i beleive methadone can be a good thing, if it is ussed properly. It keeps addicts off the streets, and doing crime to sustain oneself. It costs a lot to be a heroin addict in vancouver. You learn a lo of interesting ways to make loads of money, but i really didn't like the person i had become. I just wish they would take a cue from europe, and use heroin, instead of the worst opiate a person can put into their system.

 

[Nienna]

Don't get me wrong, as i beleive methadone can be a good thing, if it is ussed properly. It keeps addicts off the streets, and doing crime to sustain oneself. It costs a lot to be a heroin addict in vancouver. You learn a lo of interesting ways to make loads of money, but i really didn't like the person i had become. I just wish they would take a cue from europe, and use heroin, instead of the worst opiate a person can put into their system.

I am finding this thread to be very interesting.

At the previous place where I worked, we had hired a gentleman who was on the methadone program. After he had had his methadone, he was intelligent and fun to be around and was a very good worker. But you could tell when he was coming close to needing his next "fix." I have to admit that I really was not a happy person regarding the government keeping these people addicted to a drug that they had control of. And he wasn't very much in admiration of it either. Once the insurance at the place that we worked was at the end of covering for his "treatments", he left to find another job that would pay for them.

At the time I had not been able to talk to anyone who worked at these clinics so never got to hear their side of the story. Thank you to those who have been relating your side. :)

I find it heartbreaking that there isn't a program to help get the people who want to come clean get off of the opiates. But, as Gonzo has said, in a pathocracy, this is what you get. However, that doesn't make it right, or so I think.

Davey72, I'm really sorry you are going through all of this, but I admire your courage very much in trying to find a way to get this out of your system on your own. It is not surprising that the treatments that would really help you are so pricey that only those with a lot of money can afford them, which, again, goes back to the kind of society that we live in. :(