There are three things that you can do to help prevent opioid drug abuse and addiction:

1. Proactively educate your family on the dangers of drugs and opioids.

Prevention starts early and is proactive. Parents who spend time with their children and take time to connect as a family are more likely to notice changes in behavior earlier to help intervene and address potential substance use issues. Adolescents and teens are a particularly vulnerable group because the earli...

Michelle Horton

Blogger

Heartbreak, Self

April 6, 2016

It's a life of justifications, covering up, pretending. It's a life of inconsistency.

I could hear my husband open our front door as I prepped dinner in the kitchen. Except I knew it wasn't really my husband, not the same guy I married over five years ago. Not the same man who held my sobbing body as a positive pregnancy test sat on our bathroom sink, six years ago. Not the man who promised...

No, medication-assisted treatment is absolutely not substituting one addiction for another.

People may view addiction medication this way because some MAT medications are opioid-based. People who take them are physically dependent on them and will experience withdrawal symptoms if they discontinue use. An important point to remember is that there is a huge difference between physical dependence on a medication that helps a person live a normal, healthy life and addiction to a har...

No- with successful buprenorphine treatment, the compulsive behavior, the loss of control of drug use, the constant cravings, and all of the other hallmarks of addiction vanish. When all signs and symptoms of the disease of addiction vanish, we call that remission, not switching addictions.

The key to understanding this is knowing the difference between physical dependence and addiction.

Buprenorphine will maintain some of the preexisting physical dependenc...

No matter how many days, months or years go by in stable, medication assisted recovery it’s important to remember that triggers remain & that the underlying temptations and urges resulting from our struggle with opiate use never completely go away. A fight with our husband/wife or partner, a death in the family, stress with our family or kids, frustration dealing with the clinic system — any number of things has the possibility to conjure up old desires to just ...

by Louis E. Baxter, Sr., MD, FASAM | June 12, 2014

"You're not clean and sober if you keep taking that medication from your doctor!"

"You're just substituting one drug for another."

"You are depressed because you are not grateful enough."

These and other statements are often made to 12-step members who are legitimately prescribed and taking FDA approved medications to treat their addictions and other co-...

Yes, methadone is generally a safe medication.

When taken as prescribed, methadone is safe and effective. In fact, methadone allows people to recover from addiction and to reclaim active and meaningful lives. Still, there are risks of opia...