Methadone Addiction

A lot of people have a problem with methadone abuse, and it is not an easy drug to get off of by any means. Some people start taking methadone for pain. Others take it as a maintenance drug to stay off of heroin. Regardless of how people get on methadone, it is very, very difficult to get off of it. That is because the drug is very "sticky," and clings to the opiate receptors in the brain for a long, long time. It can take weeks or even a month to really become detoxed from methadone. Heroin addicts regularly report that it is much easier to quit heroin cold turkey than it is to quit methadone addiction cold turkey.

Because methadone is a legal drug, it has a greater potential for abuse in some cases. People who would not regularly seek out heroin might fall into a heavy pattern of opiate use because they have been exposed to methadone in some way.

Some people take methadone as drug maintenance. The idea is that they are using the methadone instead of using heroin. This works for a very small percentage of people who try it, while most people eventually go back to street drugs. Methadone itself is not particularly safe if it is abused and many people have overdosed and died from taking it. Kind of ironic considering the idea behind methadone maintenance was to protect people from illicit street drugs.

There are alternatives to using methadone for drug therapy. For example, there is a medication called Suboxone that can be used in much the same way, only Suboxone is much safer than methadone and does not give the same doping effect as methadone. In blind tests, heroin addicts could not tell the difference between heroin and methadone when given it orally. But Suboxone is much more tame in that it does not make people nod out when they are on it like methadone detox does.

In the end the addict has to decide for themselves: do they really want to be dependent on a powerful drug that they have to take every single day? Methadone is just as addictive as heroin if not more so in some ways, so it is a heavy price to pay for freedom from street drugs. Those who are considering maintenance therapy should think hard before going down this road, because they might be able to live a completely drug free life if they are willing to take some action in their lives.