Opioid replacement therapy doesn't work

[admin]

It's a known fact now that methadone is one of the deadliest drugs in the nation, yet people are still being sold it as a way to treat other opiate addiction - disgusting!  While buprenorphine (Suboxone/Subutex) has seen less damage in its original intent of short term use to lessen withdrawal symptoms, lobbying efforts have paved the way for doctors to prescribe it as a maintenance drug too, and now we have millions of people trying to get off it as well.

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Treating drug addiction with more drugs is simply ludicrous.  How can anything be accomplished in this manner?  How can any type of accurate diagnosis be made for depression, bipolar disorder or anything else until the poor brain has been relieved of the mind altering drugs it's already trying to cope with?  I suppose, once in a while, if someone is really ready to quit, it gets them through, but regarding the post from Abolitionist, there is a huge gap between getting a nicotine patch and getting Suboxone or Methadone.  I was a smoker from age 14 till 20 and I quit.  End of sentence.  Same with Cocaine, used it for three years straight.  Everyday.  When I REALLY wanted out, I left the scene and never used again.  It wasn't really THAT easy - -  I was married, had full custody of 4 step kids, one of my own, a home, a business, an also using husband and no money, so it took three years when, truthfully, I was wanting out WAY before that.  But in the long run I did what it takes.  Scared to death, I took my 5 year old a left.  Six weeks later, with a promise from my husband that he had quit, I went back.  He wasn't able to stay clean very long, but at least he didn't bring it home and when he died a few years later, for the most part, the rest of us stayed intact.  I have seen, recently, my friend's 19 year old die from a heroin OD, right after completing a 3 moth rehab that included ongoing methadone maintenance.  One of my most talented and beloved employees is in and out of prison, because of heroin addiction.  Methadone isn't getting the job done and it's harder to get off of than Heroin.  My own 19 year old son, got addicted to opiates from a prescription he got for Norco, after a sports injury, a year and a half ago.  He thought he had the flu when he got sick after the prescription ran out.  Of course, he was wrong and trying Oxy as a recreational drug at a party, caused a full blown relapse.
He was going to different Dr.s with made-up aches and pains and had no problem getting more Oxy.  When I figured out what was going on and that he was addicted to Opiates, I looked at several Rehab Centers and they all did "Medical Detox" and 12 step.   I made the mistake of canceling his health ins., thinking that would keep him from getting drugs, but there are plenty of legal-drug-pusher-Dr.'s out there. His new "friends" had no problem setting those connections up.  The percentage of sobriety with Med Detox and 12 Step is ridiculously low and  I knew anyway, that trading drugs for different drugs made absolutely no sense.  So I did relentless research, found programs like VistaBay.com, that did  make sense to us, but because I had canceled his insurance. I couldn't afford it.  We've put together or own combination of what we can do in a holistic approach, including, Chiropractic adjustments, Acupuncture, Message Therapy (these are all offered by our Chiropractor and cost wise, it's quit affordable) my son has always liked working out and his gym has a dry heat sauna that he uses at least twice a day, along with plenty of good nutrition, exercise and sleep.  He's been clean for over seven months.

 
The problem I see with just going to a different drug, is that the typical user can justify pretty much anything in their mind.  So, because they are getting something from a Dr. rather than off the street - even if it's a Pharma Drug - it must be O.K.  Justify and Deny.  It's a life style.  And they go along with that program for a while, but ultimately, as the saying goes, "everywhere you go, there you are", you're just masking symptoms and really, the drug isn't the problem in the first place- your mind set is, your choices are, so it will eventually come back full circle and you'll miss being high, cause that's where you left yourself.  You need to get the toxins out of your system and give you head time to think straight again.  Ya can't do that by replacing drugs with more drugs!!  My son tried Suboxone many times and would get though the withdrawals, but eventually it was back to the real deal.  His drug-pusher-Dr. gave him at least 60 80 mg Oxycotins, every month, that I became aware of, so it could have been more, effectively turning my kid into a drug pusher.  After months of this  stupidity, Mr. genius MD, decided  my son was depressed and added Xanax to the menu.  What a caring man.  It's a vicious circle.  The ONLY solution is - - stop using drugs.  There are plenty of ways to do it.  The first and biggest hurdle is DO YOU WANT TO STOP?

[Alternative to Meds]

My name is Lyle Murphy.
I am the founder of Alternative to Meds Center is SF

We are most successful at Opiate addictions.

A person low on endorphins, natural pain killers, is going to be sensitive to others emotions and pain.
They will end up somehow covering up that pain.

The raise natural endorphins, and person can preload with endorphin building nutrients, and a whole food diet.  DLPA is most effective.  It has about a 2 week loading dose.

Then medication tapering can begin and proceed with more ease.  A week long Suboxone run is good.  A methadone taper is bad.  Switch methadone to Suboxone or vicoden under the direction of your doctor.

Continue with the whole food diet and DLPA and the craving will finally subsist.  It is important to know that eating crap is destructive to brain chemistry, which is what endorphins are.  The coffee, sugar and refined flours are the usual suspects.  Cocoa without sugar is ok, but milk chocolate is definetely not.

Learn more at www.alternativetomedscenter.com

[oliver]

I have a family member who has done more than 10 drug treatment programs. He has been on and off replacement drugs like methadone and Suboxone for years and has gone back to drugs every time. When he is taking the replacement drugs for his heroin addiction, he starts using cocaine and crack. And when he runs out of replacement meds he goes back to heroin. He has not been able to stay clean for more than a few weeks at a time with these methods and is in bad shape. I think using replacement drugs is the worst possible way to treat addiction.

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Hi!  I don't know if you saw my post awhile back, about drug free rehabs like www.vistabay.com, but you may want to listen to the Dr. interview (in the Multimedia Menu) and try to incorporate the same types of care on your own, for his recovery, since all of it is available, to anyone, without too much cost.  If money isn't a problem, they have a 6 month program that costs around $30,000.  Anyone that's gone through rehabs in general will know that's a deal.  It's common for a 30 day program to cost that much, and as we all know - they don't usually work.  The therapies include dry heat sauna, acupuncture, massage therapy, and what that program didn't include but we did for my son's Oxy addiction - hypnosis and chiropractic adjustments (this one was logical for many reasons to us, but in part because our Chiropractor provides the acupuncture and M.T. at very little extra cost).  We did the hypnosis at the beginning to make the drug use unappealing in conjunction with dry heat sauna and moderate exercise to rid the body of the toxins.  We've always had healthy eating habits, so that didn't change much for us, but great diet and lots of sleep is incredibly important.  We haven't done any type of counseling yet, mostly because we haven't found the right fit, but also, my son got addicted through a prescription, not from bad choices in his life, so I'm not being obsessive about that part.  At any rate, my son has done well and has been drug free for over eight months! 

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Just a note of interest - if you google any drug search site - Drugs.com as an example, for info on Suboxone or Subutex, before it ever gets you to the research  . . . there are adds for "Rapid Detox for Suboxone Addictions" 

OH MY GOD!  I wonder what the "drug of choice is to "detox from the latest detox drug?  Strychnine?  Maybe they'll go full circle and get back to Morphine.  I think this craziness may drive me insane.  Actually it reminds me of that great song Soul Asylum did, forever ago - Runaway Train.  There's a lyric at the end "Runaway train burning in my veins..."

Back to the research -Then it goes on to the "little side effects you might want to know about - nothing big, just standard side effects, ya know... liver failure, coma, death. 

It reads:

What is the most important information I should know about buprenorphine?

Using buprenorphine improperly will increase your risk of serious side effects or death. Even if you have used other narcotic medications, you may still have serious side effects from buprenorphine. Follow all dosing instructions carefully.
Like other narcotic medicines, buprenorphine can slow your breathing. Death may occur if breathing becomes too weak.
Never crush a tablet or other pill to mix into a liquid for injecting the drug into your vein. This practice has resulted in death with the misuse of buprenorphine and similar prescription drugs. Carry an ID card or wear a medical alert bracelet stating that you are using buprenorphine, in case of emergency. Any doctor, dentist, or emergency medical care provider who treats you should know that you are being treated for narcotic addiction.

All this really needs to say is at the top of the page.

OPIATE REPLACEMENT THERAPY DOESN'T WORK.

Know why?  They're replacing it with more opiates!  What F'ing morons think this stuff up.  Did I heard someone say Pharmaceutical Giant?

[admin]

Found this at http://www.drug-freealliance.org - also some good stuff on there about other prescriptions, etc.  It's a bit dated, but this "documentary" is still being pushed

New Series on Drug Abuse More Propaganda than Documentary

Jointly-funded 'Addiction' pushes unproven brain disease theory, pharmaceuticals pharmaceutical influence

ATLANTA, Ga. - The much-hyped premiere of the new HBO 14-part documentary series called "Addiction" aired Thursday night, and what was disguised as a positive look into helping people understand and overcome alcohol and other drug addiction was actually a propaganda campaign to convince people that it is an incurable brain disease and should be treated with pharmaceuticals.

At times it was almost a question of who had funded the show, like when an opiate addict claimed there just wasn't enough money to continue paying for his opioid replacement drugs after treatment. Much of it almost looked like a direct lobby to Congress to mandate insurance coverage and to provide more appropriations to drug makers. You don't have to dig that deep to find the connection to pharmaceutical companies.

Probably the worst part about it is when some of the people in the addiction treatment field were interviewed, including the director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), was the continued repetitive drone that addiction is a life-long disease and that relapse is expected. Such a statement is not only blatantly false, but it should be prosecutable as a crime against humanity. People permanently recover every single day with no further signs, symptoms or relapses - direct observable proof that it is not an incurable brain disease.

The best possible ploy they've come up with is to replace fact with conjecture when comparing the colors that appear brain scans. There is no basis for "this part of your brain is the 'go' part, and this part of the brain is the 'stop' part," especially when it is the mind, not the brain that makes those decisions. As mentioned in an earlier article from the Drug-Free Alliance, the brain is just the center of the nervous system, not that which controls our thoughts and decisions.

There are millions of people who are caught up in the trap of addiction and don't know how to get out. Telling them that they are diseased for the rest of there life provides no hope.

In a statement give to the Alliance for this review, Dr. Stanton Peele, author of "7 Tools to Beat Addiction" wrote, "Promulgating the idea of addiction as an inescapable disease is not a new or scientifically based idea. It is an old Harry Anslinger and Temperance tactic, and the NIDA, NIAAA, and their perhaps unwitting HBO filmmaking accomplices are serving up a moralistic, anti-drug menu. But what's worse is that the series eventually undercuts people's ability to overcome addiction and alcoholism - since a large majority of people do so on their own (think about smokers) - primarily addicts who reject the disease concept."

There is also the term "in recovery" that is used a lot, especially among traditional treatment groups and settings. This implies that they are still battling the addiction, for some decades later, one day at a time. Well, there are millions of people, as mentioned by Dr. Peele, that don't buy the brain disease theory who are now leading very healthy and happy lives free from drugs and alcohol and who never look back.

Most psychiatry-based treatment providers use "in recovery" to suggest that relapse is a part of the life-long recovery process from the disease, meaning they expect the user to go in and out of treatment several times in life and fight the temptation to use drugs again for the rest of their life. This was suggested in the series as well, which continues to make me sick. Of course people will relapse if you tell them it's expected, it gives them an excuse to go out and get high again and it gives the provider an excuse to bill the insurance company again and the pharmaceutical companies again to create more drugs.

The aim here is not to upset those who have bought the lies over the years and believe them to be true. I say to them congratulations for doing well despite the false information you've been given. The intent is to get the masses to speak up and policy makers to not give in to this. Do not continue funding programs and ideas that only work ten percent of the time.

At last national survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the majority of the country still believes that addiction can be overcome permanently. Where do you stand?

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More from www.jointogether.org ...

Methadone OD Deaths Up 390 Percent, Report Finds

Deaths from overdoses on methadone rose 390 percent between 1999 and 2004, and the trend is continuing, according to a new report from the National Drug Intelligence Center.

USA Today reported Dec. 6 that the report attributes the trend mostly to increased use of methadone as a painkiller; the drug is seen as a cheaper alternative to drugs like OxyContin, which also have more potential for abuse and diversion. Doctors prescribed 715 percent more methadone in 2006 than they had in 2001.

The methadone overdose rate was highest among those ages 15 to 24; the rate was lower than that for other narcotic painkillers but is rising faster.

"The larger story is the widespread abuse of prescription painkillers in America," said Tom Riley of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "The abuse and misuse of prescription drugs is far more dangerous and far more widespread than most Americans realize."

Isn't it just amazing how long it takes to figure out something that very basic common sense would conclude ... drug switching will never work if the goal, in fact is, getting drug free.  We now have almost 20% of our nation addicted to prescription drugs.  Way to go Pharma Giants.  Guess we won't need to give you a bail out.