Hello,
My name is Michelle P. and I am/was an addict . . . Substance has had an impact on my life because multiple things have happened. Like me having negative thoughts, stealing, depression and etc. It also has an impact on my family members because I am hurting them plus getting worked up and worrying about me. It has a impact on my community because I can/may go out stealing and hurting and harming other just to go out and catch that next high for the day. It all started when I was 16 years old and I found out I had Lupus. I was sick in the hospital one time because I broke down. After a couple of years, I graduated High School in Detroit, Michigan in 2007 at 18 years old. I then went to medical assistant school and received certificate in 2008. Yes, I did I had it all. I got better, I got a boyfriend an apartment and I already had a nice truck because of my parents. I was actually doing great I had it all plus a little more. I loved my life. I was on pain pills like a normal person. Then all of a sudden one day things start to go down hill. I was having my days because of my Lupus. I was already stressing over my relationship, my job and mainly my health. One thing after another thing hit, I start being in the hospital twice a week and then the pain pill taking start getting worse [the pain and sleeping pills I was trying for different types of pain I was having]. Most of all the pills that I couldn't stop taking were a high does of Vicodin. I was only suppose to take 1 pill every 4-6 hours and as needed. But I stopped that and I was taking 1-3 pills every 2-4 hours. I was over medicating myself. The sleeping pills at first was 1 pill every night for sleep. Then I doubled the dose and started over medicating myself and taking a bottle of sleeping pills without even remembering it. I even woke in hospitals because of it. Now realizing that now of this pill popping and OD-ing isn't good for me and has me feeling worse than when I first ever started taking these pills. I came to Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center. Sacred Heart has helped me to realize that my life for me and my family is more important than a bottle of pills. It has also helped me to understand life is more clear. How to cope with things, take action and don't care about everyone else and their feeling and what they think. How to not be angry about everything. Sacred Heart has really changed my whole outlook on life. It's guiding me to a much better future to live and be happy until the day I die. I am so proud of myself. I'm going to be a whole new new woman the day I walk out of Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center. I'm going to pass this place on to better many more lives just like it has done mine. If I had never came here I would just be home taking more pills which will lead to the next worse thing which could of been shooting up somewhere or found dead out in the streets or in my bed. I'm so happy this chance has come to me and I took it and ran with it. Now I'm going to walk out of here and better myself for me and my life. I'm also going to make my family proud of me again and be the best role model for my brothers, sisters, niece, and nephew. No one will have to worry about me again, I promise. I loved this program. It taught me so much I can't wait to use what I know when I get back out in the world and start living my life again! Thank you Sacred Heart! Love, Michelle P.
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Methadone replacement therapy works because it fulfills three basic requirements of any program of recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. The program, to be effective, must
(1) reduce access to drugs and alcohol. It must provide a (2) supportive structure as well as make the client (3) accountable to dependable persons other then themselves. The first requirement is that access to drugs (in this case opiates) is limited. A methadone maintained client loses his craving for opiates because the methadone sticks to the opiate receptors in the brain and won’t let any other opiates get by them. While the methadone is playing spoiler, it activates the receptors thus reducing the desire for opiates (sort of like when you don’t want to eat because you are full) at the same time that it prevents the sickness of opiate withdrawal from occurring. This process occurs slowly so that the intoxicating effects on the nervous system are minimized. In this way, the first requirement of a program of recovery is fulfilled as far as opiates are concerned. Other drugs and alcohol continue to have to be avoided to prevent active addiction on top of methadone maintenance. The primary goal for all other drugs of abuse and alcohol, while in methadone maintenance, is complete abstinence. As a client is stabilized on methadone, opiate intoxication no longer occurs. This leaves the client, who greatly misses the intoxication effect, vulnerable to the abuse of other drugs and alcohol to replace the loss of his usual opiate high. The second requirement of a program of recovery is supportive structure. An addict whose life has been dominated by chasing drugs needs to replace the old order of things with a new order of things. In a methadone maintenance program, structure is maintained by the need to acquire the methadone as well as a schedule of mandatory therapeutic services. In the early stages of recovery, the structure is implemented by requiring that a client attend the clinic daily to pick up the medicine. The intensity and frequency of therapeutic services is high for the first 90 days to a year. Participants may be required to attend groups and individual sessions weekly, but as the client is in the program longer services may become less frequent. At first, the methadone clinic may be the sole source of structure for the client, but as time passes other sources begin to emerge such as deeper involvement in the 12 step program, work, healthy exercise and family involvement. As normal life structure begins to develop the methadone clinic reduces its role in the client’s life. The ultimate goal of a therapist is to do away with the therapist. The third requirement of a program of recovery is accountability. A new client needs to find ways to make her self accountable to dependable outside authorities. The nature of recovery from addiction is to realize that when an addict is left to his own devices he will not be able to keep himself straight. He needs guard rails. The methadone clinic provides these guard rails by providing a regular monitoring service. Clients are tested for drugs and alcohol so that when the clinic staff and the client say that the client is free of illicit drugs, the evidence is objective. The client is also required to bring in any prescriptions for evaluation in order to prevent the client from abusing licit drugs. It is much harder to use or abuse drugs or alcohol when you are in a relationship with an objective and observant person and that person has the ability to manage positive and negative rewards to keep you on track. For any program of recovery to be successful these three aspects of a TX program, limiting access, providing structure and accountability must be implemented along with encouragement to find a more effective philosophy of life. -Sacred Heart Therapist I should begin with a confession. My first contact with methadone maintenance therapy was when I was invited two years ago to participate in the development task force that created the Sacred Heart Opiate Treatment Program. I suspect that that the reason I was invited to participate in the task force was to provide a sobering influence on the committee since I was brought up in the 12-step abstinence model.
Secretly, I felt a like a poison pill. Up until this point in time, “I HAD ALWAYS SEEN METHADONE MAINTENANCE AS UNACCEPTABLE. THE TRUTH IS I HAD NEVER REALLY GIVEN IT MUCH THOUGHT BEYOND AN OFF-HAND DISMISSAL.” I began my work on the task force by plowing through research study after research study. I was really looking for evidence that the methadone medication-assisted model was not good practice. I didn’t find it. The preponderance of evidence supports methadone maintenance. There is solid evidence for the practice of methadone replacement therapy that has accumulated over a very long period of time that can be found even by an old skeptic like myself. The evidence for methadone maintenance therapy shows reduction in illicit drug use, criminal activity, needle sharing, risky sexual behavior, suicide, and overdoses as well as improvements in health conditions, productivity, retention in therapy and cost-effectiveness. The body of evidence that supports these conclusions is based on matching the client to the appropriate treatment and providing that client not only with medication but also structure, accountability and therapy. My second contact with methadone medication assisted therapy was when I was asked to be the program therapist for the Sacred Heart Opiate Treatment Program. I discovered in the clients of the Sacred Heart Opiate treatment Program confirmation of the evidence provided by all that research. “EVERYDAY I SAW MIRACLES. MEN AND WOMEN, WHOSE LIVES HAD BEEN RAVAGED BY HEROIN OR PRESCRIPTION DRUG ADDICTION, BECOMING HEALTHY, GOING TO WORK AND TAKING CARE OF THEIR FAMILIES.” I saw these individuals at various stages of their recovery. Pregnant women whose maternal instinct was to protect their babies, but who could not escape the overwhelming power of their addiction, stabilized on methadone, bringing them and their fetus into a medically controlled support system. New clients would come into the clinic beat down by their disease after many fervent attempts at quitting. Most had undergone more than one detoxification episode only to return to illicit use because they never really felt normal without some sort of opiate augmentation in the same way that a diabetic never really feels normal without insulin. Truly, methadone maintenance is a program of progress not perfection, but through medication assistance and persistent therapy, science is transmuted into life. -Sacred Heart Therapist |
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