Heroin Addiction, Is Methadone The Answer?

I have done more than a couple of articles on heroin addiction, and more than several articles on addictions of all kinds and the possible cures for them. Our society today is plagued with people who are addicted to substances, activities, and more bad habits than anybody could list in one place. I am living proof that addictions can be brought under control, and stopped it you please, but there are more than one way to do so.

Not every one is the same. We as people are so diverse that to think that there is one way and only one way to cure our ailments is absurd. Heroin addiction has grabbed people of all classes, of all lifestyles, and of all ages. My own brother was addicted to pain killers and was shooting up at the age of 9 or 10 at the most. I won't go into why at this point, but opiates have to regard to anything in a persons life, age included.

One of the more popular "cures" for this addiction problem has been Methadone. I have been on and off of methadone myself at least 10 or 12 times. A couple of times I did a 21 day detox, and the rest of the times were simple maintenances. Maintainance means that I went to the clinic every morning to get my dose of medicine, and after giving the clinic clean urine tests, you can earn take home doses after a while. This then means that you go in let's say Monday, and you take your medicine, and they give you the next days dose so that you do not have to go in the next day but then Wednesday I would have to go again. In this manner you eventually earn enough places to go only once a week and pick up the whole weeks worth. But, if you give them a dirty urine test during this time, you lose your status and have to begin again with the clean tests.

Some people can make this work for them, and here is why and how. There are those addicts among us who can never just give up their addiction to drugs. They are the ones that mentally and emotionally cannot give it up due to the fact that they have issues that they have never dealt with, and their pain, whether physical or mental is too much to not be medicated. Unless they face this fact and get the help that they need, they will never be drug free, and for us as society on the whole to expect them to is not only unfair and out of line, but cruel.

One person can never feel another persons pain. I will always think that my pain is far worse than yours, and that is how the human animal works. It is not only easy, but normal for us to put down another person for the pain they feel, for you do not feel it. This is especially true of emotional pain. It is impossible to feel or experience, or understand anybody else's emotional pain. The normal thing people say is "get over it" or "you think that is bad". Although emotional pain cannot be measured, felt or understood, even by professionals, to the person who has it, it is not only real, but extremely hard to live with. I would guess an estimated 80 % or more of the addiction problems we have, are due to emotional pain. This is derived from things we have experienced growing up, from our parents, schoolmates, friends, brothers and sisters, and even from strangers. Emotional pain, though real is hard to determine. Only through therapy can one deal with emotional pain, except through self medication.

Those addicts who have not dealt with their inner pain, will probably never be able to just set down their ways and means of dealing with it, through heroin or other opiates. Methadone therefore is the perfect way to get a handle on their addiction, for two reasons. Number one, is that it is legal, therefore they will not be getting arrested and thrown into jail, disrupting and further causing the emotional pain they are running from. Secondly, it is much much better to be medicating with a drug that is measured and you know the strenght of, unlike heroin. Also, it is being administered by a doctor, not yourself, and you can be monitored by a licensed physician, so that is something does happen you are under the care of a doctor, and you do not die.

Methadone I would say is the second best way to deal with heroin addiction, and those people out there that are wondering what to do, this would be my first suggestion. Methadone is a synthetic opiate, and even though it is similair to heroin, it is far better to be on this program than not to be under anyone's care. This gives the user time, time to get counseling he or she needs, time to get off the merry go round of hustling money needed to buy drugs, and gives a person time to get their life back into some kind of normal order again, like going to school, or work. It gives you the time you need to get your priorities straight again, and is an excellent first step in getting your addiction under some kind of control.