Drug Rehabilitation that works

The residential treatment program for drug addiction in Utah is specially designed to look after the requirements of people who are in intense conditions of addiction within the state. In fact, when all other methods of addiction treatment fail, the residential treatment program is expected to succeed. Let us take a look at how this program works for eliminating cases of drug addiction in Utah.

One of the first things that need to be noted about this program is that it is a community based program. People who are in similar conditions of addiction are housed together in a center, isolated from their friends and families. The isolation becomes important in these cases because all people who come in for the residential treatment program are in severe conditions of addiction. Maintaining contact with familiar people and places will make it quite difficult for them to come out of their urges for the substance.

The main intention is to allow people of similar conditions live together, so that they can share experiences, get motivated from each other and hence move speedily towards their recoveries. Most of the program is conducted in a group format, though there are various individual elements to the program also.

The first phase of the residential treatment program for drug addiction in Utah is mostly an intervention process. This becomes important because most people who will enter the center will be initially in a state of denial. They will not be willing to undergo the treatment process and they may not even think that their condition warrants any kind of treatment. However, this is quite detrimental to the overall treatment program because a person who is in denial will not respond to the treatment. Hence, the centers will start a motivational program which will make them understand that they need to get treated. This process itself can take a couple of weeks or even more in some cases, depending on how vehement the person’s denial is.

Once the denial has been removed, the next step is to get the person through a detoxification program. Quite expectedly, the detox program in a residential treatment program is more stringent and longer in duration than the detox program in the normal cases. This is because of the severity of the addictions that the patients are in. There will also be a need for a pretreatment analysis just to make sure that the patient will be able to get through the detox process. If the patient has some health or even psychiatric complications, then alternative routes of treatment are employed.

Detoxification in the residential treatment program includes removing the collected toxins from the body of the patient. This can take a lot of medical care and supervision, especially during the difficult withdrawal period that the program will entail. Even after the withdrawal has almost subsided, the patient will need to be put on maintenance medication just so that the patient does not feel the pangs of the substance anymore. The maintenance medication will go on for a long time after the detox treatment.

The next step is the aftercare. Aftercare is quite important because this is where the patient’s mind is freed from the addiction. This is where the patient is conditioned in such a way that they will not consider the substance of addiction even if they have urges for it. This is done through one on one counseling to work out the emotional issues that might be keeping patients with the addiction and also through group techniques in which education is imparted to the patients about the repercussions of the addictions they are in and therapies are taught that they can practice whenever the urges for the substance occur. In most centers, therapies such as meditation exercises such as Yoga, relaxation techniques, breathing exercises, massages, acupunctures, aromatherapy treatment and even spiritual and faith based treatments are used to keep people out of their temptations for using the substance.

People who are in intense addictive conditions and those who have tried other methods of treatment without meeting any success from them are the best candidates for this kind of recovery process. The drug courts in Utah will make it compulsory for persons who have been convicted of alcohol or drug influenced offenses to participate in a treatment program in a residential center. At the same time, people who have some kinds of health complications or mental illnesses that complicate their recovery process can be handled most suitable in a residential treatment center.

Let us see some details about Suboxone in the context of heroin addiction treatment and understand why it is considered to be a boon where opiate treatment is concerned.

What is Suboxone?

Suboxone is a formulation containing buprenorphine and naloxone. It is designed for opiate addiction treatment and is used predominantly in the treatment of heroin addiction. It is administered during heroin detox. It is not a full agonist opiate, which means that it is not much addictive to the person using it. That is the reason it is prescribed for outpatient heroin addiction treatment also.

How does Suboxone compare with Methadone?

Methadone is a very popular form of heroin detox treatment used in most parts of the world. In the US, the use of methadone dates back to at least three decades. However, the approval of Suboxone has been considered to be a great boon mainly because it overcomes most of the shortcomings of methadone treatment.

The following are some points which make clear why Suboxone is favored in comparison to methadone.

1. Suboxone is not as addictive as methadone. Methadone needs to be administered with careful precision. Any overstepping of dosage might trigger a withdrawal in the person when the methadone use is stopped. Since Suboxone is not a complete opiate agonist, it can be administered without this worry.

2. Methadone needs to be provided only under complete medical supervision. The preferable mode of methadone treatment is inpatient, but even if it is provided on an outpatient basis, the person will need to visit the treatment center on a daily basis for monitoring.

3. One of the best advantages of Suboxone over methadone is the presence of naloxone. Naloxone is a substance that produces revulsion for the medication in the person. It causes serious withdrawal symptoms as soon as it is consumed. Hence, the person refrains from consuming any more of Suboxone than is needed. This ensures that the person does not develop a Suboxone habit as a cover for the heroin addiction.

4. The other ingredient of Suboxone, buprenorphine, is actually the main principle of treatment. Buprenorphine is an opiate just as heroin is, but several times less addictive. It is much less addictive than methadone too. When it is introduced in the person’s body, it triggers the same part of the brain that heroin triggers. Hence, as long as the person is consuming buprenorphine in the form of Suboxone, the person will not feel the urge for heroin. Methadone acts with the same principle, but it has the potential danger of replacing the heroin addiction with a methadone addiction. Buprenorphine, on the other hand, cannot be addictive when taken as Suboxone because of the presence of naloxone.

How is Suboxone supposed to be consumed?

Suboxone is a medication meant for oral consumption. It is meant to be kept on the tongue from where it gets automatically absorbed. The drug is meant for a daily therapy, but some people feel that one pill every alternate day is good enough to keep their heroin cravings at bay.

There is something noteworthy about the way Suboxone is meant to be consumed. When it is placed on the tongue, the buprenorphine amount in it gets completely absorbed. But the naloxone is present in a small quantity and it cannot be absorbed completely. Naloxone causes the revulsion for using Suboxone. This method of consumption ensures that a lot of naloxone does not enter the person’s body and hence it can be easily consumed. If the person were to use some other way of consuming Suboxone, there was a chance that more of naloxone could enter their body and the person would get severe withdrawal. The amount that enters through this prescribed manner of consumption is just perfect for keeping the addiction at bay and also preventing withdrawal symptoms.

Is Suboxone a Maintenance Medication for Heroin Addiction Treatment?

Because Suboxone can keep the person’s craving for heroin at bay, it is certainly a maintenance medication. People can be prescribed this medication after a heroin detox. They can also be allowed to switch over from methadone treatment to Suboxone treatment, but with a suitable gap to allow the body to come out of the methadone regularity.