If Only We Could Travel Through Time....

For the sake of all those who have yet to go through heroin detox or opiate replacement therapy, I wish that I could go back and begin this blog from the moment immediately before I got clean. Like many addicts, I knew in my soul that I needed a drastic change in my life long before I actually made any changes. Part of the problem I had in initiating change was that it was difficult to get the answers I was looking for and even more difficult to put together a plan that may work to keep me clean over the long term. I saw over ten different doctors and therapists over the course of many years while I sought a program which would work for me. I believe that it would have been really helpful to be able to find some resources out there for people in my position. If I had had access to a non-judgemental, unbiased source of knowledge and information regarding opiate dependence, I may have saved myself a lot of heartache and physical pain.
I can't even count how many times I tried to get clean on my own. But I do remember vividly the excruciating pain of it as if it were yesterday. Once I found out about medically assisted detox programs, I realized it was possible to detox with relatively little discomfort if a person was under the supervision of a medical staff at a rehab facility. With the ability to be detoxed and back on the streets within a week or less, it's easy to fall right back into using because most rehabs don't set up adequate aftercare programs for their patients. I in fact wondered if they hoped patients would come back because it is after all a profitable business with state care going for over a thousand dollars a day and up. After several years of trial and error - of cold turkey, of trying to wean myself, AA, and NA, and even a year or so of suboxone - it was the methadone that finally made recovery a possibility.
As much as I credit methadone maintenance therapy with changing and possibly saving my life, it may not be the best thing for everyone. First of all, one must understand that methadone clinics are not non-profit. It is in their interest to make money off their patients. Methadone clinics are not charitable organizations - so if lack of funds is the main reason you want to quit drugs, methadone may not be the answer for you as it sometimes feels like it costs as much as my old habit. It doesn't, of course, cost nearly as much but it seems that way sometimes. There are many, many more reasons to think significantly about whether methadone is right for you - so if it's something you are thinking about for yourself or someone you love - PLEASE STAY TUNED FOR MORE TIPS FROM THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN THERE! PLEASE, i WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM OTHERS WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED ADDICTION AND ARE ON THEIR WAY TO RECOVERY EITHER PHYSICALLY OR MENTALLY.