Well if you're asking my opinion, I completely agree that methadone is NOT for everyone. Too many doctors out there see nothing but dollar signs and junkies rather than legitimately wanting to help someone get their life back. It's obviously a bad idea to start MMT if your addiction was far milder than methadone itself, but even then I suppose it depends on the circumstances.
However people like myself who have been IV users of heroin, pills and basically any opiate we could get our hands on...we know what it's like to have that immense load bearing down on us every second of every day; what it's like to know our lives are ruined, we will end up in jail or dead, and we are essentially forced to live out the rest of out lives with extreme moods and nothing in between. How soon we forget. Yes, methadone has side effects like all drugs. No, it's definitely not for everybody and if someone makes the choice to kick without it, that's awesome - more power to you. But after years of being borderline suicidal, being awake all night for days on end with a severe knot in my stomach just waiting for the hell that is withdrawal to return, tens of thousands of dollars in debt, unemployed, having lost friends and even family, and overall the crushing depression that comes with the knowledge that your life is ruined...it's a bloody MIRACLE that there's something out there able to take me out of this abyss. I always used to look at people out working and think to myself "gee, how can they possibly have the energy to do this" - for something as simple as a guy mowing his lawn.
Seeing as how methadone does NOT generally hurt your body physically, is able to be taken orally and therefore our pin-cushion skins start healing, normally are able to receive carries for a week at a time before long etc. etc. it almost seems ungrateful to complain. I know for a fact that I would have lost decades off my life or else been in jail for the rest of it. Being able to work and above all, not have the unimaginable burden of waking up every day and going through hours of hell obtaining money and drugs only to repeat the process the next day and the day after that until the end...well all I can say is I am IMMENSELY grateful to my doctors and to the drug in general. Yeah I sweat more and have gained too much weight, but I can do something about that - which certainly was not the case with my addiction. I know that potential lifelong dependency is not perfect, but comparing it to the alternative (even if it were a TENTH as bad as it actually was) and I would go with the methadone every single time. It deserves my respect, and I feel exceptionally grateful with no desire to nitpick each and every one of its side effects. All-in-all I feel like the luckiest guy on earth just one year after desperately searching for locations in which to hang myself.
j/k
