Opioid maintenance - for or against?

[rachamim]

Busty: If a dialysis patient stops dyalysis, they will die. So, given the fact that dyalysis is saving a person's life, you arent going to find too many people suggesting that dyalysis be done away with. A patient in OST/MAT (Opioid Substitution Therapy/Medically Assisted Treatment) may resent their being tethered to a substance and/or programme, just as a dialysis patient resents being tethered to their treatment, but both will thank their lucky stars it exists. A person who becomes addicted to opiates/opioids before the age of 24 almost always suffers from an altered brain chemistry. Interactions between receptors and endogenous opioids is irrepeprably altered so that such people will never again experience true happiness or pleasure. To deny any human the right to a so caled "normal" existence because our subjective morality finds their personal behavior unpalatable is beyond selfish.

Why should addicts aim for abstinence? No person on the planet is entirely free of addiction. Whether it be sex, caffeine, nicotine, gambling, shopping, or whatever compulsive habit you opt to list, we all carry at least one monkey on our back. Addiction is only ever a problem when society demonises it. Addicts in OST/MAT are able to live productive and fufilling lives. They are able to remain healthy, interact with non-using peers and family membets and concentrate their energies on licit activities. So, you have a low cost treatment that saves lives, repairs damaged lives, restores a person's humanity, saves society from related crime and health issues...but we should aim for abstinence, a mode of behavior that has a nearly 100% failure rate over a person's life span. I think the choice is simple.

 

[rachamim]

To the poster who said an 8 hour drive would only ne worth it if tge patient were suffering from a terminal illness, unchecked illicit addiction IS a terminal illness. I personally travel a whole lot more to pick up my medication and am grateful for the opportunity to get it. If a heroin addict were told they had to skip for eight hours just to get straight, they wouldnt hesitate. OST/MAT is much more beneficial and therefore well worth the struggle to obtain it.

 

[eldub v7.0]

To the poster who said an 8 hour drive would only ne worth it if tge patient were suffering from a terminal illness, unchecked illicit addiction IS a terminal illness. I personally travel a whole lot more to pick up my medication and am grateful for the opportunity to get it. If a heroin addict were told they had to skip for eight hours just to get straight, they wouldnt hesitate. OST/MAT is much more beneficial and therefore well worth the struggle to obtain it.

i wasn't disagreeing with their choice. being an addict myself it would be worth the expense to live a functional life.

i was certain i had ruined any chance of being treated with narcotics ever again but after once again having to jump through the hoops of compliance the doctors set out for certain patients under certain circumstances, i'm lucky to have my GP as my maintenance doctor, alternatively treating me with morphine alongside with risperidone.

the anti-depressant effects and mood lift that it provides alongside with the risperidone certainly plays a strong role in getting me up and going instead of being a shuffling, silent, emotionless zomie the risperidone provides.