Suboxone has several key advantages over methadone. I've had a physical addiction to opioids for 20 years. I've been on both medications and can tell you the major differences. The main problem with methadone is that it's a full opioid agonist and fundamentally works the same as all the others your trying to quit. And the main consequence of this is you will require higher and higher doses to keep you satisfied and quench the cravings. Just as
@Ganjcat is saying, methadone only keeps his cravings at bay for several days then he uses again. While buprenophine will actively block other opiods if you try to use. You'll do it a couple times and then realize your just wasting money and you might as well just stick with the suboxone. It took me 3 tries with suboxone starting in 2003 but by 2011 I've been totally clean from all opioids and still take 16mg of suboxone a day. I have no cravings or urge to use and have totally turned my life around. In the mid 90's I became addicted to oxy and other strong opioids which got to the point I was using 300-500mg a day. Once I'd had enough of that life I got on a methadone program. It took 3 months of being totally sick before I started getting the smallest bit of relief. This was at 250mg of methadone. When I reached 300mg they wouldn't go any higher and I was still having cravings. Finally after another month I started feeling better and began drug court and got my legal issues taken care of. I completed drug court successfully and thought damn, methadone is great. I still had cravings and soon I didn't feel the methadone at all. So I decided to tirate down, I did it very slowly but began feeling bad when I got below 150mg. So my Dr prescribed me xanax, big mistake!!! I then developed a terrible benzo addiction. Now this mixture lowered my inhibitions and my common sense and I began to use large amounts of cocaine. Started snorting, then smoking, then shooting. So now I have 3 bad addictions. Ended up getting kicked out of the clinic so no more methadone, and it was the absolute worst feeling and experience I ever had. I put a gun in my mouth and almost pulled the trigger, but I suddenly saw my dog looking at me and I just couldn't do it with her looking at me with sad puppy eyes. I started buying methadone off the street which was of course expensive. Oxy had no effect anymore, I'd need 10 OC 80's just to stay well. Dope didn't do sqaut, even that raw. These were the days before fentanyl. So now I've lost everything again, I'm in worse shape then the first time. And have multiple addictions this time around.i get locked up for 13 months. That fucking methadone withdrawal is far worse than any other opioid by far. It's long half life is a double edged sword. Yeah it'll hold you over longer between doses but the withdrawal last so fucking long. It took 6 months sitting in jail before I finally started feeling better.i got on work release, got a good job, finished drug court again and the day I was released I went to the clinic and started on methadone AGAIN!! The whole fucking cycle was starting over. I was up to 250mg a day again. I made up my mind I was gonna change things this time. I got with suboxone dr, who was one of the first in the country to be certified, and she told me to wean down to 30mg of methadone, which took about 6 months, I did that. Then she told me about the hardest part. Make sure I was off work for 7 days and prepare for hell. I had to completely stop the methadone and wait at least 5 full days for all if it to excrete from my system. On day 6 I was hurting more than ever, she did give me librium and clonidine which did help some. On day 7 I started the suboxone, one half every 6 hours and increase that by a half each day until I started feeling better. I got up to 4 8mg subutex a day which was the maximum dose. After about 3 days of taking that I finally felt better. And each day I felt better and better. I had no cravings, physical or psychological, and after a month a felt 100 percent. It was a 15 roller coaster ride and now I was finally feeling normal. Over the next several years I weaned down to 2 8/2 films a day which works absolutely great and I owe my life to suboxone!! Hope my story helps you in some way, prepares you for the hurdles, but shows you it can be done, even when switching from 250mg or more of methadone. I now have been 100 percent clean since April 26th 2012 Also
@sekio made some great pointe as well. Good luck to you, you can do it!!!!