How Will I Feel on Methadone Treatment?

For people trying to overcome the effects of chronic opiate addiction, finding the right treatment approach can make all the difference in the world as far as seeing ongoing success in recovery goes.

While traditional treatment models offer a number of tools and supports to help a person maintain abstinence, many fall short in terms of addressing the actual challenges people coming off long-term opiate addiction face.

Methadone treatment does a good job at providing the level of support and care needed to give recovering addicts the best chance of a successful recovery process. One of the key benefits of methadone treatment lies in its ability to help those in recovery feel normal again as opposed to the ongoing state of fatigue and sense of detachment that opiate addiction leaves behind. By understanding how methadone treatment works, you can make an informed decision as to whether this approach can best address your specific treatment needs.

Methadone Therapy

Feel on Methadone

Methadone helps restore chemical processes in the brain, making it easier to focus on recovery.

As the very first opiate addiction treatment medication developed, methadone has an extensive track record in terms of the amount of research and development that’s gone into the methadone treatment approach, according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Methadone benefits result from its ability to mimic the effects of addictive opiate substances, like heroin and OxyContin without posing a high risk for abuse and addiction.

Methadone is a synthetic opiate drug that produces slow-acting effects over the course of a 24 to 36 hour period. Once inside the brain, methadone stimulates the same brain cell receptor sites as other opiates.

Over the course of abusing opiates, brain cell sites undergo considerable damage leaving them unable to produce needed neurotransmitter chemicals. By the time a person enters treatment, not only are these cells unable to function normally, but marked imbalances have taken over the brain’s chemical system.

These imbalances account for the ongoing discomfort experienced for months or even years into the recovery process. Ongoing discomfort typically takes the form of:

  • Insomnia
  • Irritability
  • Restlessness
  • Inability to experience joy or contentment
  • Mood swings
  • Fatigue

Methadone’s ability to stimulate the production of neurotransmitter supplies offers much needed support to damaged brain cell sites, which in turn helps to restore a normal chemical balance. In the process, a person starts to feel more like him or herself, physically, mentally and emotionally.

For information on whether your insurance will help pay for the costs of methadone treatment, call 800-678-5931(Paid Advertiser) .

Methadone Treatment Effects

Methadone treatment offers a range of benefits for addicts in recovery, such as:

  • Improved physical health
  • Normal sleep patterns resume
  • Clear thinking
  • Emotional stability
  • Increased motivation to get well
  • Ability to engage with the treatment process
  • Ability to maintain employment
  • Improved focus and concentration

In addition to methadone’s therapeutic effects, methadone treatment also incorporates behavioral treatment interventions as a part of the overall treatment approach, according to the National Institute of Justice. Behavioral treatment interventions work to help a person undo the damaging effects of addiction on his or her thinking and behavior using talk therapies, drug education and support group work. In the process, recovering addicts build lifestyles capable of sustaining ongoing abstinence on a long-term basis.

Considerations

More than anything else, methadone treatment stands out from the crowd in its ability to support damaged brain chemical processes. In effect, people recovering from chronic opiate addictions face a high risk for relapse due to the brain’s diminished functional capacity.

By combining methadone therapy with behavioral treatment, methadone therapy addresses the biggest challenges a person will face in recovery.

If you or someone you know is considering methadone treatment and need more information on available treatment options, please don’t hesitate to call our toll-free helpline at 800-678-5931(Paid Advertiser) to speak with one of our addictions specialists.

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Calls to numbers on a specific treatment center listing will be routed to that treatment center. Calls to any general helpline will be answered or returned by one of the treatment providers listed, each of which is a paid advertiser: ARK Behavioral Health, Recovery Helpline, Alli Addiction Services.

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