Hi guys,
Don't mean to butt in but I read here sometimes. You guys talk about good stuff.
I think sub or methadone is a good thing. Nobody is high on it and like you said Jaz, if they're not abusing heroin, then it is a good thing.
I don't know who had this on their thread, but I read (in a box) about a heroin shooter and all he goes through in a day and I have to hand it to you guys. That had to have been one hell of an addiction to stop.
I'm glad you guys did, I really like reading over here. Hope your all going to have a good weekend.
Roseanne
Alrite all as Jaz said maybe if they tightend up the u.a system,a big maybe...but if ya need to drop a clean one,it can be done all to easily.Drugs and specially heroin have been with us for a long time,and will never go away,coz of its physically addictive side people will be at its beck&call quicker than most drugs,hence, do all in their power to maintain their habit.I have never done a full 4/5 day turkey,after over 10yrs.of heroin use,i could always get methadone to supplement the tough times,it saved me physically and mentally many times past.Once i new i really needed help and that help was M.M.T i jumped at the chance yes i did use benzos and heroin in the fist year or two but it became just a hassle so even the odd bag or valium became further apart ....im no angel and did use every now and again but it became very rare....i have been on methadone for 9yrs coming up...ive also been completly clean for nearly two years more or less.Life on methadone can be good for those of us with with a very addictive psyche,as i said heroin has been around a long time,were not the first generation of heroin users.So ive got an o.k skilled job in these times of woe,my own house with my Ma and my darling 9yr.old daughter Sian....thats the unit and a good one it is none of this coulda been possible without methadone ....im just saying it takes most of us a few tries,but its very possible.....it stabilises the chaotic like of an addict,saves lives and generally in my view is a great bit of chemistry albeit made by Nazi scientists,who went on ...no questions asked...to the U.S to further there experiments.Sorry for the ramble but its just my view ....i agree wholeheartdly with Jack and all the good stuff that has come from you all.Take care......Davey
well hello from australia this is my 5 th day of coming off 1O mg i was mathadone for 18 years and it has taken me the last 2 years to reduce to 10mg and i have had enough of doctors visits and again the stigma of turning up at at my old chemist ( which were nice people but expensive ) so any positve advice is most welcome.
well done cupcakes my man has just come of the meth after 10 years on meth amp injections tough very tough but done
x
x
Hi Jack.Hi Cupcakes.
Methadone was invented during WWII when the Germans were running out of morphine to treat injured soldiers. Just as a point of interest, we have the Germans to thank for inventing/creating morphine,diamorphine, diacetylmorphine (which was marketed as heroin) and Methadone. It was originally called Dolophine which many thought the German chemists named after Adolf Hitler but this is a misconception. Dolp- is the latin prefix for 'pain' and phine means 'to remove'.It was the worlds 1st purely synthetic opioid.
I have heard everything imaginable said on the subject of methadone. Some say it should be dumped into the sea. Others question how it can morally be correct to supply an addict with a substance even more addictive and much more difficult to come off than heroin.
From a purely clinical point of view, there are reams of statistical data to show that methdone has done a great deal of good. It stabilizes the addicts' life and once the right dose has been found,It stops them having to steal. to make a raise. it allows them to move on and live productive life. Of course the down side is that there will always be those that will sell their supply for money to buy heroin or trade it so. In the UK, many people first prescribed on methadone have to go for daily pick-up of the drug with on-site(supervised) consumption. As drug tests and other indicators show that the addict no longer recourses to heroin, this may change to weekly or even monthly pickups. The problems with the stigma of having to take the drug can be minimised through privacy and sensitive handling.
I applaude you Jack & cupcakes. You've found what works for you so stick with it. No one knows better than the addict.
R>
p.s did I just write the most boring post in the history of this site or what?
Methadone was invented during WWII when the Germans were running out of morphine to treat injured soldiers. Just as a point of interest, we have the Germans to thank for inventing/creating morphine,diamorphine, diacetylmorphine (which was marketed as heroin) and Methadone. It was originally called Dolophine which many thought the German chemists named after Adolf Hitler but this is a misconception. Dolp- is the latin prefix for 'pain' and phine means 'to remove'.It was the worlds 1st purely synthetic opioid.
I have heard everything imaginable said on the subject of methadone. Some say it should be dumped into the sea. Others question how it can morally be correct to supply an addict with a substance even more addictive and much more difficult to come off than heroin.
From a purely clinical point of view, there are reams of statistical data to show that methdone has done a great deal of good. It stabilizes the addicts' life and once the right dose has been found,It stops them having to steal. to make a raise. it allows them to move on and live productive life. Of course the down side is that there will always be those that will sell their supply for money to buy heroin or trade it so. In the UK, many people first prescribed on methadone have to go for daily pick-up of the drug with on-site(supervised) consumption. As drug tests and other indicators show that the addict no longer recourses to heroin, this may change to weekly or even monthly pickups. The problems with the stigma of having to take the drug can be minimised through privacy and sensitive handling.
I applaude you Jack & cupcakes. You've found what works for you so stick with it. No one knows better than the addict.
R>
p.s did I just write the most boring post in the history of this site or what?
I see someone found an old post of mine- -it looks like I was letting the stigma of being on a medically assisted treatment get to me at the time.
Since I first posted this, I stopped letting others make me feel so guilty or ashamed to choose this as my treatment.
I never will call MM a cure, but as plenty of us know- -taken properly, along with therapy or groups, a heroin addict finally had a chance.
Posted below ,I pasted a breif history of methadone treatment in this country- -as Reshie mentioned it was invented in Germany because of the morphine shortage (during the war) and the new addicts in this country coming back with habits from Korea, and Vietnam- -
Methadone is a rigorously well-tested medication that is considered safe and efficacious for the treatment of narcotic withdrawal and dependence. For more than 40 years this synthetic narcotic has been used to treat opioid addiction. It is not, however, an effective treatment for other drugs of abuse. The patient is freed from the uncontrolled, compulsive, and disruptive behavior seen in heroin addicts, but ultimately remains physically dependent on the opioid. Withdrawal from methadone is much slower than that from heroin. Many MMT patients require continuous treatment, sometimes over a period of years or even a lifetime
History of MMT Programs
Until 1963, doctors and public health workers had concluded that there were no treatments known which could cure more than a small fraction of long-term opiate addictions (heroin, morphine, etc). Every imaginable option had been tried, from lobotomies and insulin shock to psychoanalysis and the threat of lifetime incarceration. In every case, between 70 and 90 percent of these chronic addicts would return to opiates within a short time. As a result, several prestigious panels examined the problem and by 1963 had come to the conclusion that it was time to re-examine nearly fifty years of prohibition and consider allowing doctors to prescribe addicts the opiates they needed.
At Rockefeller University in New York City, Dr. Vincent Dole, an expert in metabolic disorders, and Dr. Marie Nyswander, a psychiatrist who had worked at the U.S. Public Health Hospital/Prison for addicts in Lexington, Kentucky, began experiments with several chronic heroin addicts. In attempting to determine if addicts could be maintained on stable doses of pharmaceutical opiates, the volunteers were given access to the spectrum of opiates available to medical practitioners. The researchers tried everything from morphine to dilaudid, but found that it was extremely difficult to stabilize the subjects. The addicts were either over sedated or in mild withdrawal most of the time, and spent their days either "on the nod", waiting for their next shot, or comparing the relative merits of the drugs used. Reluctantly, Drs Dole and Nyswander concluded that the experiment had been a failure, and decided to "detox" the addicts and release them from the hospital.
To accomplish the withdrawal, they turned to a synthetic narcotic called methadone. Methadone had first been synthesized by German chemists before World War II, and after the war it was used to withdraw addicts at Lexington. It had the advantage of being cheap, significantly orally active, and longer lasting than opiates like morphine. For the researchers at Rockefeller, it seemed merely a convenient and humane means of ending the experiment with maintenance. As the addict volunteers had been built up to large doses of narcotics by street standards, they were given relatively large doses of methadone to stabilize their "habits" before beginning the reduction.
A few days after the subjects had been switched to methadone, and before the "detox" had begun, they began to exhibit very different behavior. Whereas for weeks they had spent their days either feeling the effects of the narcotics or complaining of their need for more narcotics, suddenly the focus of their days turned away from drugs. One subject asked the researchers for supplies so that he might resume his long neglected hobby of painting. Another inquired after the possibility of continuing his interrupted education. In short, the addicts- who when admitted to the hospital had looked and behaved very much alike - now began to differentiate. They began to manifest the potential that each had obscured during years of chasing street narcotics.
Since I first posted this, I stopped letting others make me feel so guilty or ashamed to choose this as my treatment.
I never will call MM a cure, but as plenty of us know- -taken properly, along with therapy or groups, a heroin addict finally had a chance.
Posted below ,I pasted a breif history of methadone treatment in this country- -as Reshie mentioned it was invented in Germany because of the morphine shortage (during the war) and the new addicts in this country coming back with habits from Korea, and Vietnam- -
Methadone is a rigorously well-tested medication that is considered safe and efficacious for the treatment of narcotic withdrawal and dependence. For more than 40 years this synthetic narcotic has been used to treat opioid addiction. It is not, however, an effective treatment for other drugs of abuse. The patient is freed from the uncontrolled, compulsive, and disruptive behavior seen in heroin addicts, but ultimately remains physically dependent on the opioid. Withdrawal from methadone is much slower than that from heroin. Many MMT patients require continuous treatment, sometimes over a period of years or even a lifetime
History of MMT Programs
Until 1963, doctors and public health workers had concluded that there were no treatments known which could cure more than a small fraction of long-term opiate addictions (heroin, morphine, etc). Every imaginable option had been tried, from lobotomies and insulin shock to psychoanalysis and the threat of lifetime incarceration. In every case, between 70 and 90 percent of these chronic addicts would return to opiates within a short time. As a result, several prestigious panels examined the problem and by 1963 had come to the conclusion that it was time to re-examine nearly fifty years of prohibition and consider allowing doctors to prescribe addicts the opiates they needed.
At Rockefeller University in New York City, Dr. Vincent Dole, an expert in metabolic disorders, and Dr. Marie Nyswander, a psychiatrist who had worked at the U.S. Public Health Hospital/Prison for addicts in Lexington, Kentucky, began experiments with several chronic heroin addicts. In attempting to determine if addicts could be maintained on stable doses of pharmaceutical opiates, the volunteers were given access to the spectrum of opiates available to medical practitioners. The researchers tried everything from morphine to dilaudid, but found that it was extremely difficult to stabilize the subjects. The addicts were either over sedated or in mild withdrawal most of the time, and spent their days either "on the nod", waiting for their next shot, or comparing the relative merits of the drugs used. Reluctantly, Drs Dole and Nyswander concluded that the experiment had been a failure, and decided to "detox" the addicts and release them from the hospital.
To accomplish the withdrawal, they turned to a synthetic narcotic called methadone. Methadone had first been synthesized by German chemists before World War II, and after the war it was used to withdraw addicts at Lexington. It had the advantage of being cheap, significantly orally active, and longer lasting than opiates like morphine. For the researchers at Rockefeller, it seemed merely a convenient and humane means of ending the experiment with maintenance. As the addict volunteers had been built up to large doses of narcotics by street standards, they were given relatively large doses of methadone to stabilize their "habits" before beginning the reduction.
A few days after the subjects had been switched to methadone, and before the "detox" had begun, they began to exhibit very different behavior. Whereas for weeks they had spent their days either feeling the effects of the narcotics or complaining of their need for more narcotics, suddenly the focus of their days turned away from drugs. One subject asked the researchers for supplies so that he might resume his long neglected hobby of painting. Another inquired after the possibility of continuing his interrupted education. In short, the addicts- who when admitted to the hospital had looked and behaved very much alike - now began to differentiate. They began to manifest the potential that each had obscured during years of chasing street narcotics.
Thank you all for the info some i knew some not. To actually be informed without stats fired at me is excellent ta x
