A Look At Combatting Drug Addiction In The United States

As all who work at methadone addiction treatment centers know far too well, drug addiction – particularly opioid addiction – has been ravaging the United States for quite some time now and it only seems to be getting worse. In fact, the year of 2015 saw that nearly six hundred thousand people were addicted to heroin, a number that has likely grown in the years that have passed since, with more than one hundred thousand of them teenagers and young adults. That same year found that more than twenty thousand of teenagers in the United States had used heroin at least once, with many of them – thousands – using on a regular basis and considering themselves to be addicted.

And it’s not just heroin. Painkiller addiction is also a hugely problematic thing here in the United States, especially with how accessible painkillers have become across the country. In fact, painkiller addiction was the beginning of addiction for up to eight percent of all people who abuse heroin. For many people, painkiller usage and abuse is only the first step on the long road of addiction, and it is one that can be hugely difficult to come back from.

Unfortunately, overdose cases are high throughout the country and among those who deal with substance abuse issues. In fact, overdose has become so problematic that it is now considered to be the number one cause of accidental death for the entirety of the United States, something that methadone addiction treatment centers and other such methadone rehab centers strive to prevent as much as is possible. And in some ways, the work of methadone addiction treatment centers is working, as methadone clinics in Chicago and all throughout the country have been quite effective at curbing opiate addiction – and at least making it livable for those who are impacted by it.

Methadone is a drug used in opiate treatment, one that allows addicts to still experience the effects of the drug without experiencing the high of it. This allows them to become much more functional, as they do not go through withdrawal but are also not getting high anymore. Many people, as long as they keep taking the drug from their nearest methadone addiction treatment centers, find that they are able to go back to leading a relatively normal life. In fact, this is so often and so much the case that methadone treatments are considered to be the number one way to treat opiate addiction – and have been for the past half of a century, a full fifty years.

And methadone centers and methadone addiction treatment centers have become so vital in part because other forms of opiate treatment simply do not work. When opiate detox and then talk therapy is the only way that opiate abuse and dependency is treated, the success rates are incredibly low – no higher than ten percent and often even as low as five percent. When medical and medication based treatments like methadone acquired from methadone addiction treatment centers, however, the success rates are seen to rise quite considerably, even climbing as high as ninety percent (and typically not dipping below an overall success rate of sixty percent).

However, it is hugely important for addicts taking methadone to take it on a regular basis, as the effects of methadone tend to only last for thirty six hours at the most before another dose is needed to continue the effects. This means that the prevalence of methadone addiction treatment centers is a hugely necessary thing, especially when opiates like heroin and painkillers are rising in use at epidemic rates. While some people are hesitant about incorporate methadone treatments as a regular way to treat these conditions as dependency on the methadone itself with of course form, it allows many addicts from all different backgrounds to begin to live the lives that the want – and the lives that they deserve – something that does not always happen as easily with other types of treatment for this fierce and persistent addiction.

When it comes to heroin treatment, the question of does methadone work is very frequently asked. The answer is yes.

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