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We understand that entering treatment for an opiate addiction is overwhelming and incredibly scary. While opiate withdrawal may not be life-threatening, facing withdrawal symptoms, such as agitation, anxiety, depression, nausea, muscle cramping, and opiate cravings can be overwhelming. Not only does medication-assisted therapy help with opiate detoxification, research shows that when done right, medication-assisted therapy helps people stay in recovery longer.

Medication-assisted therapy utilizes medication in combination with behavioral therapy and counseling to provide a “whole-patient” approach to treating substance use disorders. Research indicates that a combination of therapy and medication can successfully treat substance use disorders and help some individuals sustain recovery long-term.

Medication-assisted therapy utilizes medication in combination with behavioral therapy and counseling to provide a “whole-patient” approach to treating substance use disorders. Research indicates that a combination of therapy and medication can successfully treat substance use disorders and help some individuals sustain recovery long-term.

It is a misconception that medication-assisted therapy simply replaces one drug with another. Rather, medication-assisted therapy relieves psychological cravings and withdrawal symptoms, increases one’s likelihood of remaining in treatment, improves patient survival, increases an individual’s ability to get and maintain employment, and improves the birth outcomes for women who are pregnant and have substance use disorders.

At Project Courage our Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) Track incorporates the use of two medications known to assist in the treatment of Opioid abuse and dependence: Buprenorphine (Trade names are Suboxone and Zubsolv), and Naltrexone (Naltrexone also comes in an injectable form that lasts for a month known as Vivitrol).

The two ways that MAT can help with opioid dependence are as follows:

Detoxification.

Buprenorphine can be used to help client’s safely detox from opioids such as heroin, methadone, hydrocodone, oxycodone, and hydromorphone. with minimal side effects.

Maintenance.

Both Buprenorphine and Naltrexone can be used (separately) to help prevent relapse back on to opioids. Maintenance treatment is most effective when it is combined with behavioral treatment such as individual therapy, group therapy and family therapy, and peer support such as 12 step programs

In order to fully understand how MAT works, it is imperative that you also have a basic understanding of how substances interact with the brain. Every substance of abuse is either an agonist to brain neurotransmitters meaning it enhances their effect, or an antagonist meaning it inhibits their effect. Agonists bind and activate neurotransmission in the brain. Antagonists bind and deactivate neurotransmission in the brain. Medications typically used in MAT, and the substances they are designed to treat, fall on a continuum of agonists to antagonists as follows:

Because Buprenorphine is a partial agonist it has many properties of agonist and antagonist that make it attractive for the treatment of opioid dependence and abuse. For example, it can activate neurotransmission so that the brain does not induce craving, but it can also block neurotransmission from happening so if someone ingests opioids while taking buprenorphine its effect is nullified.

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