HWN Suggests

Pitfalls of Medication-Assisted Treatment

Perhaps the most troubling pitfall of MAT is the tendency for people to rely on the medication as their primary treatment instead of working to heal the root psychological and emotional causes of addiction. Without identifying and addressing the primary reasons for addictive and compulsive behavior, a person will simply become addicted to the new substance—even one prescribed as part of a MAT plan. The lack of essential behavior modification and resolution of inherent causes for addiction in general often sets someone up for failure with MAT programs.

read full article

Featured

 A roadblock to life-saving addiction treatment is gone. Now what?

There's great optimism among some leaders that getting rid of the X-waiver will expand access to buprenorphine and reduce overdoses. One study from 2021 shows taking buprenorphine reduces the risk by 50%. The medication is an opioid that produces much weaker effects than heroin or fentanyl and reduces cravings for those deadlier drugs. The nation's drug czar, Dr. Rahul Gupta, says getting rid of the X-waiver will ultimately prevent millions of deaths.

 Addiction Treatment Medicine Is Vastly Underprescribed, Especially by Race, Study Finds

Black patients with opioid use disorder were far less likely to fill prescriptions for the most effective addiction treatments than white patients. But strikingly few patients of all races got the medicine.

 In Rehab, ‘Two Warring Factions’: Abstinence vs. Medication

The strong evidence for medication-assisted treatment has yet to win over not only many treatment providers, but patients themselves. Heather Ramsey, 30, who is six months pregnant, was prescribed one of the medications, buprenorphine, at JourneyPure. Addicted to pain pills and Xanax for half her life, she had finally sought treatment because, she said, “My body can’t take it no more.”

 Why treating addiction with medication should be carefully considered

As with any illness, the goal should be to have patients on the least amount of medication needed. But sometimes, as with diabetes or heart disease, medications are needed in concert with other treatment. To me, even the name “medication-assisted treatment” is problematic: We’re treating addiction differently than other diseases, due to the stigma that’s always surrounded it.

Articles of Interest

48 Million Americans Live With Addiction. Here’s How to Get Them Help That Works.

In fact, a growing roster of treatments (medications, behavioral therapies, counseling and other supports) have proved just as effective at managing addiction as statins are at managing cholesterol or aspirin is at preventing heart attacks. Experience suggests that many more people would make use of these treatments if only they were easier to access: In other countries and in many U.S. states, when the barriers to addiction treatment have been lowered, treatment uptake has increased, and overdose rates have fallen.

Addicted to a Treatment for Addiction

Among public health officials, the effectiveness of M.A.T. has become an article of faith; after all, treatment with buprenorphine and methadone has been found to cut opioid overdose deaths in half when compared to behavioral therapy alone, and it’s hard to argue with that. An addict treating his opioid disorder with Suboxone, many argue, is no different from a diabetic taking insulin.

Giving Prisoners Addictive Drugs: Sometimes a Good Idea

Considering the high rates of opiate dependency among American prisoners (heroin and OxyContin), short-term jails seem like an ideal place for methadone programs. Several decades' worth of evidence confirm that methadone treatment works.

How effective is medication-assisted treatment for addiction? Here’s the science

Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price sparked a firestorm last week with his comments about medication-assisted treatment, saying that “if we’re just substituting one opioid for another, we’re not moving the dial much” in the nation’s opioid epidemic. Notably, the former surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, took him to task on Twitter for, as he put it, moving away from evidence-based treatment protocols

The best opioid addiction treatment is more opioids

Why treating opioid addiction with other opioids isn’t a paradox.

The DEA Is Making It Impossible for Many to Get Addiction Meds

As the overdose crisis rages, access to methadone and buprenorphine remains hindered by bureaucracy and stigma.

The Science Behind MAT (Medication-Assisted Treatment)

MAT (medication-assisted treatment) is the use of prescription medicines, like Suboxone or Naltrexone, to treat opioid or alcohol addiction. The medications, prescribed and supervised by medical professionals, eliminate the desire to take opioids and reduce withdrawal symptoms. The use of MAT for addiction treatment has been approved by the FDA and is supported by the U.S. Surgeon General.

The Wrong Way to Treat Opioid Addiction

This widespread rejection of proven addiction medications is the single biggest obstacle to ending the overdose epidemic. Funding isn’t the barrier: Outpatient medication treatment is both more effective and significantly cheaper than adding inpatient beds at rehabilitation centers. The problem is an outdated ideology that views needing a medication to function as a form of addiction.

Resources

National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare

Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is an evidence-based treatment, when combined with counseling and other therapeutic techniques, provides a whole-patient approach.