Pinprick, I regrettably didn't actually notice this comment until just now. There are other comments as well that we should talk about here. First off, I'm your friend and we all do our very best to treat each other with compassion, respect and understanding. Please do not be offended if we try to redirect you a little bit. We do all of this for the community, not our egoes.
In the forums and life in general, making absolute statements is a quick way to alienate people, especially if they are questions that cannot in reality be answered. If you are claiming to know the answer to a question that is unanswerable in a specific, scientifically evident way, then you are only going to be seen as pompous and people will lose respect for you and thus, not attach value to other contributions. I do not want that for you, so please just hear me out.
It was a simple phrase, but when you refer to Methadone Maintenance as a trap, let's face it, you're implying a lot of powerful stuff. A trap, specifically implies that a person didn't know what they were doing, didn't understand and so were caught by the proverbial trap. It makes the personi in question seem like a confused animal who is incapable of making the decisions needed to stay alive. It also pretty much casts Methadone maintenance as not a legitimate treatment, but of something decidedly malevolent. In the same breath, you refute the idea that maintenance is actually a treatment in favor of labelling it as a scam or a lie.
There are people out there, including folks I talked to just yesterday here, who pursue Methadone with the honest intent of changing their lives. Yes, some people enter into Methadone programs and believe them to be "the cure" and by not working on themselves and their real problems, they just develop another addiction on top of Methadone. They no longer spend their dope money on dope, so now they can spent it on booze or crack. However, when you enter into the maintenance program with true intent to get better, it can be an absolute miracle. Everyone makes such a huge deal about "being chained to the clinic", when they're already chained to their drug dependency. It just doesn't make sense. If you want to get off, you can taper at such a slow rate that the withdrawal is nearly unnoticeable. If you fuck up, use Benzodiazepines or whatever, yea it sucks to have to withdraw from Methadone, but if you're doing the right things in your life, not only should you not be afraid, but you will eventually get a prescription allowing for once-weekly and eventually, once-monthly take-homes. Again, if you're ready to change, it can be a miracle.
So please just be careful as with that comment, you probably caused a lot of people to feel badly about themselves for no reason. For me, addiction is not even about the drugs, it's about how you act and how you affect others. I do not subscribe to the "a drug is a drug" shit. I've been in the 12-steps for a while and they saved my life. They make the "drug is a drug" comment despite the fact that they are consuming Caffeine, Nicotine and potential other psychoactive prescription drugs. Last time I checked, Fluoxetine (Prozac) is a drug. Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) is a drug. So where is the line in the sand? I still smoke weed, I take Gabapentin and at one point was on Methadone. I measured my success not by the drugs, but by how my life was improving. As they say in the program, my life was unmanageable. I could not handle even the most basic shit. Now that I'm not drinking or getting high, my life has improved tremendously. It no longer feels unmanageable. My family and I have a good relationship. They haven't seen me messed up for years. I try to make amends to people I've hurt. It's working.
The Only Treatment for Heroin Addiction is Abstinence...
I'm gonna be frank. You're mistaken on an objective level. This is simply misinformation and you're really getting behind it as if you're totally sure, but, I'm telling you that this is wrong. The philosophy that you're preaching is antiquated and not truly based in reality. There are many treatments out there for Opioid addiction, including many that are relatively new. Both Methadone and Buprenorphine maintenance are among the most promising. The thing is, they are not cures. They are only tools that can help you truly recover, but you must also work on yourself. My opinion on Methadone was that is allowed me the time to work on myself. I had much more free time and room in my mind to think. By working on myself throughout the process, I mangaged to get clean and taper off.
To get really brutal, I have to note that spreading this type of philosophy is actually a lot more harmful to the community than I think you realize. The abstinence-only path has really become a "wouldn't it be nice" type of thing, that sounds great on paper, but in reality is a statistical fluke when it actually happens. You know how many people in my life have said "just stop; pull yourself up by your bootstraps; if you want it, you can do it." It's entirely too easy to make judgements like this, I admit, but that doesn't make it right.
Among other things, the abstinence-only philosophy often entails short bursts of sobriety followed by relapse in a cyclical nature. In between relapses, the mind is frequently inundated with powerful cravings that cause extreme anxiety, depression and feeling of worthlessness. The point here is, that even during these periods of sobriety, nobody is actually "getting better". It's just a crash diet in which the weight is lost only to come back shortly thereafter, as the diet is not feasibly sustainable. This cycle of relapse and sobriety opens addicts up to a greatly increased possibility of overdosing, as their tolerance is going all over the place and street drugs are often of dubious potency.
In addition to all of that, there are people in the forums and in real life, myself included, who are proud of the progress that they have made using Methadone and "other drugs" to fix our lives. I'm far from perfect and have used and drank since quitting IV Heroin, but they were all mostly one-offs. Still, looking through the lens of brutal honesty, my life is infinitely better than when my only friend was Heroin. My family thinks so, friends think so and that's what matters to me, not what drugs I'm on. It's about how I am and how I affect those I care about. You are basically telling these people that what they thought was progress was indeed, not actually real and that they are either not smart or vigilant enough to notice.
Please just think about these things before you post dude. When we don't know the answer to something, we do not present it as fact. If you don't believe in something, you don't have a right to tell others that they are wrong. You can only share your opinion. I want you to be a helpful member of the community, but this is just not a good thing.
You can be an addict, be clean, but still use substances. Those can be Nicotine, Caffeine, Cannabis or what have you. What matters is your intentions and how you affect other people and the world around you. If a junkie who used to prostitute herself for Heroin and Crack every day, gets on Methadone, still smokes weed but is able to raise a family, go to college and feel love for herself and her life, is that not what is most important?
Don't anyone feel discouraged. If you all are on maintenance, your sobriety is still just as meaningful as your heart knows it is. People will tell you you're wrong, you're deluded, you're lying to yourself. They are the ones who feel the need to tell you what's wrong with your life because they're not happy with theirs. Ignore them. The fact that someone feels the need to tell people that they're failures and not smart enough to realize it, despite having no real evidence to support it... I just don't understand the intentions.
Be proud people. We're in this together.
