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METHADONE TREATMENT IS effective in providing stability, but long-term users need a range of social interventions and supports, a new report has found.
The report – Just Maintaining the Status Quo? – found that long-term users need education, training, housing and family welfare supports, in addition to medical treatment.
The research examines the experiences of 25 people who have been on methadone treatment for 10 years or more. The average age of research participants was 43.
The average age that research participants first used drugs was 14 years old. The average age that they first used heroin was 19 years old.
Methadone treatment impacted participants’ lives positively by bringing stability and normality to their lives.
However, they reported negative sentiments about methadone and the treatment system more broadly, feeling they had little say in their treatment, particularly in relation to long-term rehabilitation planning.
Participants also reported having extremely low levels of social integration. The vast majority were unemployed and didn’t see any realistic prospect of employment.
Many were homeless or precariously housed, with over half of the participants experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives.
The report included comment from a number of participants about their experience of methadone management treatment.
Bernie, aged 40-44, said:
You feel you can’t get a job. Like what if your job starts at 9 o’clock and you haven’t got your Phy in you all day, d’you know what I mean … and then you’re thinking like ‘What if they ask for a medical?’. Even though they don’t know me, there is stigma.
Eric, aged 35-39, said:
That’s the one good thing about methadone … you’re stable, you can have somewhat of a normal life. I like the stability of methadone, I can just engage in family life, have a sup of tea and watch programmes and just have a chat. Before, I’d just stay in my room because I’d probably be stoned.
Ronnie, aged 45-49, said:
So the whole family had to turn thier back on me and there was a lot of discord that I brought to that family. You know, when you’re an addict, especially when you’re a heroin addict, you don’t realise, you think that you’re only hurting yourself, but you don’t realise the whole family behind you and the disruption you can cause.
The report was written by a team of researchers from Trinity College Dublin and commissioned by the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Drug and Alcohol Taskforce.
Commenting at the launch today, Dr Paula Mayock said: “This is the first study in Ireland that specifically focuses on people who are long-term participants in methadone maintenance treatment.
“We found that levels of social reintegration amongst our participants was exceptionally low. Most did not have access to the kind of economic, social or personal resources that are needed to bolster and sustain the recovery process.
“The dominant experience of being a methadone user was one of stigma, with many of those we engaged with for this research attempting to conceal their methadone use for fear of being judged. Stigma contributes to social isolation, with participants sharing with us how they felt excluded from community and family life.”
The report was launched today by Minister for State Mary Mitchell O’Connor.
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Tomorrow, why bank robbers can’t find work
@Bertie O’Riordan: well you just proved their point , equateing people trying to get their lives back together with criminals..
@Bertie O’Riordan: yes, especially in banks
@Picture This: Maybe equating them with criminals is OTT, but take the first guy in the article as an example. If he had to start work before the clinic opened, he’d be a wreck all day without his methadone. Would you hire him to work in your business ?
@Kieran Stafford: The government fixed the banks. but can’t seem to put the same effort into fixing anything else.
@Sean Conway: They did not “fix” the banks, they just threw money at them and saddled the country with sovereign debt.
@Sean Conway: So right! No care for individuals who need it. Services shocking. Early intervention? Effect on families?
@Bertie O’Riordan: was at the launch today and a former heroin addict who was on methadone too tried to come off it 6 times. Now substance free 7 years, went to college and working away. Great to hear. That is why today was important. Not about cynicism. Recovery.
People are kept on methadone way too long. Too much money in it for the doctor’s , chemist’s etc. It’s a business.
@Philip Farrelly: The money in it is relatively poor, the reason people are kept on it so long is because the risk of relapse (and thus overdose and death) when tapering off hard opiates like heroin completely is very high.
@Philip Farrelly: How long have you been on it?
@ihcalaM: I know you won’t want to hear this but wouldn’t overdosing be a better option than the living death you see wandering around Dublin.
@Dermot Quinn: shocking reply
@Cathal: Not if you have any ethics, no
New report out today, reveals after interviewing 1,000 bears, that their chosen location to defecate is in fact the woods.
@Jack O’Meara: Easy to judge, easy to make fun off. The problem for these people in the end is just the endless struggle to feel normal. Its not about feeling high anymore, its about not feeling like you’ve been kicked in the guts and have an endless flu. The physical side effects of withdrawal from substance abuse is horrific. Of course the trick is never to start in the first place. Hindsight is a hell of a thing. Im not an have never been, by the way, but i still know about it.
@Pauline Gallagher: same as . . How dare these people judge. . In what way are they qualified?
Maybe it was the frustration from a lack of job opportunites that led to the stabbing on Essex Quay yesterday?
Life choices
@cryptodon: just like condescension is an attitude choice. We all make mistakes in our lives.
@Of a break. Of a Kitkat.: Yes. And fortunately or unfort, when we make a ” Mistake” – thats especially self inflicted, there are always prices to be paid. People born with Disabilities or who develop serious illnesses outside of their control, have huge challenges TOO with getting jobs, medical certs, services etc..
@Of a break. Of a Kitkat.: there but for the grace of God, go I
“Tune in next week where we’ll hear from chronic alcoholics who feel stigmatized and discriminated against by employers who astonishingly won’t hire them”
@Luke Lee: Comments like this are what happens when you forget that its a person, and you rely on your own perception of their disease instead. Some want help, some never will. Either way they are still people. They are victims of a cruel addiction. They made bad choices. They deserve support and encouragement when they look for it. Many wont.
@Clifford Brennan: Comments like what? Would you hire an active chronic alcoholic? If the answer I no, do you feel you are adding to the stigma attached to alcoholism? That’s basically the gist of this article. Get clean or sober, stay clean and sober for a period of time and then maybe when you feel you are mentally able to handle a bit of work start applying for jobs. Recovery shouldn’t be rushed. No point looking for work if you’re not even 100% clean.
@Luke Lee: Glad you parked the nonsense of your first comment and put on your grown up hat for your second. It wasn’t hard, was it?
@Clifford Brennan: Not really. Fancy a pint?
@Clifford Brennan: Addiction not a disease
@samstheman: Wouldn’t pay much heed to them. Failure to take responsibility for own actions and expect everyone else to run around wiping your ars e isn’t a disease.
In my own total naivety or perhaps ignorance, I didnt realise that methadone treatment was so long-term – i thought that it was a weaning process over a shorter period of time than 10 years.
Best of luck to these brave people!
@HotPotato: Why are they brave?
@HotPotato: it IS supposed to be a weaning programme.
Other countries have used methadone in this way and had success with it.
It was never meant to be used as a long term maintenance drug therapy, that is just substituting one addiction with another.
Alas that is what happened here.
@robbie: If they are “lost causes”, is Methadone really the answer for them?
And next week “why can’t sex offenders be teachers…., life is so unfair…..”
@Damian Clarke: a great many are, im sure. Nice natured, kind comment, by the way. Merry Christmas.
@Damian Clarke: How is that an actual comparison? As a teacher who has seen addiction I’m calling it. I presume u r a perfect person?
Well, don’t use heroin in the first place!
Methadone is a curse. Doctors won’t let you come off it . If you want to reduce it, you do it on your own will, if you’re lucky enough to get take outs. Pour half down the sink.
If you need to drink it in the chemist, no chance of reducing. It’s a never ending spiral. I’m delighted this study had been done on the “liquid handcuffs” which is methadone.
@Mr Jerry Curtin: all on your own will? Imagine that? Taking some responsibility and trying to do something for yourself. And then they have the cheek to assume you might not be the best employee or the most reliable
The physical and mental impact these drugs take on people; you couldn’t expect them to spring back to their full potential after coming off them.
As it stands employers are being asked to accept smokers as having a disability requiring them to get extra breaks than other employees. Country is broken
It may provide stability but it continues the dependency. It continues for years the routine of addiction. The ritual of sourcing drugs continues, just via a clinic now , where the addict is then offered a concoction of tablets/ pills etc from other users outside, which continues the addiction for years. GP’s and clinics are not proactive at getting people off methadone , as is to much hassle for them , easier to maintain the client where they are , and call it “stabilising”
Israel has a very successful therapy, 85/%/ success rate without methadone or derivatives. European therapy has a 10% success rate cos they get hooked on methadone.
@Roger Camp: It is also a harder withdrawal then the drug it replaces
But isn’t methadone treatment just another name for still using heroine by a different name???
@TamuMassif2019: It’s not heroin. It’s a synthetic chemical, which affects opioid receptors. I believe it is largely used because it has a much longer duration of effect than traditional opiates, (morphine, heroin, codeine, etc).
Addicts can be dosed once every 24 hours, rather than several times a day required with heroin.
@Ryan Dub: Doctors should attempt to get people off opiates. This should be state policy. It will improve society, and save money in the long term.
only a few percent of heroin addicts get rid off it for good. The rest is coming back to it sooner or later SO what is the point to help?
@Gee: Why do people start when they know the grave or similar is the end of the path? I don’t get it, why have people who go through wars and worse are able to carry on with life and a self absorbed whinger who wants sympathy starts on drugs because they put it as they can’t cope. While half this world is in hell and those in the best part of it are using drugs, I never get that???
@TamuMassif2019: life choices and f***d up dopamine system. Also too many people pity them too much so they are well maintained in this hell.
?
chocs aside, never been an addict BUT I DONT DESERVE PRAISE FOR THIS !! non addicts can’t be addicts and vice versa. We need to destroy the genes responsible for this death sentence. Yas
Moral of the story kids… Don’t do drugs..
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