Methadone vs. Suboxone

I am so tired of everybody constantly comparing Methadone vs. Suboxone. Does it really matter? As long as it helps to keep the person off drugs, and saves their life, why does it matter what prescription they use? That's like arguing about which antibiotic a person should take. What does it matter to you?

The problem with BOTH of them is not the drug itself, it's the people that abuse it. Just as it is with any other prescription medication. If you take certain medications as prescribed, you are going to get addicted to it. Whether you mean to or want to, it happens. You take something daily because 1) you are in pain, and 2) because your doctor told you to, and you don't even know you are addicted until you try to stop taking them or for some reason can't take them. It even happens to the elderly, not just young people or people trying to get high. Addiction does not discriminate.

In my own opinion, I am an advocate for methadone over suboxone. My reasoning comes from the fact that my own life was salvaged because of methadone, and I have studied a lot on the subject. In order to be prescribed methadone for opiod addiction, you MUST attend weekly counseling, you are randomly drug screened (and not just handed a cup and told to go pee, I mean, observed screens) monthly, and the biggest reason I advocate methadone before suboxone is because you are monitored when dosing with methadone. Suboxone, you are handed a prescription and allowed to do with it what you want. I know. I have close friends on suboxone. One person takes some and does not use other drugs, but she does sell some of them. Another person I know gets torn out the frame on his, over doing them until he has no more and he's sick. Again, something that wouldn't be possible with methadone.

By monitored when dosing, I mean you have to go to a nurse daily, let them hand you your meds, and watch you take them. If you are already over-medicated or high on something else, they WILL REFUSE your dose. That alone saves a lot of lives! You also don't have the ability to go outside of the facility and trade it for other drugs or sell it to other drug abusers. Of course, it does happen, but not nearly as often!

If you have anyone close enough to you that is using every day, you would know that methadone is not something easily found on the street. Unless you know someone, you are not likely to just run across methadone. Suboxone, on the other hand, is everywhere! And taking it off the street is not the same thing as getting into a program.

A lot of people try to rationalize their abuse of methadone/suboxone by saying, "but it's not heroin or pain pills." It doesn't matter! If you are NOT in a drug treatment facility, receiving counseling and all the other stuff that goes with treatment, you are not helping yourself. People are shooting this shit up and saying, "but at least it's not one of other drugs." When you are shooting it up, or snorting it up your nose, you are abusing it. The method of how you do a drug is addicting. I used to hear people say that they would snort Tylenol to trick their brain into thinking they had snorted a pain pill.

Again, we should stop worrying about which type of medication they are using to get away from the dope, and just worry that they do get help!