Question by Christina: What do you think about methadone as a treatment for heroin addiction?
Alot of people look down on iy, bu its been proved to work better than the 12 step groups and the like. If you agree its good why? If you don’t why?

Best answer:

Answer by Sick of Butt-Hurt People
“bu its been proved to work better than the 12 step groups and the like.”

Please provide evidence for this assumption.

Methadone is good for pregnant women trying to stop IV Heroin Use, what can lead to all sorts of contaminants entering the bloodstream and adversely effecting the fetus and Methadone is great for people that, basically, have to either go on it or continue activities that will result in their immediate death…

But in the long term, “maintenance” therapy does nothing but prolong the suffering of the Addicts.

Addiction is a horrific biological and mental illness that has nothing to do with the Substance or even the Actions because “Addiction” is defined as the inability to stop doing something despite mounting consequences.

Withdrawal doesn’t have anything to do with addiction.
“Only Doing It Once And A While” has nothing to do with addiction.

People that are profoundly addicted to meth/speed only do it 2 or 3 times a week and they use their delusions of “Control” to make the claim that they’re not hurting themselves… The same is said for heroin addicts.

They are on an opiate that is MORE addictive and hard to get off of than Heroin and just because they have doctors giving the opiates to them doesn’t make it any less of a “Problem”.

By giving Methadone or even Maintenance Heroin does nothing but allow the problem to continue.

By allowing the problem to continue, you are harming the addict and, more importantly, the family, friends, and culture of the addict.

An impaired parent is an abusive and abandoning parent… As the child of an addict, I think that the children of these people should be removed from their custody immediately or, if possible, get them to consent to sterilization as they do with:

? Project Prevention – Children Requiring a Caring Community
http://www.projectprevention.org/

If you can’t care for yourself, you are unable to care for others… period… end of story. Addiction does nothing but cause damage to the brain development of the offspring and cause their own addiction biology to activate at an early age and the children then go on to perpetuate the generational transmission of trauma onto THEIR kids, leading to the next generation of homeless, impoverished, victimized addicts.

By telling people they can just “Coast” on maintenance therapy, you’re telling them that they’re “Better” when they’re not… It’s a quick and temporary fix that will still almost always lead back to relapse, cross addiction, etc.

Since it isn’t legal to just put addicts down for the good of everyone around them, the way we put down rabid dogs that can’t be trained to not try to bite, we have no choice other than to get these people to do as little harm as possible to EVERYONE ELSE and this means long term TREATMENT that includes supervised withdrawal, mental health treatment, and a structured environment that will train their brain to not seek drugs as a coping mechanism.

Maintenance Therapy should be nothing more than a temporary crutch as a part of a much greater treatment program, which includes 12-Step among other types of therapy and treatment.

Suicide would be the best thing that a heroin addict could do for themselves, their children, their family, their friends, and the whole human species. It’s the only way to both stop the suffering of the addict and the way that they do nothing but cause harm to anyone they are in contact with.

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