I would love for FLASprings.com to be a resource for anyone interested in outpatient methadone rehab in Florida, or anyone interested in medication-assisted treatment in general. Over the course of my time writing on these topics, and even before writing about addiction treatment, I have seen people with misunderstandings about the need for outpatient methadone treatment for Florida residents and opioid use disorder sufferers worldwide. A common source of tension and apprehension is that people think replacing a heroin addiction with a methadone maintenance program is replacing one addiction for another. This could literally not be farther from the truth, and I will spend time and energy on this website in order to better inform people on the subject. For starters, anyone who has ever experienced addiction or has had a loved one with substance use disorder will understand that using drugs is merely a symptom of underlying problems. When people are actively using heroin or oxycontin, that addiction destroys their own lives and the people around them. Lying becomes a way of life, the person is in legal jeopardy at all times, and they are in danger of hurting themselves or others. We don’t even have to get into the laundry list of bad outcomes and adverse health and social effects of drug abuse. When a person decides to make a change and enters a medication-assisted treatment program, often with the help of methadone or buprenorphine, they may still have an opioid medication in their system, but all of those awful side effects of addiction go away and can be reversed. Also important is the fact that methadone and buprenorphine patients do not get high on their medications. Quite the opposite, in fact, as both methadone and buprenorphine inhibit a person’s ability to feel high from opioid drugs, and that fact can help many patients who struggle with the urges to get high early in the process of recovery. Over the next week or so, I intend to go over some of the incredible research that has been done on methadone and other medication-assisted treatment drugs, and I want to discuss some of the benefits that people in recovery can immediately gain from outpatient methadone rehabilitation in Florida and elsewhere. 

Today I want to take a closer look at people who have experienced family relationship improvement because of their adherence to a program of recovery including methadone. The use of methadone as part of this study, but I believe that other drugs that are used for medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder would work in a similar way to repair the lives of patients in recovery. This study was done from 2006 to 2014, which is important because it was conducted in the same opioid epidemic time period that we are experiencing currently. The authors state that “Improving family relationships is also an important goal in methadone maintenance treatment (MMT). Little is known about factors associated with the improvement of family relationships among MMT clients.” The authors investigated this question over multiple years on multiple treatment centers. I will include the major takeaways of the authors, but they found that overall, 23.1% of patients experienced major improvements in family relationships while in an outpatient methadone rehab program. They also noted that, “Participants who began living with family, living on a regular wage, and gained employment were more likely to have improved family relationships. The quality of family relationships also improved among participants who ceased contact with drug-addicted fellows, ceased drug use, and those who were sexually active. These results suggest that improvement in living status, positive changes in drug use, and sexual activity are associated with family relationship improvement and corresponding interventions may be developed to facilitate clients’ recovery.” I believe it is important for all of us to understand that switching from a life of drug abuse to a life of recovery with the help of proven medications is a huge step, and things like family relationships and health outcomes are immediately improved with adherence to outpatient methadone or buprenorphine rehab program. In Florida, outpatient medication-assisted treatment is available at Florida Springs Wellness and Recovery, and they have the most competitive rates for walk-ins and self-pay patients. 

By T.A. Cannon (Contact me at TACannonWriting@gmail.com)

References

LIU, S. et al. The Association between Living Status Transitions, Behavior Changes and Family Relationship Improvement among Methadone Maintenance Treatment Participants in Guangdong, China. International journal of environmental research and public health, [s. l.], v. 17, n. 1, 2019. DOI 10.3390/ijerph17010119. Disponível em: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mnh&AN=31877950&authtype=geo&geocustid=s8475741&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Acesso em: 23 nov. 2020.