If you or somebody you love is opiate dependent, it’s important that you know about methadone. I say that not because I think methadone is the best treatment for everybody, but because it is an important option to understand if you care about informed treatment decisions.

1.  Methadone is a medication used to treat opiate dependence

Methadone is a treatment for opiate dependence. And it works. For many people, it works.

Methadone is not a treatment for cocaine or other substances, although many people say that it helps them with overall sobriety.

Methadone is considered a treatment for opiate dependence as a chronic, relapsing condition.  It is not considered a cure for opiate dependence.

Doctors often compare methadone maintenance therapy to ongoing insulin treatment for diabetes.  It doesn’t cure, but it effectively treats the condition. This means that it is effective as long as you are taking it.

Yet it does more than that.

For many people, methadone is the key to building a safe and sustainable recovery free from the destructive detox/relapse cycle. And as I like to say, real recovery is safe and sustainable.

With methadone, many people are able to stabilize physically, emotionally, financially, and in terms of involvement with the criminal justice system. So that if at some point they decide to stop methadone treatment, they have a much better chance of maintaining their hard-won sobriety even without the medication.