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With the remarkable progress in scientific understanding of the brain and of the underlying causes of addiction, pharmaceutical manufacturers have made new treatments available. In the last decade, thousands of people have traveled the road to recovery while taking newly developed prescription medications.
Taken as either tablets, drinkable liquids or through injection, medications are not magic bullets for solving the misery of addiction. Experts say that they must be used as part of a comprehensive treatment plan that includes behavioral therapy as well as services to address the individual medical, psychological, social, vocational and legal needs of the patient.
Many of the medications are especially important in the early stages of recovery. They help to mute cravings enough to allow people to think more clearly. This way, the addicted person can begin to establish the critically important recovery plan. However, medications don't work for everyone. For some, they produce serious side effects which is why medication should always be taken under the supervision of a physician.
Increasingly people in recovery and addiction experts believe that prescription medications can significantly reduce relapse and that they complement mutual help efforts, providing significant new hope for many addicted people.
Medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration:
For Opioids
Opiate Agonist
A synthetic opiate that stabilizes the level of opiates in the bloodstream (prevents withdrawal and craving), but doesn't produce a comparable euphoria or high. Opiate Agonists include Methadone and Levo-Alpha-Acetyl Methadol (LAAM®).
Methadone is the most common medication for heroin addiction treatment. Well-run methadone maintenance programs - with appropriate drug monitoring, counseling services (individual, group, and family), and vocational resources and referrals - have been demonstrated to decrease heroin use and related crime, increase employment, improve physical and mental health, and markedly reduce the incidence of needle sharing. Methadone also decreases drug craving.
LAAM® has a longer half-life than methadone. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1994 for use in the treatment of opioid dependence and made subject to the same Federal rules as methadone for the treatment of opioid dependence.
Naltrexone
Naltrexone (marketed as Revia® and Depade®) is an opiate antagonist that provides a complete blockade of opioid receptors, but no narcotic effect. Cravings for narcotics may continue during treatment.
Buprenorphine
Buprenorphine's unique pharmacological profile and safety profile increase its appeal to opioid addicted persons as well as to the medical professionals treating them. Marketed as Suboxone® and Subutex®, it is an opioid partial-agonist that, like methadone, stabilizes the level of opiates in the bloodstream, but doesn't produce a comparable high. There is less risk of addiction and overdose, and it can be prescribed in the privacy of a doctor's office.
For Alcohol
Acamprosate
In 2004, the FDA approved acamprosate (marketed as Campral®) for treating alcohol dependent individuals seeking to continue to remain alcohol-free after they have stopped drinking. Campral may not be effective in patients who are actively drinking at the start of treatment. Campral appears to modulate/normalize alcohol-disrupted brain activity, particularly in the GABA and glutamate neurotransmitter systems. Campral is not addictive.
Naltrexone
Naltrexone (marketed as Revia® and Vivitrol®) is an opiate antagonist used to treat alcohol dependence by both reducing the urge to consume alcohol and by making drinking less pleasurable. Recent research has shown Naltrexone to be effective as a once-a-day pill or a monthly injection. It is successful in helping alcoholics moderate their drinking. Naltrexone was first approved by the FDA in 1994 and approved in injectible form (as Vivitrol) in 2006.
Disulfiram
Disulfiram (marketed as Antabuse) inhibits intermediate metabolism of alcohol, causing a build-up of acetaldelhyde and a reaction of flushing, sweating, nausea, and chest pain if a patient drinks alcohol.
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