Suboxone – a drug used to help opioid addicts treat their brain disease of addiction.
Suboxone is one of three medication options used to medically assist opioid addicts with treating their addiction. Because addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease, treating the disease takes far more than just the decision to stop.
Treatment basically requires healing / re-wiring the brain. The required brain healing changes involve the neural network and cell activity related to cravings, thinking, triggers, cues, alternative actions, picking up the pieces to restore one’s life to “normal,” treating a co-occurring mental illness (if so diagnosed), re-establishing relationships with family members and friends, finding a job — a whole host of activities (all of which require neural networks) that people without addiction cannot appreciate nor imagine.
For some individuals with an opioid addiction, using suboxone, or one of the other two medication possibilities, naltrexone and methadone, can help with the initial stages of treatment and recovery. To understand suboxone as a treatment option, please check out these two resources and, of course, talk to your doctor:
- Psych Central How is Suboxone Treatment Different Than Drug Abuse?
- Mayo Clinic Buprenorphine and Naloxone [aka Suboxone] – be sure to click through the pages
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