Suboxone Benefits: How Suboxone Can Benefit Your Loved One

Realizing that your loved one has an opioid addiction is a heartbreaking experience. The CDC reports that about 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. You want to do everything in your power to make sure that your loved one doesn’t become a statistic. More than anything, you want to find a method that works so you can close this chapter of your life for good. There are many ways to go about battling opioid addiction, but there is one way that is backed by decades of scientific research and success stories across the globe: Suboxone. Read more to learn about Suboxone’s Benefits.

What Exactly is Suboxone?

Suboxone is a medication that is often prescribed to minimize the effects of opioid withdrawal. Back in 2002, the FDA approved the use of Suboxone for the treatment of opioid addiction. Whether it comes in a pill or a film, the medication combines the active ingredients of buprenorphine and naloxone:

• Buprenorphine is an opioid partial agonist and helps to relieve the symptoms of opioid addiction.
• Naloxone is an opioid antagonist and is meant to reverse and block the effect of other opioids in the brain.

Opioid addiction is a monster of a disease and takes a lot of dedication to beat for the long-term. Some of the most common opioids that are abused are heroin, oxycontin, and codeine. There are currently millions of Americans who are suffering from opioid addiction. This addiction is a chronic disease that requires outside help in order to treat accordingly.

The combination of the two active ingredients in Suboxone makes it very effective in treating opioid addiction while having a low chance of addictiveness at the same time. Buprenorphine has a chance of being addictive on its own, but when used along with naloxone it diminishes the opiate effect of buprenorphine. If it’s prescribed in a controlled setting and an individual adheres to the doctor’s prescription, the use of Suboxone comes with many more positives than it does negatives.

 

Concerns About Suboxone

You may be wondering, “If my loved one is addicted to opioids, why would I want to them to treat their opioid addiction with another opioid?” The truth of the matter is, Suboxone is not the same opioid as others such as heroin and oxycontin. Suboxone caters to their physical dependence to opioids without allowing them to become addicted to it.

When used correctly (adhering to the doctor’s medication), it’s a stable foundation of medicine meant to diminish the effects of opioid addiction without delivering a euphoric high. This effectively stops the cycle of addiction, which is something that’s extremely hard to do.

 

Dealing With Opioid Withdrawal

The effects of opioid withdrawal are debilitating. In the beginning, a person can deal with conditions such as restlessness, irritability, and flu-like systems. But, as the illness moves along, a person can deal with effects such as intense stomach cramping, depression, and nausea. Often in order to keep away from the effects of opioid addiction, a person will relapse. This is where Suboxone comes in.

When a person chooses to take Suboxone they no longer have to deal with the possibility of dealing with opioid withdrawal. Your loved one can then put their full focus into getting to the root of their opioid addiction, so they can stop using opioids for good.

Helping Your Loved One Through Their Addiction

Along with promoting the use of Suboxone, there are other ways that you can help your loved ones stop their usage of opioids and support them through their long road to recovery.

1. Stick to Your Word: If you set boundaries, be sure to stick to them. Once you go back on your word, your loved one may keep engaging in this dangerous behavior because they’ve seen in the past that you’ll stick by them despite their addiction. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
2. Do Not Cover up for Them: Throughout the timeline of their addiction, you may find yourself covering up for them in a variety of ways. For example, you may wake them up for work every day because, due to their opioid addiction, they are not able to wake up on time on their own. In order for them to feel the true effects of their addiction, it’s important to let them live through their consequences in real time. Support doesn’t have to mean compliance.
3. Seek Help for Yourself: Addiction doesn’t just affect one person, it affects their whole community. As you work through this experience, don’t forget to take care of yourself. As the old saying states, you can’t pour from an empty cup. You may even want to seek help from someone who’s specialized in helping families who have been affected by addiction.

If you’re looking to help your loved one stop their opioid usage for good, using Suboxone may be the best way to do so. The medication has helped millions of people all across the world stop abusing opioids and get help with their addiction. Despite the stigma that may lie behind the usage of Suboxone, the medication’s worth has been proved by scientific studies and doctors alike. The health of your loved one is worth its weight in gold; Suboxone might be the choice to get them back to the person that you know and love.

 

Sources

[1] Understanding the Epidemic | Drug Overdose | CDC Injury Center. (2018, December 19). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html

[2] From Research to the Real World: Buprenorphine in the Decade of the Clinical Trials Network. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2853172/

[3] Information sheet on opioid overdose. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.who.int/substance_abuse/information-sheet/en/

[4] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2009). The facts about Buprenorphine. Retrieved from https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/providers/sud/docs/english_buprenorphine_facts.pdf

[5] Is buprenorphine treatment just trading one addiction for another? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.naabt.org/faq_answers.cfm?ID=1

[6] U.S. Department of Health And Human Services. (2004). clinical guidelines for the use of Buprenorphine in the treatment of opioid addiction. Retrieved from https://www.naabt.org/documents/TIP40.pdf