we can heal

Jennifer Matesa has a new piece up at the recently reincarnated The Fix. It’s a response to the recent NY Times series on Suboxone and goes directly after the underlying assumption and its implications for her.

Reckitt can get away with convincing doctors that addicts need to be maintained on Suboxone because—as the Times story notes—common belief holds that painkiller addicts can never be drug-free. We’re told we’ve permanently screwed up our neurology. Popular thinking goes: Once you junkies take drugs, you might as well stay on drugs for life.

To support this belief, Reckitt and its growing army of reps offer twisted interpretations of research studies and anecdotal evidence about addiction and Suboxone. They claim studies “prove” that replacing painkillers with buprenorphine (the opioid drug in Suboxone) helps us stay “clean.” Ditch the old drug for the new drug and we stop shooting, snorting, stealing, doctor-shopping, tricking.

. . .

If my “Sub doc” had believed—as so many doctors do—that somebody like me could never be drug-free, I’d without a doubt still be on drugs today. Hell, which of us inside active addiction believes we can do without drugs? I’d also be experiencing nasty side-effects for which people who read my addiction-and-recovery blog write in asking for help.

For me, what’s so important about her voice is that she’s one addict speaking directly to other addicts around the chorus of experts chanting, “research shows that maintenance treatments are the most effective treatments we have.” She’s offering hope that other addicts don’t have to limit themselves to the definition of success that these experts offer (reduced death, disease and drug use).

She’s also become a collector of stories about the lived experience of people who have tried Suboxone and found it to be incompatible with full recovery and very difficult to discontinue.

Just like doctors who can’t detox their patients off painkillers, most doctors who prescribe Suboxone don’t know how to help their patients quit. So the patients wind up asking me to be their doctor. One woman recently begged me to manage her detox in exchange for payment. I declined, but I was left shocked at the desperation of some folks out there to live a drug-free life, so much so that they will contact a total stranger and offer cash for an amateur detox. This speaks to the sorry state of treatment (not to mention the general health-care system) in this country.

These folks read my blog, they know I got off drugs including Suboxone, and they can see I’m living a productive drug-free life. I write them back, but I can’t be their doctor. The best I can do is keep writing stories like these, and letting policymakers, researchers, and practitioners know that they need to open their minds about how well most addicts can live, how much we can heal.