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Be sure to
listen to Prescription Addiction Radio, Sunday
night at 9pm on WGUL 860am, or live
online at
www.860am.townhall.com.
Successes
From a Few of Our Recent
Patients:
Salesman:
"My first
time at a detox was made very easy due to your
great staff. I would generally just say
everybody really helped me - honestly.
The
food was just great!! The housekeeping was
very clean - very nice.
At my age
of 55, I should know better than to use, but it is
not that easy. I know I do not want to go
through what I did to my family ever again.
Novus staff talked with me about this and helped
me understand not to beat myself up. Thank
God JJ and the other staff were here to help me,
as my first two days were tough. But we did
it!! Onward and upward. To make it
simple, THANKS TO EVERYBODY at Novus, you guys
were great and you really meant it, that really
means a lot!
Thanks so much for everything. Hope
you all have a nice life, and as I learned - enjoy
things and keep laughing through your
life."
Contractor:
"My counselor covered and answered
my questions and made me feel comfortable.
Montana, JJ and Leigh were great. The food
was excellent.
By talking to
Monty he encouraged me to seek additional
counseling and through those conversations that is
what I have decided to do."
Chemist:
"Novus
delivers as represented at their website. It
far exceeded my greatest expectations! The
food was excellent and healthy! Tom,
Jessica, JJ, Monty, Leigh, Steve, Paula..., this
is not a complete list; everyone from the Medical
Director, to housekeeping has been nothing short
of incredible: pleasant, empathetic,
non-judgmental and totally willing to help in any
way possible.
I'm leaving
here drug free after years of pain management and
pain free, due to Novus helping me find a newly
developed method of treatment which relieved the
cause of the pain that had remained after my
operation. Before you go into any program,
either for dependence or addiction treatment, look
very carefully at them and then at Novus, ask
pointed questions of both. I believe you'll
choose Novus and never regret it! I know I
don't. I tried a different, more
traditional program years ago and basically paid
over 10K for a torture session. At Novus I had
minimal discomfort, was treated with total respect
and compassion and am leaving drug and pain free,
after 500mg oxycodone/day for 2 years! Novus
Rules!"
Realtor:
"I will start
with one of my favorite quotes,"I am easily
satisfied with the very Best". This should
encompass my feelings for the entire Novus
experience!!
Your facility and staff are an
extremely well oiled machine with an OBVIOUS
concern for every patient!!! I am amazed at
the ability of everyone to listen to every story,
every problem, every need someone may
encounter. The ability to listen is a
tremendous life trait that few are able to
conquer! You are experts!!
A large
portion of being able to even get out of bed is
knowing that you are able to start a regimented
schedule of healthy food. Few are hungry the first
day, but you are treated with such respect, you
soon realize as a patient you will help us nourish
our body towards recovery!!
In
conclusion, simply put, thank you all!!!! I am
moving on to St. Jude's ONLY for two reasons. My
Family and Your team!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
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| FOR THE HIGH METHADONE USER WHO IS
TRAPPED--
THERE IS NOW
HOPE
METHADONE
Methadone, an opioid, was first produced in 1939
at the pharmaceutical laboratories of I.G. Farben
in Germany. Named Amidon, and although there
is evidence that some testing was done of the
drug, there is no evidence that it was widely used
by the Germans in World War II because they feared
it was too addictive.
After the war, the
German patents on Amidon and other drugs were
voided and Amidon was tested and released in the
United States by Eli Lilly in 1947 as Dolophine.
Dolophine was derived from the Latin word dolor
(pain) and finis (end).
Later Dolophine came
to be known as methadone. Originally
marketed as a pain reliever, it was not until the
1960's, when the number of heroin addicts was
accelerating and the negative impact on society
became widely known, did the idea of converting
the heroin addict to a methadone addict become
accepted as a treatment procedure.
ONE ADDICTION TRADED FOR
ANOTHER
The advocates of
substituting methadone for heroin were aware that
methadone was often more addictive than
heroin. However, heroin users were creating
many problems for society. In order to
purchase their heroin, they were committing
crimes-like robbery, prostitution and even
murder. In addition, these heroin users were
spreading sexually transmitted diseases and also
HIV from their contaminated needles.
These heroin addicts
were flooding emergency rooms due to overdoses, or
because they got a bad batch of heroin, or because
they contracted hepatitis. Having these
addicts switch to a drug that they could take
orally like cough syrup, that was "legal" and much
less expensive, was appealing to many in our
society.
Heroin users are
forced to obtain a "fix" every 4-6 hours or they
will start experiencing painful withdrawals.
(Withdrawal means that the body is craving the
endorphins produced by the heroin and this leads
to sickness. One of our patients who had
experienced it said that it was ten times worse
than the worst flu they ever had.)
This is one of the
reasons why most heroin addicts don't even attempt
to hold down "regular" jobs. Besides, few
legitimate jobs provide sufficient income to allow
them to pay for their habit.
No one could argue that heroin
addiction was a terrible thing, and getting people
off heroin sounded good if you forgot or ignored
the other facts about methadone---it creates many
of the same effects as heroin and is even more
addictive than heroin. In a classic example
of "the end justifies the means", the FDA was
persuaded that even though heroin was illegal, it
was ok for methadone, a drug that is more
addictive and creates many of the same effects, to
be legal.
Instead of rewarding
criminals who smuggled heroin into the country for
sale so people could be addicted, the FDA chose to
reward drug manufacturers and people who run
methadone clinics so that the same people could
continue to be addicted.
There is a heated
political debate over whether we should legalize
drugs and take the profits away from the
criminals. We cut out the illegal dealers
and gave the profits to drug companies and to
methadone clinics-which are limited in number and
thus assuring their
profitability.
THE
PROMISE
In summary,
switching heroin users to methadone seemed to
provide a solution to society's problems.
· Methadone has
a much longer half life than heroin (half-life is
the amount of time before half of a drug taken is
excreted from the body), so a person can normally
be given one dose of methadone and this would last
until the next day.
· Methadone
doesn't cost $300 a day but only $300 a month and
often this can be paid by a government
program.
· Heroin
addicts no longer have to participate in illegal
activities to obtain their drugs.
· Heroin
addicts are no longer using needles to inject
heroin and this will reduce the spread of many
diseases.
· People in
society no longer have to feel guilty about not
addressing the heroin addiction problem because
the methadone advocates promoted the use of
methadone as a step toward helping the addict stop
taking drugs of any kind.
THE FACTS
However, what was
promised about methadone was not delivered. We now
know these facts about
methadone:
· A 1999 study done at the
University of London found that methadone actually
increased the cravings for heroin. Many methadone
users supplement their "high" with other illegal
drugs like prescription narcotics or even heroin.
(Illegal drug dealers now can be found around
these clinics because business is
brisk.)
· Most
methadone users are forced to come to the
methadone clinics and wait in long lines every day
or at least once a week. Because the number
of methadone clinics is limited by law, some
methadone users have to drive 50-80 miles a day
and when they arrive, stand in line for an hour or
more to get their methadone dose that will keep
them from going into withdrawal, and then they go
to work.
· The first
thing a methadone addict often must do when
considering moving is not check on the schools for
their children but on the location of the nearest
methadone clinic.
· Almost all of
the people who switched to methadone from heroin
have seen the amount of their daily methadone dose
increase-to 100 milligrams or even much
higher. In most cases the addict is now
taking a much higher dosage of methadone than the
equivalent amount of heroin that they were using.
· Almost none
of these former heroin addicts have been able to
wean themselves off methadone. (Some
complain that the methadone clinics don't help
their clients wean off. Apparently many
clinics tell the methadone addict who is trying to
taper down but experiences some withdrawal
symptoms that if they are experiencing any
discomfort, then the dose should be increased back
to where it was. Some clinics apparently
tell people that "They are addicts and will always
have to take methadone". But this is not too
surprising-the methadone clinics only stay in
business if their clients remain
addicted.)
· Even if the
methadone addict who is now taking 80 to 240
milligrams of methadone decides that he or she has
to stop, there are few rehabilitation centers that
will accept people on more than 80 milligrams per
day, so the person has to either face serious
withdrawal pains, find one of the few medical
detox centers that will accept high dosage
methadone users, or stay on
methadone.
· The real
truth is that switching an addict to a different
addiction never really made sense. The real
solution was and will always be to help the addict
become drug-free.
THE TRAP
No responsible
person can dispute the fact that as the doses of
opioids like methadone or oxycodone increase,
people's cognitive abilities and their reaction
time are adversely affected more and more. They
can also experience other side effects such as
being more susceptible to illnesses.
Perhaps the saddest
part of the methadone experiment is that our
society encourages these former heroin addicts to
take more and more methadone, since it costs the
same if the dose is 10 milligrams or 200
milligrams.
Every time a
methadone addict gets clean, the only groups that
lose are the drug companies that produce
methadone and the methadone clinics who lose
money. The rest of society wins and the
former methadone addict wins most of
all.
There are many
effective rehabilitation facilities that are
successful in helping people become
drug-free. These rehabilitation facilities
are located all over the world.
However,
despite the desire of these rehabilitation
facilities to help, few if any will accept someone
on a dose of methadone over 80 milligrams per
day. The methadone addict that calls
is told that they must first bring their methadone
usage down to 20-40 milligrams per day and the
rehabilitation facility will gladly accept
them.
The truth is that
most methadone addicts who seek help have tried to
withdraw or at least cut down their dose of
methadone in the past. Almost all of these
people were unsuccessful because they began
experiencing painful withdrawal symptoms and
stopped their taper.
Unfortunately, many of them ended up taking more
methadone than they were taking when they started
trying to withdraw, and their despair of ever
being free of the monster called methadone
grew.
The rehabilitation
facilities who are not able to accept these
methadone addicts have tried to refer them to
medical detox facilities, but they have found that
there are very few medical detox facilities that
will accept a methadone patient taking over 80
milligrams a day of methadone. Some
facilities that do accept the patients simply put
them in a room and give them some drugs that help
alleviate some of the pain, but the patient has
some very difficult withdrawal symptoms and often
leaves the detox center before completing their
withdrawal. Then they go back to the
methadone clinic and the despair grows even
more.
The solution is to
locate a medical detox medical center that will
assist a person on an 80 milligram or higher daily
dose of methadone complete their withdrawal more
comfortably, safely and more quickly from the
drug.
Novus Medical Detox
Center has developed a protocol that allows a high
dosage methadone user to step down from methadone
and be completely off all opioids in under two
weeks. The highest methadone case that we
have handled was in excess of 240 milligrams per
day and we have helped people on over 300
milligrams of oxycodone detox in under two
weeks.
Once they have
completed their withdrawal at Novus Medical Detox
Center, the former methadone addict can go to a
rehabilitation facility and achieve their
dream-being drug-free. The former addict
wins and we all win.
CONCLUSION
When some of his supporters in the Civil Rights
movement were expressing their reluctance to
continue the struggle because they didn't see that
things were really changing, Martin Luther King,
Jr. said this, "If you lose hope, somehow you
lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose
that courage to be, that quality that helps you go
on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a
dream."
Many methadone users
still have the dream of being off methadone and
being drug-free. At Novus Medical Detox
Center we have the dream of helping them.
Methadone addicts know first-hand the horrors of
addiction and know that it can only end in more
sadness and grief. If someone wants to get
off methadone but the rehabilitation facility that
they have chosen will not accept them, there is
hope-Novus Medical Detox Center can and will help
a person be free of methadone and able to take the
next step, going to a rehabilitation program, so
they can achieve their dream of being
drug-free.
NOTE: This email
is provided for general educational purposes only
and is not intended to constitute (i)
medical advice or counseling, (ii) the practice of
medicine including psychiatry, psychology,
psychotherapy or the provision of health care
diagnosis or treatment, (iii) the creation of a
physician patient or clinical relationship, or
(iv) an endorsement, recommendation or sponsorship
of any third party product or service by the
sender or the sender's affiliates, agents,
employees, consultants or service providers.
If you have or suspect that you have a medical
problem, contact your health care provider
promptly.
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