Every now and then I hear about a therapist or addiction doc who is doing such a disservice to the practice of addiction medicine as to deserve special mention.  This week’s award goes to a certain counselor at a treatment program in Oshkosh, WI, who I’ll refer to as ‘This Jerk.’

I’ve made no secret, over the years, about my hope for addiction to eventually be treated with the same respect for patients and attention to medical principles as for any other illness.  I certainly try my best to work according to those ideas, and find that doing so really helps when it comes to making treatment-based decisions.  In other words, I’ll ask myself—if this person had diabetes, what would an endocrinologist do?  Or better yet—if I had diabetes, what would I want MY endocrinologist to do?

This Jerk Counselor

We all know that certain professions attract certain types of people.  Some of us have been pulled over by the cop who was the kid subject to playground taunts, now all grown up, determined to make life a living Hell for anyone with a loose seat-belt.  When I worked in the state prison system, I worked with guards who belonged in the same category; men and women who loved to carry keys to cages that held real people.  It’s the power trip, I suppose.

This Jerk apparently loves the power trip of ‘treating’ people who are sent back to jail for ‘failing’ his treatment.  He doesn’t have to worry about being a lousy therapist; he has a captive audience, and likes it that way.  One difficult aspect of being a therapist is treating patients who don’t like us for one reason or another, or who don’t kneel every time we enter the room.  But when This Jerk feels disrespected, he picks up the telephone and calls the patient’s PO to report ‘noncompliance with treatment’– then gloats about sending the patient to jail.

Treatment professionals who are in a position of unusual power over a patient must be particularly careful to empathize with their patient’s position.  In medical school, we were placed on gurneys and wheeled around by fellow students, to emphasize the vantage of patients coming to the emergency room.  We were taught to sit at the same or lower eye-level of our patients, as speaking down to people creates an unsettling power differential.

The power to prescribe or withhold buprenorphine (let alone the power to send to prison!) comes with an obligation not to abuse that power.  Withholding buprenorphine causes patients to go into withdrawal—something dreadful to people addicted to opioids.  Worse, withholding buprenorphine places patients at very high risk of relapse—which in turn places them directly in harm’s way from overdose and legal repercussions.

This Jerk, I’ve been told, takes issue with psychiatrists who continue to treat patients on buprenorphine who struggle with sobriety.  He considers it ‘good care’ to withhold buprenorphine from an addict who uses, supposedly to punish the patient into sobriety.

In case This Jerk (or a similar ethically-challenged counselor) is reading, I’ll point out the obvious:  when a doctor pulls the rug from under a patient by withholding medication, that patient might easily join the ranks of other dead addicts.  On the other hand, when I work with a patient who is struggling with sobriety, keeping the person on buprenorphine and working to identify triggers for using, that person almost always ‘gets it,’ eventually.

I’ve been working with people addicted to opioids, using this approach, for so long that the other approach—the punitive, ‘cut ‘em loose for struggling’ approach—seems barbaric.  I don’t understand how people identified as healthcare workers (nothing professional in his behavior!) rationalize the dismissive approach.  I suppose, if This Jerk views addicts as the scum of the Earth, or as people with weak characters, or people who lack ‘will power,’ punishing relapse by withholding treatment feels about right.  But most of us leave that world behind when we commit to helping people suffering from illness.

What’s This Jerk’s excuse?  Is it that he just doesn’t get it?  Or are there other motives at play?  With the current cap on patients on buprenorphine, the most lucrative way to practice is to keep turnover high, rewarding practices that hire therapist-idiots like This Jerk.

Or is it the power trip– that people with difficult addictions are an affront to therapists?  I’ve met therapists with this attitude before, who seem to have a form of codependency with their patients. They take credit for any success by their patients, but think the patients who fail are not worth their time, and should be dumped, expunged, or kicked-out to relapse and die.  I suppose This Jerk would say ‘not my problem!  I did MY job!’

Readers may suspect that this topic irritates me—and they’re right.  Maybe I’ve seen more death, up close, than the typical counselor.  I’ve attended autopsies; I’ve reviewed post-mortem photos from overdose scenes; I’ve pushed IV fluids into people with fatal injuries who presented for emergency surgery.  I have spent hours with the parents of young patients who died from overdose.  I’ve seen the parents’ faces as they struggled with the thought that they could, or should, have done something else—just one more thing to save their child.  Death, to me, is not ‘theoretical.’ It is not something to toy with, and certainly not something to invite into the life of a person who made me angry, for not recovering at MY pace.

I suspect that the Jerks of the world will continue to justify their sadistic approach to ‘treatment.’ But patients—at least SOME patients—don’t have to put up with that behavior.  People like This Jerk hold power over an individual with an addiction history, but there is power in numbers.  It is not appropriate to use one’s power vindictively, or to gloat over a patient’s struggle.  It is not appropriate to humiliate a patient in front of others.  If you see that behavior, collect witnesses, and bring it to someone’s attention.  Maybe that ‘someone’ will write a blog post about it!

Doctors in particular should treat patients with ALL diseases—including addiction—with respect.  It is not respectful, or ethical, to deprive a patient of life-sustaining medication—especially out of spite.  I look forward to the day when the thought of ‘kicking someone off Suboxone’ is viewed as similar to kicking a poorly-compliant teenage diabetic off insulin.

Would THAT make sense— even to This Jerk?

Below is an e-mail that I changed just enough to hide the person’s identity.  Every week, I receive messages that describe similar situations.

My husband has struggled GREATLY with substance abuse since in his 20′s; he is now in his mid-40′s. He is the kindest sweetest man and he is the BEST husband and father. When he is using he becomes someone he is not. We have run the gamut from jail to overdose.  Six years ago a friend introduced him to Suboxone and it LITERALLY gave him his life back. He bought it off the friend for years, where it was very expensive. Finally I brought him to a doctor a bit over a year ago. She is pretty adamant about weaning him off of Suboxone.

From experience, I know that 2-3 months after he stops Suboxone he will relapse. I strongly believe it IS a MIRACLE drug! I agree in the sense that if a diabetic needs insulin to save his life, you give it for a lifetime. My husband over the last 6 years has been the man of my dreams, the man I always knew he was. I have extreme anxiety because I know this doctor is just doing her job and trying to follow guidelines however my husband’s LIFE is at stake!  It’s not like if he stops this med he could ‘just’ have depression;  he could end up in jail, or worse. He has his life back. He is enjoying his family life as he should.

If this is what it takes for him to live a normal life then why not?  When we ask his doctor about staying on Suboxone, she says her concern is that we don’t know the long-term effects. She doesn’t want to keep anyone on any med without knowing what it could do. She says it hasn’t been on the market long enough. 

My husband had a SEVERE opioid addiction. He was taking 10-15 Oxycontin 80mgs a day and then ended up switching to 400mgs of methadone before he switched to Suboxone. He has found that he is comfortable with 4 of the 8mg pills per day. I believe it is because he was used to taking such high doses of opioids. He has tried really hard to decrease Suboxone for his doctor but I see the anxiety build in him. She says no one in her practice is on that dose. To be honest he was taking more when he was buying them from a friend but brought himself to a stable 4 pills per day when he started with the doctor. He and I both REALLY like her and would like to continue treatment with her. I wish I had a DVD of little clips of our life from before and after Suboxone. I am positive she would be floored. I am positive she would understand my concern. In my eyes my husband is back. He is such a beautiful soul and I hate to see that taken away from him yet again.

Doctor I read up at the top of this blog that you agree with a lifetime use. He currently has no noted side effects. Do you have any suggestions that I may present to his doctor? I dream of the day that she says it is alright for him to continue on this until maybe he chooses to wean if he so chooses to do so. That would alleviate SO MUCH stress on both of us. Please let me know what you think.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I agree with most of the opinions expressed in the email.  I know how horrible things are for active opioid addicts—and for the families of active opioid addicts.
More and more physicians pay lip service to ‘addiction as a disease,’ but most do not yet treat addiction as a disease.  The comments about diabetes are ‘right on.’ One could substitute a number of diseases to demonstrate the same point.  We physicians have few illnesses that we cure; rather we manage illness over a person’s lifetime— and opioid dependence is clearly a life-long illness.

To address a couple points in the message:  the active ingredient in Suboxone, buprenorphine, has been in clinical use for over three decades, and has established a clean safety profile.  Buprenorphine has not been used at the high doses employed for treating opioid dependence for quite as long, but even that track record is significant, i.e. 8 years in this country, and longer in Europe.  Most physicians would not consider an 8-yr-old medication to be a ‘new drug!’

The situation described in the message is, in my opinion, the result of several factors.   First and foremost, the reluctance to prescribe buprenorphine is a consequence of stigma.  Doctors prescribe new antidepressants, pain relievers, blood pressure treatments, and cholesterol-lowering agents with much less concern over ‘safety.’     I wonder, frankly, if safety is the concern—or whether there is an unconscious sense that patients addicted to opioids, or to other substances, don’t deserve an ‘easy way out’ of their problem; that sitting through a miserable detox is  a more fitting ‘treatment’ than a pill that makes things better.

I come to this cynical conclusion only because the alternative—that buprenorphine is ‘dangerous’—doesn’t make sense.  The risk of any medication must be compared against the risk of not using that medication.  As the message states, we know the risk of ‘not treating’ the woman’s husband!  Similar comparisons are used to justify the use of chemotherapeutic agents that have severe toxic effects, including the risk of killing the patient.  As I’ve written in prior posts, the fatality rate from untreated opioid dependence is as high as for many cancers.  So does it make any sense to withhold buprenorphine out of safety concerns?!

There are other reasons for doctors’ reluctance to prescribe buprenorphine. Many fear they will do something wrong, and run afoul of the DEA during an audit—a process that all buprenorphine-certified prescribers are subject to.   Some doctors feel pressure from friends and family members of patients, who often blame the doctor for keeping the patient ‘stuck on Suboxone.’  Some doctors want to maintain high patient turnover in order to keep money  coming in, since practices are ‘capped’ at 100 patients per certified physician.

Finally, I think many doctors see ongoing treatment as less satisfying than a ‘cure.’  They consider residential treatment the gold standard, and buprenorphine as a less-intensive alternative.  They buy into the idea that the addict can be returned to ‘normal’—whatever that is—if he/she works at recovery hard enough.  I understand the thought, as that is the type of treatment experience that I went through.  But on the other hand, the relapse rate for opioid dependence, after residential treatment, is very high. I myself relapsed after seven years of recovery, losing my career, and almost my life.  During my years as medical director of a large residential treatment center, patients discharged as ‘successfully treated’ often became repeat customers, at least until they lost their job and health insurance.  Some of them– too many of them–died.

I won’t get into the specifics of treatment;  I’ll leave that to her husband’s doctor to work out.  But I do hope that the doctor will give some thought to whether stopping this life-saving treatment is truly in the patient’s best interest.

To the patient’s wife– I encourage you to continue as an advocate, and I hope your doctor will understand your perspective.

A recent experience with a patient helped me realize some of the dramatic differences in the treatment of opioid dependence, in an era of buprenorphine.

I drug-test patients who are treated with buprenorphine or Suboxone.  The point of testing is not to catch someone messing up, but rather to determine when a person is in trouble.  It would be great if we could simply rely on the word of our patients, but once a person is using opioids, his/her own ability to know what is true falls apart. All of us who treat addiction have heard patients rationalize relapse as something they ‘had to do’ for one reason or another, for example.  The effects of active using on insight are why I like the use of ‘DENIAL’ as a mnemonic for ‘Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying.’

The effects of relapse on telling the truth are part of the profound impact of using on a person’s insight.  Insight disappears very quickly during active using, as the mind abandons the broad view and becomes focused on one goal. Before buprenorphine, drug testing was in some ways more, and other ways less important.  It was more important because after relapse, the person was immediately thrown back into the world of desperate scrambling, where risks for consequences are high.  On the other hand, testing was less important—or maybe necessary– because experienced addictionologists (and spouses) could see the effects of using, including the loss of insight, in the active addict’s eyes.

I was one of those people who experienced that rapid loss of insight after my relapse, back in 2000. For years I had attended AA and NA; hundreds if not thousands of meetings over seven years.  I remember comforting myself that ‘if I ever get off track, at least I now know where the door is to get back.’  I didn’t realize that at the instant one relapses, that door becomes nowhere to be found.

In retrospect, I don’t know if the door actually disappeared. I suspect that with the right attitude, that same door would have opened for me.  But the honesty and humility that I needed, in order to ask for help in finding and passing through the door, were suddenly replaced by the need for secrets—secrets about everything.  As soon as I relapsed, nobody could be trusted. Nobody would understand me.  I was on my own.

Contrast that with the experiences of patients on buprenorphine who relapse with opioid agonists. As I compare their experiences to mine, I realize that I am using the experiences of a couple people to make broad generalizations.  But I have seen a number of examples that support these generalizations, that have consistently followed the paths that I’m about to describe.

One patient—call him ‘Paul’—told me about his relapse before I even mentioned that I would be asking for a urine test.  In fact, he was eager to tell me about his experience, as if he looked forward to getting it off his conscience.  “I have to tell you that I really screwed up last week,” he said. When I asked him what happened, he said that a friend who he hadn’t seen for several months came through town and stopped by his house.  With little warning, his friend pulled out a bag of heroin and a couple clean needles, tossed them on the table, and said ‘let’s fire up.’

After shooting the heroin, Paul immediately felt disappointed in himself.  Unlike in the old days, he felt nothing from the heroin.  While his old friend nodded off next to him, Paul wondered what the heck happened—and immediately wanted to talk to me about the situation.

His desire to talk is an amazing thing—and worth noting.  Without buprenorphine, a person who relapses is not generally eager to speak to his/her sponsor, let alone counselor or physician.  In those cases, the mind reels from an avalanche of shame, and the need to keep secrets—even from one’s own awareness—becomes paramount.

There are many buprenorphine programs that would discharge a person for one relapse—and in such cases, I would not expect the same type of honesty from patients.  I don’t get the logic of those programs, and I become angry when I think about them.  As I’ve said before, if a person relapses, that person NEEDS help—not abandonment!  I believe that the proper approach to treating addiction can be found in almost all cases simply by considering opioid dependence to be another chronic illness.  And if someone with heart disease overexerts himself and comes in with chest pain, we don’t boot him from treatment!

Paul made an appointment to talk about his experience.  He explained how he felt when his old buddy contacted him, and we discussed ways to avoid meeting up with ‘old friends’ in the future.  He discussed the urge to escape when he saw the paraphernalia—to escape from life’s responsibilities—and we talked about how difficult it can be to simply tolerate life sometimes, and the powerful effects of triggers and cues.  Most interesting to me, as a psychodynamic psychiatrist, he talked about a complicated set of thoughts and feelings that came up when he saw the drugs—questions about who he was, about shame, about the heavy load that comes with doing the right thing, and about the pressure of not letting people down.  Those are all big issues, I said as I agreed with him.  How much easier, at least for a few moments, to just be ‘nothing’—to have no expectations about one’s self!

We talked about the challenge of being ‘someone’– of being proud of one’s self.  It feels good to do the right thing– but it may also feel bad.  Am I letting my old friends down, if I do better? I suggested that he might watch the old movie, Ordinary People, where a younger brother struggles after surviving an accident that claimed the life of his brother.

Before buprenorphine, people struggled with opioid dependence largely on their own.  Yes, we had twelve step groups—and still do—but twelve step groups place the responsibility to get one’s act together squarely on the back of the using addict.  Many people in AA or NA will say that “AA is a selfish program.”  It has to be.  When one relapses, one is left with his own distorted insight, accumulating consequences until, hopefully, he finds his way back to the pathway established by the simple program of the steps.

On buprenorphine, relapse doesn’t necessarily cause instant loss of insight.  I don’t mean to minimize relapse, as bad things can always happen.  For example, I have had patients stuck in a pattern of chronic relapse that was difficult to straighten out, even though there was little or no psychic effect from the drug being abused.  But from an optimistic standpoint, relapse on buprenorphine stimulates a deeper investigation into what is missing from the person’s life, and a renewed effort to gain what is missing.

This assumes, of course, that the person is not simply tossed from treatment for the relapse.  In that case, other people are left trying to figure out what happened—when the obituary appears a few months later.

Weeks ago I posted a few new ideas—things like a memorial wall for victims of opioid dependence, and a ‘wall of shame’ for doctors who are known for reckless prescribing of opioids.  I mentioned these ideas over at SuboxForum as well.

I received good feedback from readers here, and from members there.  Sometimes the best feedback is the hardest to hear;  I’ll get excited about a certain plan of action, and like anyone, I don’t like it when someone rains on my parade.

One of my addiction docs from years ago was big on ‘sober thinking.’  Back then, it seemed as if anything I came up with that pushed the boundaries was in need of more ‘sober thinking.’  I wondered if ‘sober thinking’ was simply code for ‘I don’t want to say yes to your idea, and maybe that was the case in SOME instances.  But I now recognize a part of myself that acts quickly, impulsively, with great optimism, and with little regard for risks.  ‘Sober thinking’ is simply letting an idea sit in one’s mind for a few days or even weeks, and keeping a truly open mind to the comments that one receives about the idea.

Beats Death--- Barely

I won’t spell out who wrote to me, but I’ll thank the people who did—who risked my ire by giving their honest opinions.  I mentioned a memorial page;  some people pointed out that a memorial on an addiction-related web page may add to the pain and shame felt by family members.  As for my ‘doctor wall of shame’, I was reminded that every story has two sides, and it may be more useful to simply provide referenced information that would allow readers to make up their minds without my own coloring of the facts.  I want to thank the people who wrote, and let them know that they made a difference—and the site will be better because of their efforts.

Instead of the earlier ideas, I added what I am calling the ‘consequences’ page.  The page will contain news stories identified to Google as having ‘drug overdose’ in their tags.  The information will be replaced every 24 hours or so.  I experimented with a couple different intervals and found that no day went by without a significant amount of news under that tag—a rather compelling statistic!

Click on ‘consequences’ to check it out, and let me know what you think!

When Suboxone first became an option for treating addiction to pain pills back in 2003, some people were excited about having a cure for opioid dependence. Those people were mistaken. It is true that Suboxone has been a huge benefit for treating opioid dependence, but the medication cannot cause the permanent changes in the brain that would be necessary to prevent relapse. Instead, in order for the medication to work, people must do what they do with other medications—keep taking it.

Not all scams are so obvious

I recently read an article on another web site that advocated a certain person’s ‘method’ for rapid opioid detox. I went to the primary web site for the developers of that method—pulled to the site in the same way that I am drawn to watch late-night commercials for get-rich-quick schemes or male enhancement products. On the web site I read that they have a new reason to take large sums of money from those addicts fortunate enough to have money, and unfortunate enough to believe their hype— a special, rapid way to change brain function.

We are spending tens of millions of dollars through NIH to understand neuronal ‘plasticity’—the term for the ability of the brain to adapt in response to the environment—and here some guy at a detox clinic has it all figured out!

As I read the web site, I thought about all of the addiction ‘cures’ that I’ve read about over the years, such as the secret blend of amino acids that one program offers (I wrote to the advocates of that treatment to ask how it works, and was told that they would give me the recipe for only $15,000). I thought about my opportunity a year or two ago to review the bill of a person treated at one of those $70,000 per month addiction treatment centers out west somewhere; the bill was padded with one type of therapy after another, with names like ‘mood therapy,’ or ‘PTSD resolution therapy,’ or ‘energy-field releasing therapy.’ The charge for a ‘treatment’? Prices ranged from $700 – $1200… per SESSION, day after day. On many individual days, the person was billed for multiple types of therapy, each costing $1000 or more. Now I know– THAT’S how you get to 70 grand per month!

With all this in mind, I have to wonder– is addiction treatment the last refuge for snake-oil salesmen? Where are the good folks at the FDA when people throw scientific mumbo-jumbo to extract money from desperate people? Maybe I should quit charging the peanuts of a typical private practice—where insurers think an hour is worth a hundred bucks, and the state considers an hour worth $37.50—and instead hang a sign, and make a web site, and offer ‘Selective Cranio- Axial Meningotherapy’ (SCAM) or Bitemporal Sensory (BS) Therapy or Rapid Intentional Pseudo – Olfactory Field Focusing!

I’ve criticized doctors who prescribe Suboxone as well; namely those who take the quick buck to get a person started on Suboxone, then leave the person to find a long-term prescriber on his/her own—knowing that such doctors are impossible to find in many areas.

It is relatively easy to get a person clean for a few weeks. In fact, if anyone desperately wants to get off opioids, bring me $20,000 and I will chain you to the steel post in the center of my basement—and I’ll even throw in meals. The hard part, of course, is keeping you clean AFTER you leave. So for an extra $50,000—the same price charged by many month-long treatment centers—I will provide a couple hours of therapy each day (weekends off of course), and put out an easel for you to draw pictures of traumatic events from your childhood.

Sounds silly, I know—but the truth is even sillier. I bet that the number of long-term cures from MY basement treatment would rival those from any of the methods or programs that I alluded to. From either program—mine or theirs– the long-term relapse rates would be very high.
Fortunately, there IS a long-term treatment for opioid dependence— buprenorphine– that has proven to be safe and effective. The way to make the treatment work is to follow the same principles that are used for a host of other medical conditions: 1. Get a good doctor. 2. Start the right medication. 3. Keep taking the medication. Psychotherapy might be helpful as well, but definitive studies on the value of psychotherapy for Suboxone patients have not yet been done. But we DO know the importance of staying on the medication.

Who knows– you might even save yourself a bundle.

I received the following e-mail a couple days ago:

Hi

I had been on Suboxone for 9 years. I was put on it the week it was approved by FDA. I found your posts in a blog. I was looking for a class action suit against this terrible drug. That man who said he was enjoying a Suboxone was right. I was on it almost 9 years and did get high and stay high all day, just like methadone. It causes depression and brain damage. I have been off it for 2 months now and am very sick with depression, panic attacks, and have not been able to even take care of myself. Please, if people want to get off drugs help them and send to treatment and AA NA.

thanks

nancy

Those of you who have read this blog for a while may remember the posts ‘back in the old days’—a few years ago—when I would get these kinds of messages often. Thankfully, I rarely get them nowadays, although every now and then someone stops by SuboxForum.com intent on harassing people taking buprenorphine.

I get your complaint Nancy, I really do—but I don’t agree with your thought process, or your conclusions. First of all, buprenorphine has been around for over 30 years, and has never been associated with ‘brain damage.’ The high doses of buprenorphine used for opioid dependence have been in around for 15-20 years overall, 8 years in the US. Several million prescriptions for high-dose buprenorphine have been written—without evidence for any significant harmful effects from buprenorphine.

Your description of how you felt while taking the medication are not at all consistent with the descriptions I’ve heard from the several hundred people I’ve treated over the past 5 years; people almost always report feeling nothing from the medication after being on it for a week or two. Every now and then a person will say that he/she notices opioid effects after each dose, but the sensations are always subtle, and people have to focus to tell if they are really feeling them. Frankly, given that the feelings usually come well before the 45-minute absorption time of the medication, I think that they are often imagined, or created by the mind, as a ‘placebo effect.’

Preliminary studies suggest a role for buprenorphine for treating refractory depression. I would not recommend that use for the medication in people who are not already addicted to opioids- but the findings of mood elevation in some people runs counter to your suggestion that the drug causes depression.

Buprenorphine is different from methadone in a number of ways, the most critical being the mu receptor profile, where buprenorphine acts as a partial agonist, and methadone acts as an agonist. This difference is responsible for the unique actions of buprenorphine, compared to methadone and other agonists.

But my primary disagreement with you is because you completely disregard the conditions that you had before starting buprenorphine. I assume that you were dependent on opioids, as that is why the vast majority of people take buprenorphine. And opioid dependence is not a benign condition. In fact, opioid dependence is often fatal, particularly over a span of ten years. When you blame your depression and anxiety on buprenorphine and Suboxone, where do you get the image that you use as a comparison for your current condition?

For example, if you didn’t take buprenorphine, what are you assuming would have happened? The success rates for ‘treatment’ without buprenorphine are very low—well below 10%. And many young people who have taken opioids for more than a year or so can list several former confidants who have died from opioids. In other words– you seem to be assuming that you would have been fine without Suboxone, when the odds are more in favor of you having significant problems from your addiction—and maybe death.

You may have scraped up $5K – $50K to enter treatment and been in the lucky few percent who ‘got’ recovery; in that case, the odds would have been high that you would relapse in the next few years. As for depression and panic, those are common symptoms in anyone with longstanding opioid dependence—are you just assuming that you would have been fine?

You may have gotten arrested for doctor shopping, shoplifting, or theft from your best friend’s medicine cabinet. You may have gotten disgusted with yourself and committed suicide. You may have lost everyone close to you, and ended up living on the street. We don’t know what might have happened—but I remember the days before buprenorphine was available, and remember the revolving door of treatment centers and NA meetings. Heck, those revolving doors are still in use by the people who will buy into your comments!

This is where my anger used to really well up… every person who you convince with your story — fueled by your lack of recognition of the condition you were in and your lack of appreciation for the substance that saved your life—every one of those persons will have a higher risk of mortality, thanks to you.

And—sorry for my French—that still pisses me off!

Ah yes…. another post about my book…

Over the past few years, I’ve taken posts from this blog, posts from other sources that I’ve written, some sections of a ‘memoir’ that I have not gotten around to writing… and combined them in a book about addiction. The book does not hold together as well as it should, and it is way too long– so instead of a ‘sit and read’ book it is more like a reference, similar to the blog itself. If you like this blog, you’ll like it; I’ve taken the more important posts and cleaned them up and organized them. I’ve added some new material as well, including a section about my own background. If you have a loved one on Suboxone, or have an interest in the medication yourself, you will know as much about the buprenorphine as anyone should you finish this book– particularly about the use of buprenorphine by addicts, the controversy over buprenorphine, the relationship between buprenorphine and methadone, etc.

There are some chapters that are dated– i.e. where my opinion has changed or softened over the years. I was much more ‘anti-methadone’ when I wrote most of the book; now I see methadone as something that some people simply need in order to survive. I am not a fan of how some clinics are run– but that is a topic that I don’t get into in this book.

Finally, you’ll notice how I have changed over the years; in early posts I would become angry and sarcastic with some writers. In part, that is because I was being attacked on a daily basis by the ‘anti-sub’ movement– which has largely disappeared. But I think I have also aged a bit, and I now tend to pick my battles more carefully.

The book (note- this is an e-book) goes for $14.99, and runs around 250 pages– long enough to occupy most of your summer! Proceeds continue to support this blog, and SuboxForum as well.

Thank you very much, to those of you who purchase it and check it out. I would be most grateful if you would leave comments about it– for me, and also for others– by writing them in response to this post. At some point I will get a page set up, and tranfer this promo and the comments to that page.

The book is called ‘Dying to be Clean’– and can be purchased using the links at the left of this page– or right below this post.

NOTE: Because I don’t want it simply passed around freely at this point, you need a code to open it– and it cannot be printed. The code will be included with the download link. Please understand why I take those actions.

Thanks again,

Jeff J

Sorry about the re-run—I wrote this several years ago, and I still agree with the concept of ‘dynamic character defects.’ As I read it now, I recognize how things have changed; buprenorphine (Suboxone) has been incorporated into many of the major treatment centers, and even the smallest programs have at least become familiar with the medication.

Some substance abuse treatment programs make use of other drugs to flush out the more addictive and dangerous substances in an addict’s body.

There still exist some programs where the staff remain ‘anti-Suboxone’, but those places are becoming the exception, and are essentially marginalizing themselves out of the treatment industry.

You may note that I had an attitude of cooperation when I wrote this post, years ago. I suggested that those who prescribe buprenorphine work WITH those treatment centers that were ‘anti-Suboxone;’ that they recognize each others’ strengths. Since then I’ve known several people who were taken in by the anti-sub treatment community, and who eventually died– all the time believing that they were failures at finding sobriety. The shame is not theirs; the shame belongs to those who tricked them, and kept them from the medication that would have saved their lives.

To those treatment centers that do not offer buprenorphine, and that employ counselors who fret about their own jobs to the point of keeping people away from buprenorphine, SHAME ON YOU. Your treatment centers WILL close. And given the high death rate of opioid dependence, I am glad to have such self-centered charlatans out of the industry. Each closing is one less place for people to waste money–while searching for real treatment.

Where was I? Oh yes—my old post about buprenorphine and character defects. This post gets to the issue of the ‘dry drunk’, and why I don’t see that happening with buprenorphine. The post also has implications for the discussion of whether counseling should be a part of EVERY buprenorphine prescription. As always, thanks for reading what I have to say…

I initially had mixed feelings about Suboxone, my opinion likely influenced by my own experiences as an addict in traditional recovery.  But my opinion has changed over the years, because of what I have seen and heard while treating well over 400 patients with buprenorphine in my clinical practice.  At the same time, I acknowledge that while Suboxone has opened a new frontier of treatment for opioid addiction, arguments over the use of Suboxone often split the recovering and treatment communities along opposing battle lines.  The arguments are often fueled by petty notions of ‘whose recovery is more authentic’, and miss the important point that buprenorphine and Suboxone can have huge beneficial effects on the lives of opioid addicts.

The active ingredient in Suboxone is buprenorphine, a partial agonist at the mu opioid receptor. Suboxone contains naloxone to prevent intravenous use; another form of the medication, Subutex, consists of buprenorphine without naloxone.  In this article I will use the name ‘Suboxone’ because of the common reference to the drug, but in all cases I am referring to the use and actions of buprenorphine in either form.  The unique effects of buprenorphine can be attributed to the drug’s unique molecular properties.  First, the partial agonist effect at the receptor level results in a ‘ceiling effect’ to dosing after about 4 mg, so that increased dosing does not result in increased opioid effect beyond that dose.  Second, the high binding affinity and partial agonist effect cause the elimination of drug cravings, dispelling the destructive obsession with use that destroys the personality of the user.  Third, the high protein binding and long half-life of buprenorphine allows once per day dosing, allowing the addict to break the conditioned pattern of withdrawal (stimulus)-use (response) – relief (reward) which is the backbone of addictive behavior.  Fourth, the partial agonist effect and long half life cause rapid tolerance to the drug, allowing the patient to feel ‘normal’ within a few days of starting treatment.  Finally, the withdrawal from buprenorphine provides a disincentive to stop taking the drug, and so the drug is always there to assure the person that any attempt to get high would be futile, dispelling any lingering thoughts about using an opioid.

At the present time there are significant differences between the treatment approaches of those who use Suboxone versus those who use a non-medicated 12-step-based approach.  People who stay sober with the help of AA, NA, or CA, as well as those who treat by this approach tend to look down on patients taking Suboxone as having an ’inferior’ form of recovery, or no recovery at all.  This leaves Suboxone patients to go to Narcotics Anonymous and hide their use of Suboxone.  On one hand, good boundaries include the right to keeping one’s private medical information so one’s self.  But on the other hand, a general recovery principle is that ’secrets keep us sick’, and hiding the use of Suboxone is a bit at odds with the idea of ’rigorous honesty’. People new to recovery also struggle with low self esteem before they learn to overcome the shame society places on ‘drug addicts’;  they are not in a good position to deal with even more shame coming from other addicts themselves!

An ideal program will combine the benefits of 12-step programs with the benefits of the use of Suboxone.  The time for such an approach is at hand, as it is likely that more and more medications will be brought forward for treatment of addiction now that Suboxone has proved profitable.  If we already had excellent treatments for opioid addiction there would be less need for the two treatment approaches to learn to live with each other.  But the sad fact is that opioid addiction remains stubbornly difficult to treat by traditional methods.  Success rates for long-term sobriety are lower for opioids than for other substances.  This may be because the ‘high’ from opioid use is different from the effects of other substances—users of cocaine, methamphetamine, and alcohol take the substances to feel up, loose, or energetic—ready to go out and take on the town.  The ‘high’ of opioid use feels content and ‘normal’— users feel at home, as if they are getting back a part of themselves that was always missing. The experience of using rapidly becomes a part of who the person IS, rather than something the patient DOES.  The term ‘denial’ fits nobody better than the active opioid user, particularly when seen as the mnemonic:  Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying.

The challenges for practitioners lie at the juncture between traditional recovery and the use of medication, in finding ways to bring the recovering community together to use all available tools in the struggle against active opioid addiction.

Suboxone has given us a new paradigm for treatment which I refer to as the ‘remission model’.  This model takes into account that addiction is a dynamic process— far more dynamic than previously assumed.  To explain, the traditional view from recovery circles is that the addict has a number of character defects that were either present before the addiction started, or that grew out of addictive behavior over time.  Opioid addicts have a number of such defects.  The dishonesty that occurs during active opioid addiction, for example, far surpasses similar defects from other substances, in my opinion.  Other defects are common to all substance users; the addict represses awareness of his/her trapped condition and creates an artificial ‘self’ that comes off as cocky and self-assured, when deep inside the addict is frightened and lonely.  The obsession with using takes more and more energy and time, pushing aside interests in family, self-care, and career.  The addict becomes more and more self-centered, and the opioid addict often becomes very ‘somatic’, convinced that every uncomfortable feeling is an unbearable component of withdrawal.  The opioid addict becomes obsessed with comfort, avoiding activities that cause one to perspire or exert one’s self.  The active addict learns to blame others for his/her own misery, and eventually his irritability results in loss of jobs and relationships.

The traditional view holds that these character defects do not simply go away when the addict stops using.  People in AA know that simply remaining sober will cause a ‘dry drunk’—a nondrinker with all of the alcoholic character defects– when there is no active recovery program in place.  I had such an expectation when I first began treating opioid addicts with Suboxone—that without involvement in a 12-step group the person would remain just as miserable and dishonest as the active user.  I realize now that I was making the assumption that character defects were relatively static—that they develop slowly over time, and so could only be removed through a great deal of time and hard work.  The most surprising part of my experience in treating people with Suboxone has been that the defects in fact are not ‘static’, but rather they are quite dynamic.  I have come to believe that the difference between Suboxone treatment and a patient in a ‘dry drunk’ is that the Suboxone-treated patient has been freed from the obsession to use.  A patient in a ‘dry drunk’ is not drinking, but in the absence of a recovery program they continue to suffer the conscious and unconscious obsession with drinking.   People in AA will often say that it isn’t the alcohol that is the problem; it is the ‘ism’ that causes the damage.  Such is the case with opioids as well—the opioid is not the issue, but rather it is the obsession with opioids that causes the misery and despair.  With this in mind, I now view character defects as features that develop in response to the obsession to use a substance.  When the obsession is removed the character defects will go way, whether slowly, through working the 12 steps, or rapidly, by the remission of addiction with Suboxone.

In traditional step-based treatment the addict is in a constant battle with the obsession to use. Some addicts will have rapid relief from their obsession when they suddenly experience a ‘shift of thinking’ that allows them to see their powerlessness with their drug of choice.   For other addicts the new thought requires a great deal of addition-induced misery before their mind opens in response to a ‘rock bottom’. But whether fast or slow, the shift of thinking is effective because the new thought approaches addiction where it lives—in the brain’s limbic system.  The ineffectiveness of higher-order thinking has been proven by addicts many times over, as they make promises over pictures of their loved ones or try to summon the will power to stay clean.  While these approaches almost always fail, the addict will find success in surrender and recognition of the futility of the struggle.  The successful addict will view the substance with fear—a primitive emotion from the old brain.  When the substance is viewed as a poison that will always lead to misery and death, the obsession to use will be lifted.  Unfortunately it is man’s nature to strive for power, and over time the recognition of powerlessness will fade.  For that reason, addicts must continue to attend meetings where newcomers arrive with stories of misery and pain, which reinforce and remind addicts of their powerlessness.

My experiences with Suboxone have challenged my old perceptions, and led me to believe that the character defects of addiction are much more dynamic.  Suboxone removes the obsession to use almost immediately.  The addict does not then enter into a ‘dry drunk’, but instead the absence of the obsession to use allows the return of positive character traits that had been pushed aside.  The elimination of negative character traits does not always require rigorous step work— in many cases the negative traits simply disappear as the obsession to use is relieved.  I base this opinion on my experiences with scores of Suboxone patients, and more importantly with the spouses, parents, and children of Suboxone patients.  I have seen multiple instances of improved communication and new-found humility.  I have heard families talk about ‘having dad back’, and husbands talk about getting back the women they married.  I sometimes miss my old days as an anesthesiologist placing labor epidurals, as the patients were so grateful—and so I am happy to have found Suboxone treatment, for it is one of the rare areas in psychiatry where patients quickly get better and express gratitude for their care.

A natural question is why character defects would simply disappear when the obsession to use is lifted?  Why wouldn’t it require a great deal of work?  The answer, I believe, is because the character defects are not the natural personality state of the addict, but rather are traits that are produced by the obsession, and dynamically maintained by the obsession.

Once the dynamic relationship between use obsession and character defects is understood, the proper relationship between Suboxone and traditional recovery becomes clear.  Should people taking Suboxone attend NA or AA?  Yes, if they want to.  A 12-step program has much to offer an addict, or anyone for that matter.  But I see little use in forced or coerced attendance at meetings.  The recovery message requires a level of acceptance that comes about during desperate times, and people on Suboxone do not feel desperate.  In fact, people on Suboxone often report that ‘they feel normal for the first time in their lives’.  A person in this state of mind is not going to do the difficult personal inventories of AA unless otherwise motivated by his/her own internal desire to change.

The role of ‘desperation’ should be addressed at this time:  In traditional treatment desperation is the most important prerequisite to making progress, as it takes the desperation of being at ‘rock bottom’ to open the mind to see one’s  powerlessness. But when recovery from addiction is viewed through the remission model, the lack of desperation is a good thing, as it allows the reinstatement of the addict’s own positive character.  Such a view is consistent with the ‘hierarchy of needs’ put forward by Abraham Maslow in 1943; there can be little interest in higher order traits when one is fighting for one’s life.

Here are a few common questions (and answers) about Suboxone and Recovery:

-Should Suboxone patients be in a recovery group?

I have reservations about forced attendance, as I question the value of any therapy where the patient is not an eager and voluntary participant.  At the same time, there clearly is much to be gained from the sense of support that a good group can provide.  Groups also show the addict that he/she is not as unique as he thought, and that his unhealthy way of visualizing his place in the world is a trait common to other addicts.  Some addicts will learn the patterns of addictive thinking and become better equipped to handle their own addictive thoughts.

-What is the value of the 4th through 6th steps of a 12-step program, where the addict specifically addresses his/her character defects and asks for their removal by a higher power?  Are these steps critical to the resolution of character defects?

These steps are necessary for addicts in ‘sober recovery’, as the obsession to use will come and go to varying degrees over time depending on the individual and his/her stress level.  But for a person taking Suboxone I see the steps as valuable, but not essential.

The use of Suboxone has caused some problems for traditional treatment of opioid dependence, and so many practitioners in traditional AODA treatment programs see Suboxone as at best a mixed blessing.  Desperation is often required to open the addict’s mind to change, and desperation is harder to achieve when an addict has the option to leave treatment and find a practitioner who will prescribe Suboxone.  Suboxone is sometimes used ‘on the street’ by addicts who want to take time off from addiction without committing to long term sobriety.  Suboxone itself can be abused for short periods of time, until tolerance develops to the drug.  Snorting Suboxone reportedly results in a faster time of onset, without allowing the absorption of the naloxone that prevents intravenous use.  Finally, the remission model of Suboxone use implies long term use of the drug.  Chronic use of any opioid, including Suboxone, has the potential for negative effects on testosterone levels and sexual function, and the use of Suboxone is complicated when surgery is necessary.  Short- or moderate-term use of Suboxone raises a host of additional questions, including how to convert from drug-induced remission, without desperation, to sober recovery, which often requires desperation.

Time will tell whether or not Suboxone will work with traditional recovery, or whether there will continue to be two distinct options that are in some ways at odds with each other.  The good news is that treatment of opioid addiction has proven to be profitable for at least one pharmaceutical company, and such success will surely invite a great deal of research into addiction treatment.  At one time we had two or three treatment options for hypertension, including a drug called reserpine that would never be used for similar indications today.  Some day we will likely look back on Suboxone as the beginning of new age of addiction treatment.  But for now, the treatment community would be best served by recognizing each other’s strengths, rather than pointing out weaknesses.

While I’m on the subject of rip-offs, I’ll mention an extreme form of ‘detox capitalism’; a process called rapid opioid withdrawal, rapid detox, or ‘the Waismann Method.’

The name of the process supposedly comes from a certain ‘Dr. Waismann’ who helped Israeli soldiers get off opioids after they were treated for various injuries.  It sounds like a pretty exciting history, but to be honest there is nothing in the technique that takes a rocket scientist to figure out.  The basic idea is to precipitate withdrawal using an opioid antagonist— something that is done many times over every day in emergency rooms across the U.S.—but to do it while the person is sedated with non-opioid medications.

Put me out, Doc!

I never expected to admit this back when it occurred, but I had the bright idea of putting myself through ‘rapid opioid detox’ shortly before entering treatment ten years ago, when I was desperately searching for a way to free myself from opioids.

Like any typical addict I wanted to do it entirely by myself, figuring that I knew as much about opioids and medicine as anyone else.  I loaded up on naltrexone (an oral form of naloxone) thinking that the antagonist would block my receptors, lower my tolerance, and prevent me from using for as long as I took the naltrexone.

I simplified things a bit by omitting the sedation—a good idea since there was no other doctor monitoring me, but a bad idea because I experienced about a week of withdrawal condensed into several intensely-miserable hours.  I remember being shocked at just how much sweat my body could produce in such a short time, as liquid beaded on my skin as fast as I could wipe it off!

After the real horrible period—the period that I would have slept through had I come up with $15,000 plus airfare—I remained quite ill for a matter of weeks.  And of course that is what happened, since it takes weeks for tolerant mu receptors to be replaced by new, normal mu receptors.  Until the receptors are replaced, the brain’s endorphin pathways remain quiet, causing hypersensitivity to pain—not to mention diarrhea, restless legs, cramping, gooseflesh, and depression.

There are several variations of rapid detox, but the principles are the same for all of them:

-          The addict is given a strong sedating medication or anesthetic

-          While heavily sedated, the addict is given an intravenous infusion of the opioid antagonist naloxone to precipitate withdrawal.

-          After a period of time that varies with the name of the facility, the addict wakes up;  one day of withdrawal gone, and only two more months of withdrawal to go!

-          The process costs from five to ten thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

-          Different options are tossed in for different programs, everything short of an extended warranty: amino acid cocktails, ‘vital nutrients,’ or long-term sedatives.

-          In some cases a chip of naltrexone is implanted that slowly releases over weeks, supposedly preventing a high from using—provided the addict doesn’t become desperate and use very high doses of heroin, or dig the implant from his/her body using a fork!

Web sites for the procedure point out that opioid dependence is a relapsing illness and that people who use Suboxone relapse when they stop Suboxone (no argument from me), but go on to claim a 70% one-year sobriety rate after their rapid-detox procedure—without any explanation for how they get better numbers than Suboxone patients.  I have never seen peer-reviewed studies showing such success rates.

Speaking of peer-reviewed studies, I have seen a study of rapid detox showing what is intuitively obvious—that since it takes a number of weeks for the body to adjust to the lack of opioids, one day of sedation avoids only a tiny portion of the misery of withdrawal.  Is it worth ten grand to avoid one day of withdrawal, knowing that several more weeks of withdrawal are yet to come?  I suppose it depends on one’s checking account.

But the bigger issue is the poor long-term outcome for these people—a problem similar to what I described in my post about Sneetches.  Early in the spiral of addiction, addicts and their families are under the mistaken belief that the hardest part of ‘kicking opioids’ is to get through physical withdrawal.

They eventually they learn that they are wrong, and that it is much more difficult and rare to STAY clean than it is to GET clean—but ‘rapid detox’ makes money off their ignorance in the meantime.  Quitting opioids by rapid detox, amino acids, magic crystals, hypnosis, or a host of other expensive, highly-promoted methods reminds me of the story about the guy boasting about how easy it was to quit smoking—so easy that he’s done it over 20 times!

Aarghh! (he said, moaning in frustration…)  I realize that it isn’t so much anger that shortens our lives as much as the repression of that anger—so pardon my venting!  I just finished an appointment with a patient who described something that is all too common, and that really makes my blood boil.

I’ve seen ‘Tom’ in my practice for about three years, since he presented with severe heroin addiction.  He once made good money working in the financial industry, but was reduced by addiction to a shadow of his former self.  He had infections in his arms from using needles, to the point of being in danger of losing one of his arms because of destruction of the limb’s blood supply.  He had tried stopping dozens of times without success, having only several ‘clean days’ in a period of ten years.  He was beyond desperate; he truly believed that he would die from his addiction.  In fact, he believed that he would likely die soon.

Tom did very well with buprenorphine, as do many people in his position.  The people who tend to do the best with buprenorphine from my experience are those who are convinced that they cannot stop using, who are aware of the dangers of their addiction, and who utterly hate their dependence on opioids.  I see younger people have less success, in my opinion because they are less aware that there is such a thing as ‘death,’ and that bad things really do happen to people.

Tom was amazed at the effects of buprenorphine.  For the first time in years he could choose to NOT pick up—a wonderful relief that must seem bizarre to non-addicts.  The first days on buprenorphine are a Godsend to those resigned to the same, miserable obsession, morning after morning and day after day; those who kept shooting or snorting regardless of the shame from broken promises to stay clean– made on the lives of every person they hold dear.

Over time, Tom did well in other ways, besides avoiding heroin.  He returned to long-forgotten hobbies.  He began opening up to his wife again, and they worked to heal the damage wrought by years of lies and secrets.  And little by little he began to feel OK about himself again, as he processed the shame that had become a central part of his personality.

I try to facilitate that process, by the way, by helping recovering addicts understand and believe that their addiction is a disease.  I point out that while they had some role in the start of the disease, people have similar roles in the early stages of many, if not most diseases.  I help them realize that they have been punished enough, and that at some point they have the right to hold their heads high again.  I recommend that they avoid developing too large an ego, as righteous anger is a dangerous trait for any recovering addict.  Instead, they should find the humility that most people find in recovering from any chronic illness, the humility that we all find when we realize that we are mortal beings.  And at the same time they should give themselves a break, make amends where due, and feel a sense of pride for working hard at doing the right thing.

Unfortunately, at some point Tom began to resent the fact that he was taking buprenorphine.  I have read about such resentments from people on my forum and witnessed similar attitudes, albeit at a lesser rate, from patients in my practice.  I don’t understand the attitude, and I know from my observations that the attitude is dangerous for opioid addicts, since the relapse rate in people who stop buprenorphine approaches 100% over the long term.  Of course I understand the desire to be off all medications and go back to a time before the person was addicted—just as I understand the desire for world peace.  I imagine that many patients with heart disease look back fondly to the period before their first heart attack, but I don’t think that they are as likely to resent the coronary stent that saved their lives, or the cholesterol-lowering drugs that add another ten years of time with their grandchildren!

I have literally witnessed cases where parents ‘intervened’ to get a son or daughter off Suboxone, precipitating episodes of relapse with severe consequences—even death in one case that I know of.  What a horrible shame!  That situation, by the way, is the background behind the title of the book that I am slowly sharing here, entitled Clean Enough.

Tom made today’s appointment in order to tell me what had happened.  He caught a flight to one of those places advertised on the internet to ‘get you free from Suboxone.’  He paid about $10,000 to stay in their facility for ten days, much of the time watching movies about the greed of doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, who work together to ‘keep you on the drugs that make them MONEY.”  I pointed out to Tom at this part of the story that in the three years I’ve known him, my total fees have run to less than $2,000—compared to the $10,000 collected by these jokers, not counting the cost of the flights to and from their facility.

The detox center gave Tom a proprietary blend of amino acids and other essential nutrients (I’m thinking of a movie right now where the character stifles a cough that sounds like ‘bullsh%$t!).  The blend was supposed to prevent withdrawal and ‘treat his injured neurons.’  I started to explain that the amino acids and other molecules in such cocktails do not cross the blood-brain barrier, which is only one of several reasons for the lack of any evidence in peer-reviewed literature that such infusions do anything at all. And they didn’t do much for Tom; he said that he felt horrible from the withdrawal that was forced over his last five days there (I typically recommend those who insist on stopping buprenorphine taper the medication over several months).

Tom shared this information with me, and also told me that he was using again, starting the  day he got home.  The detox center has no advice for him now, other than to pony up another $10,000 and try again.  He is wondering if he should go on Suboxone again.

I think of the Dr. Seuss story that my parents read to me about 45 years ago called ‘The Star-Bellied Sneetches.’  An inventor had a machine that put stars on the bellies of Sneetches, silly fictional beings lining in the land of Dr. Seuss.  The Sneetches with stars wore them boastfully until they became passé, when another inventor seized the opportunity and created a machine that removed the stars.  By the end of the story, Sneetches stood in line to go through one machine and then circled back to use the other, as money poured out of both machines.

I treat opioid dependence with buprenorphine because I know, without a doubt, that doing so saves the lives of those who take it appropriately. It angers me that there are people with a machine that ‘undoes’ what I do, and that some people are eager to pay ridiculous sums of money to use it!  The lesson for readers with opioid dependence is summarized by another old story about ‘looking a gift horse in the mouth.’  We finally have something with the potential to give suffering opioid addicts their lives back.  If you are in the position to benefit from buprenorphine, I encourage you to be grateful, find contentment if possible, take your medicine… and get on with life.