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Study: heroin better than methadone to kick habit

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

Some heroin addicts who got the drug under medical supervision had a better chance of kicking the habit than those who got methadone, a new study says.

In a British study of 127 people who previously failed to beat their addiction, scientists gave them either injectable heroin or methadone. After six months, those who got heroin were much less likely to continue taking the drug illegally than those who got methadone. The results were published Friday in the British medical journal, Lancet (The Lancet, Volume 375, Issue 9729, Pages 1885 – 1895, 29 May 2010).

Methadone has been used for decades to treat heroin addicts, but only Britain and Switzerland prescribe heroin for some addicts as part of rehabilitation programs.

In 2008, Britain proposed using heroin to treat some addicts on a national level, beyond the few clinics where it was available. Government officials were waiting for the results of this trial, which some say provides the necessary evidence to roll out the strategy widely.

“Treatment with supervised injectable heroin seems to be our best option,” said Roy Roberton, of the department of community health sciences at Edinburgh University, in a statement. He was not linked to the study.

While most addicts get methadone, heroin could be used for people in whom the heroin substitute doesn’t work. “This is a treatment of last resort,” said John Strang of the National Addiction Center and the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, the paper’s lead author.

“The alternative is cheaper treatments that deliver no benefits, or prison, which is three times as expensive,” he said.

Politics has often complicated treatment for drug addiction, as critics worry about government programs giving addicts a pure form of heroin. Similar trials to test heroin injection were proposed in the U.S., France and Belgium, but none have conducted a trial.

“This state of affairs is sad because other medical specialties commonly embrace (other) therapies,’”‘ wrote Thomas Kerr of St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada, and colleagues in an accompanying commentary. They said denying effective treatments like heroin injection to people in need was “unethical.”

For a more in-depth look at the arguments for and against prescribing heroin click here.

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Posted in Addiction | 2 Comments »

David

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Hi everyone, my name is David and I’ve been a drug addict since I was 15 and I’m 34 tomorrow (12th January). Through my drug past I robbed people, and I took cars that I didn’t own, and it’s nothing to be proud of but I’ve spent 19 years in and out of the prison system and to be honest it made me worse. I ended up robbing banks and I received 8 years for that and that was my wake up call. I’ve two lovely kids and a girlfriend that I love dearly and I couldn’t stop myself from taking drugs so I lost them, and it hurt me so bad that I wouldn’t stop till we were one again. Tasha is my rock and she stood by me. Now I’m on phy my life has been normal. I haven’t taken smack in about 3 years and I had a slip on 1st February 09 when I injected coke into my hand and it was bad coke, it was a bad slip as within 3 days I was in hospital and in intensive care for 6 weeks and I got 7 operations in 3 days and my dad wouldn’t let them cut it off.

I came through on the end of March and to be honest, I was in a bad way, but I had my arm. The MRSA ate a lot of my flesh but I’m a lucky one, I nearly died twice.

My brother Mark got on a course and told me about it and I saw so interested as the name is Sankalpa so I looked it up on the web site and had a talk with Tasha. I asked my brother to get an application form which he did and I filled it in. 3 weeks later I received a call from Sankalpa and got an interview which I went to and got a chance to change my life.

I’m in Sankalpa about 2 months now and I’ve started to drop on my phy which I will reduce 5ml each month. This place has opened my eyes to a different way of life. I really enjoy my days here as it’s well run and my goal is to leave here clean and have a better life as 2010 is going to be my year. I’m doing computers that I really like and I’ve made a lamp that I was so proud of.

I’ve to travel a good bit each day to get here and it’s worth it. The staff are very helpful and if you’re having a bad day and need to talk they will listen.

Well at the moment I’m doing very well and most of that is down to Sankalpa. I still attend hospital appointments but one thing to say is I had a slip and nearly died and it will never happen again.

I’m not in Sankalpa that long but I hope to complete the course and be free of phy and live my life as a normal person.

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Posted in Testimonials | 2 Comments »

Des

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

I was knocking around doing nothing in September 08 and had an apartment in town for four years prior to this story. It was in that apartment I slipped into a very bad habit of doing nothing and taking drugs. It was drink and cocaine that I was taking but then when the parties were all over I was left with a filthy flat smelling of drink and smoke. I then got offered to smoke gear, which I tried but really did not like. I already had a problem with tablets to relax me. It was when I was told about being able to buy molly (that’s the street name for it, methadone is the pharmacists name) so I didn’t think much of it but bought some and drank it. It was all grand until I realised I had gotten meself a problem with it. I started needing it. So I signed up for to get on a program to get something I had at one stage despised. 

I then just gave up my apartment and came back to my mother’s where I would not have been able to do half the things I done in my flat. At the same time I tried to stop taking the methadone and could not sleep for three days in my mother’s, and then with a lot of shame went and told my mother I had this problem. So she agreed to help me. I went up to the clinic and they took me on cause I had been on the clinic in town for four months and had a plan to get stable and start coming down off it. So as well as that I had to do something to keep my mind busy and to try to get a bit of structure in my life. I only palled with one mate and it himself that told me about this course that was called millennium but is now called Sankalpa.

It was there for the first time in 5 years I had a little structure in my life. I was getting up and going in and they were quite helpful, they made a plan with me to gradually get meself back to the way I was and off this methadone. Since I’ve been here I’ve come down 15ml – 5ml a month for the last 3 months, and they make out a plan to get your life outside Sankalpa back in order. So at present I am on the housing list, seeing my kid twice a week and feel great with the bit of structure back in my life. Cause I had been a worker before I fell into this rut. And getting up and out in the morning has been great and when I’m at my mother’s she loves it knowing I’m doing something and it’s helping me. My mother came down to the church to watch us play the drums, which is something I never would have done if I wasn’t in Sankalpa. I get to learn about computers and I’ve a lot of interest in the ceramics. I’m actually doing a portfolio so as that I can hopefully be ready by September this year to go to a college and learn what I don’t already know. I’m quite good with my hands and the ceramics is my favourite.

The money is good and helps a lot but it’s the structure and the getting clean that motivates me. I’ve signed up for the course in September so hopefully I’ll be ready and each different class is enjoyable. We get to try new things every day. Me myself I think it has given me a lot and I’m making progress. It’s quite good, the staff are quite good and the other clients are alright. Getting the structure back in my life was a really good thing for me. That is really important to me, not to stay in bed and miss half a day. When I get up and get into work it’s great. You get to socialize and they try to help you in every aspect of your life and I have a lot going since I joined and I never know what we’ll be doing tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll get off my methadone but slowly does it.

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David

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

My name is David and I have been addicted to drugs for 15 to 20 years.  I started off smoking hash, drinking and for a long time didn’t use hard drugs.  I left school when I was 13.  I never did any exams but got a job as a Comis Chef and worked for a long time and never got into trouble or anything. 

When I was about 18 I was introduced to heroin and started smoking it not knowing what I was getting involved in.  I did not know what chasing the dragon was.  Around the same time my girlfriend got pregnant and I first tried to give up heroin.  I managed to stay off it until about 6 weeks before my daughter was born.  I tried again and again after a while me and my girlfriend moved into her parent’s home with the baby.  We had our own place but had to leave it because of my drug use. 

I managed to bluff my way through the next 6 to 12 months before my girlfriends folks got fed up watching me get their daughter strung out.  They eventually threw me out and I started to sleep rough.  I lost my job and couldn’t get the dole because I had no address.  Eventually me and my girlfriend drifted apart and she got worse and worse and so did I and we left each other for our drugs.  My child was 18 months old and I found myself robbing, selling, scamming and anything to get my next fix. 

After living in hell for nearly 3 years without seeing my child, I tried to kill myself.  Thankfully it did not work.  A friend brought me out to this Christian place in town and I went into the program and went through cold turkey.  They sent me to England as they had a Church in Manchester and I ended up staying there for a few months.  I became very homesick and I wanted to see my child.  So I left the program early and returned home to Dublin and for a while I still did the Christian thing, no drink, no smokes, no bad language, but eventually lost heart in God after I found out that my girlfriend of 8 years was getting married and she would not let me see my kid.  So I managed to stay clean and got a job and moved on with my life without drugs but still never addressed the issues that made me start using. 

Eventually I ended up meeting a new girlfriend and she became pregnant and we got our won place.  Things went well for about 18 months.  But things didn’t last cause I think that I didn’t know how to deal with life’s problems.  So when I found out my new girlfriend and my brother were having an affair, I snapped and had a sort of break down and tried to kill myself again.  I tried to overdose but it didn’t work thank God.  So was back using and I was in a worse state than I have ever been in.  But was working at the time and tried to keep my job going but started to rob the place and missed days when I was sick and that led me to being sacked. 

So I was back on the gear, no job, no home, no girlfriend, no friends and really felt like there was no hope.  So for the next couple of years I went from hostel to hostel.  I got barred from using in the hostel.  So I ended up sleeping rough and doing whatever it took to get my fix.  I didn’t care about anything.  I got that bad that I had no veins to inject into.  So I started to use my groin.  Eventually I went into a treatment centre and this time I stuck it out for the 6 weeks and when I got out I went back home to live with my parents.  I still couldn’t handle life without drugs.  I started to use again and I hid it from my parents for a while. 

Eventually I got on the Clinic and on the phy but was still using but this time was injecting tablets with my heroin.  This went well for a while but had a accident and done real damage to my groin and was taken to hospital, where they thought I was going to lose leg, but I had a lucky escape and was let home after a month in hospital.  So when I got home was told in no uncertain terms this was going to be my last chance.  So I knew I had to do something different this time.  I had heard of this place called Millennium (Sankalpa) from the Clinic.  So I had a chat with someone in the clinic about how I could try things differently when I moved back home after the hospital.  I had started to isolate myself from everyone and got really really depressed and had to seek help from a psychologist and counsellor.  I needed someone to talk to and a structure in myself.  When I started on the clinic, I was stable and on 90mls. 

Now my life has improved so much.  I’m happy in myself for the first time that I can remember and now I have a real goal of going to D.I.T.  I am now down to 30 mls and hope to be totally drug free in the next couple of months. 

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