3 Tips For Better Odds At Long-Term Opioid Addiction Recovery

Recovering from an opioid addiction is a lifelong battle of trying to stay clean. If you are considering stopping opioids for good, there are various strategies that might help you stay off drugs and even reduce your risk of an overdose if you are tempted to relapse.

Consider Differences Between Treatment Approaches

When you are considering any type of opiate addiction treatment program, you must weight the costs and benefit of each type to give you the best chance at recovery. Programs generally fall into two classes: abstinence and harm reduction. Abstinence-based programs have an overall goal of stopping you from using drugs and keeping you off them permanently. Harm reduction works in a different manner. These programs often allow the use of medications to treat addiction, such as buprenorphine. Although people using these medications inevitably become dependent on them, it is considered a safer alternative than using street drugs or abusing prescription opioids. Generally, people treated with medications have fewer relapses and find it easier to stay away from medications that were not prescribed to them or illicit drugs.

Find A Support System

Fighting back against opioid addiction is even harder when you do not have a support system. Sometimes it can be difficult for friends and family to support you on the road to recovery if they have been disappointed by your relapses or you have been deceitful to them. A combination of mental health professionals and support groups might give you a better chance at staying clean. For some people, simply talking to others going through the same issues can make them feel less alone throughout the process. Access to mental health care, whether done on your own or through a treatment program, can be critical for addressing concurrent issues that might lead you to relapse.

Recognize Vulnerability

With an opioid addiction, there may be certain experience that make you extremely vulnerable to the deadly effects of using opioids. One of the situations is after going through withdrawal, either because you recently overdosed and were administered medication to reverse the effects of opioids or you had to stop using opioids for some reason. This is one of the most vulnerable times for someone addicted to opioids and the best time to enter treatment. Sadly, many people overdose within days of being saved from a previous overdose of opioids. Medications used to reverse an overdose can contribute to strong cravings for the drug and lead people with opioid addictions to take a large quantity of drugs once they are released from the hospital. Similarly, if you abstain from drugs, the likelihood of an overdose is high because your body does not have the same tolerance to your previous dose.

Staying safe after going through opioid withdrawal and finding a program that works for your needs will give you the best chance at long-term recovery.