Ive been told at substance abuse conferences that I would be something of a celebrity because most people have never seen a functioning methadone patient. I believe that the reason for this is those of us who have been helped the most by this medication are not dissimilar to the average American. We blend into the woodwork. We go to work, have families and live an unremarkable existence. Just like you and your friends and family. We pay our taxes and we go to church.

Life was not like this for us before our lives stabilized with methadone. We lived with the persistent pain of addiction. With the ever present knowledge that our lives are somehow profoundly different from everyone else. And with the despair of the incurable and incurably misunderstood.
Methadone changed that for me. Its resurrected my life in a way I thought impossible.

I started out as the product of an affluent family in an affluent neighborhood. I became a successful businessman. I worked hard and I thought that I played hard. The truth was that I became an alcoholic.
After many bad experiences and lost work days, unconsciously, I began to look for a drug that didnt debilitate as badly as alcohol. Then, my business partner was diagnosed with cancer, prescribed narcotics for the pain and I found my answer. Opiates! My addiction took over and I couldnt look back.
Within a year of his death, I was a street addict. Id lost my business, my home, my wife and son. I enrolled in numerous treatment facilities in 4 different states. I tried everything from AA to Synanon. From will power to behavior modification. I wiped out any insurance I had in the first month with the first unsuccessful treatment. I remained homeless for almost 4 years before I found a treatment that helped me.

I thought I knew about methadone. I never considered the treatment too seriously, though. I thought that will power could do the job if only I could find the right help. After failing at will power many, many times, I began to seriously think about methadone again. I needed education and learned that methadone therapy is not trading one addiction for another like Id heard so many times.
I also found out that, for chronic opiate addicts like myself, methadone stabilizes our neurochemistry and our lives. I learned that chronic usage of opiates can result in lifelong damage to our brain chemistry. The brains electrochemical reward system becomes damaged and cannot naturally produce the neurochemicals necessary for pleasure and contentment.

We can even look at the loss of these pleasure neurochemicals as the loss of the natural methadones that everyones bodies manufacture. The similarities between methadone and the brains naturally-occurring pleasure neurochemicals are that profound.

Early in my recovery I got a very important job managing a substantial family trust. I was doing an important job and doing it well. This was unimaginable to me just a few years previously. There were times when I resorted to shoplifting to support my addiction and now I was trusted with the responsibility of managing a great deal of other peoples money. I often marveled at the change in my life and the end to my addiction. Previously, I was so locked in my addiction that Id thought suicide would be the only possible outcome. Ive got to thank todays enlightened scientific community for my life today.

Now, after 15 years of recovery I am co-director of an organization which provides services for people who suffered as I did. Every time someone in crisis calls me for help I remember what it was like to wake up in the morning; cursing the daylight for bringing me another day of torment and pain. Ill never forget the misery and hopelessness and I get great pleasure in helping others who are struggling with recovery.

For me, that pleasure can only be produced because of medication-assisted recovery.

Everything Ive said about medication-assisted treatment can be easily accessed and is in the public domain. The merits of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) arent secret and can be found in many, many places on the internet and in todays journals.

Even the things I tell you about my own experiences with addiction and MMT arent unique. There are many recovery stories like mine throughout the world. Very possibly, your neighbor or your dentist has a story similar to mine. Our lives are pretty unremarkable now!