AHS Views

If you want to know how crazy drugs can make you, dig this: a former patient of a methadone clinic stole methadone from the clinic. Why would he do that? He can just go in there and get it. I would say it’s pretty obvious that whatever treatment he got while he was a patient in the clinic didn’t work. Which is not surprising - addiction help that works requires a lot more than giving the person another drug.

The problem with methadone clinics, and other treatment that simply substitutes one drug for another, is that it does not address the reason the person was taking drugs in the first place. You can mask the physical cravings with another drug, but the problems the person has that drove them to drug addiction will continue.

It’s like taking painkillers to reduce the pain of a broken leg without setting the bones and doing all the follow up care that enables the bones to heal - the leg will remain broken.

If you really want to help someone get off drugs, make sure the addiction help services he gets doesn’t simply trade one problem for another. Get down to the bottom of things - it will get the person off drugs, and it will fix whatever was broken in the first place so he can live his life.