Hill Recovery

A recent guest commentary in the Californian spoke to the significant increase in patients being treated for addiction to painkillers.  Our experience at Hill Alcohol and Drug Treatment mirrors those of your columnist.  Addiction to pain medications like Vicodin, Norco, Oxycontin, Fentanyl, Dilaudid and other opiates has increased dramatically.           However, the truly exciting story is the giant strides science has begun to make in understanding the bio-chemical mechanisms of addictive behavior and the creation of harm reduction alternatives.  For so many years, all addictive behaviors were seen as either failings of morality or will power.  Our societal strategy reflected those beliefs by passing laws that focused on punishing the addict into “right behaviors” Campaigns like “just say no” appealed to those who sought an easy, quick, cheap solution.  For those who didn’t say “no” we have elected to allocate our tax dollars to incarcerate them with those well versed in minimal values and anti-social behaviors. Three years ago we, at Hill Alcohol and Drug Treatment (with great skepticism and much research) began to use a new medication for pain pill addiction that promised no high to chase for the user, no tolerance by the brain to drive the user to higher and higher doses and most importantly, blocked the effects of the pain killers. It promised to eliminate both the acute (short term) and chronic (long term) withdrawal syndrome that had previously tormented our patients with depression, loss of energy, appetite and ultimately, any enthusiasm for life.  They couldn’t work; play with their kids or even laugh.  We started our first patients on this medication with the assistance of Dr. Jack Druet, pain management specialist and one of only three local physicians certified to prescribe this new medication.  The results were startling.  The first word out of each patient’s mouth was the same “I feel normal for the first time in so many years”.  Our recovery rate for opiate addicts skyrocketed from 5% to 95%.  We had nurses, major league ballplayers, teachers and many others who had been struggling with shame and fear finally able to “feel normal” not high, not hooked, just normal. Most had started their addiction with a surgery or chronic pain condition and their physician’s treatment was completely appropriate.  Unfortunately, the Mu and Kappa receptor sites in their brain didn’t care about theories of “appropriate pain management”. Their brains were genetically pre-wired to produce an important response to the prescribed dose of analgesic.  Instead of feeling pain relief and falling asleep, they experienced a stimulation that, atypically, kept them awake at night.  From the outset, their biological response was the opposite from the majority of the population.  Likewise, their withdrawal experience was much more severe and long-lived.  This new medication is called Suboxone.  It’s really just the combination of two very old medications into a new hope for hundreds of thousand of those who find themselves unable to get past the months of post acute withdrawal that follows cessation of pain killers. Increasingly, science is working with the treatment community to find new ways to help those who, years ago were deemed “hopeless”. The results will save countless families the heartache of watching their loved one head off to jail, prison or the morgue.  Few families have been untouched by the disease of addiction.  Hope has never been greater in our field Rocky Hill is the Director of Hill Alcohol and Drug Treatment and Three Hills Sober Living.  He has provided treatment services to the Valley for over twenty years.   Rocky Hill, MA, NCAC IIExecutive Director