Does methadone work?

Someone close to me is a heroin addict. I’m a recovering alcoholic, don’t get me wrong the only reason I didn’t get addicted to anything else was because I didn’t try it. Had I tried any other drug I’m sure I would have loved it. Now I know the ins and outs of alcoholism but I’m still trying to figure out heroin addiction. As well as the best course of treatment. My question to all you addicts/alcoholics out there is does anyone know a recovering heroin addict who got sober using methadone? And I mean like a good amount of sobriety, like 2+ years. As an alcoholic I can’t quite wrap my head around seemingly swapping one opiate for another or for that matter weaning off anything. I mean I don’t know a single recovering alcoholic who didn’t just quit cold turkey you know? Anyway I’d like to hear some imput, what do you guys think of methadone? I appreciate your time and advice

I only know of people still on methadone,one person i know was basically told the same thing i was and he still goes to the methadone clinic once a month to pick up his methadone because he was told after a car accident that his organs absolutely would not work with out the opiate so he is a rest of his life methadone needer from what i've heard and he has been on this regimen for over 10 years without going back to heroin but for myself it was more of an early morning fix until i could get some oxycontin later in the same day.I remember it not having a very long life and i would start to feel deathly ill in under 4 hour's,i think there are better options out there now than methadone like Suboxone and the thing with methadone clinics is they get you on the search early everyday for your next fix or at least that's how it affected myself.I personally don't like methadone clinic's because i have never seen them work except the one person i mentioned and most people that i encountered there all trade phone number's and your addiction becomes unstoppable because now instead of having a dealer now you have 30.So I imagine it all depends on the person but it wasn't a good thing for myself

No, do not recomend the methadone for every reason stated and then some you've never heard of and then for some reasons I've never even heard of!
For me personally Suboxone saved my life. I did swap to Subutex for a short period of time and was able to abuse it but had I stuck with Suboxone then I would be free of any opiate addiction almost 8 or 9 months ago.
The idea is that you replace a short acting opiate like heroin with a long lasting one, a longer half life. For instance if I were to take 180 to 200 mgs of morphine I would be looking for a fix in 8 to 12 hours. But 4 to 8 mgs of buprenorphine which is Suboxone lasts about 48 to 56 hours before it starts to really wear off. Everyone is different but this is a rough guide.
Swapping out the opiate of choice for subs takes away the cravings and I meen to the extreme like wow I have my life back! So you can taper off of that and function without the high and without the cravings.
But it needs to be under a doctors care,and you never want to run out, like never ever ever ever!!!
So don't take it even once unless you are prescribed it. It also has naloxone in it. So if the sub user tries shooting or snorting anything nada, won't feel it.
Just don't keep taking it forever and taper off and it really can be a lifesaver.
And I know 3 people with 2+ years doing it the sub way.

Thank you for your insight!! I can’t tell you how valuable it is. What do you think of vivitral?(naloxone) the mothly shot that blocks the heroin high. The person in my life has been using for just over a year, multiple times a day. He got the shot back in February and was sober for 3 weeks but get this. His father went with him to the next appointment right, well dude called the doctor cancelled the vivitral and scheduled like a B12 shot. So the dad goes with him sits in the waiting room and dude comes limping out like he just got the vivitral shot in the ass. Not only that but he was being drug tested by family, so for months he was using a fake penis with urine in it stored from the 3 weeks he was sober back in February. If that **** doesn’t sum up addiction idk what does. Anyway he’s back on the vivitral shot and I’m pretty sure people are now making sure he’s getting the shot he said he was. But if someone wants to get sober, vivitral seems like a good aid. Good to know if you wanted to get high you couldn’t. So I had to have a breathalyzer in my car for the first 18 months of my sobriety but I kept it and paid for it for another 6 months. I liked having that little something extra, a little reminder. I’ll take all the little reminders I can get, if it helps me stay clean.

Suboxone is good because of the naloxone. However, doctors that prescribe that stuff have no intention of weaning you off. It's all about them making money, and suboxone costs quite a bit. (Without insurance atleast)

If you're looking for something to simply help with the withdrawl symptoms while he detoxes then I'd recommend looking into Kratom. It can be found at most head shops and is a natural alternative to harsh opiates. There's different kinds that have slightly different effects. After a week or so the really bad physical effects should subside and you should be free to continue working on your sobriety without being tied to a substitute like methadone or suboxone.

My Dr has every intention in the world of weaning me off in fact he gave me a time frame even after x amount of days no more subs for me you just have to find the right Dr. And kratum is just a new way to get high.

I'm sorry Dr drug knowledge but I do believe that you need to research alternative further before suggesting them as I was in rehab with someone who was physically addicted to kratum

And to answer your question @CMMW I think its a great route to go. If you don't go the sub route then that will keep him from using opiates. Won't stop the cravings though. So I have seen peoplewho are on the shot just swap for a different drug. With the sub no cravings and the benefit of the naloxone.

Methodone isn't a goo

I responded also in another post. Don't recomend the methadone to my worst enemy.
I'm back on track with the subs but if say if you abuse them they run a close second. But I'm almost off and they did save my life. I know Suboxone saved me from certain death. So I'll give it a recommendation but the other stuff, your just high and manic and happy, then next thing you know your boss is waking you up telling you your fired. (I nodded off at work one too many times on the account of methadone alone.)

Thanks for all your responses. Have any of you had any experience with the vivitral shot or know anyone who had success with it? Idk what Kratom is, I’ll have to google it. I trust @deanokat and @Dominica so I won’t be recommending it. Just curious as to what it is. I’ve lived with alcoholism for most of my life so I know lots about that addiction. I know heroin is a similar addiction but at the same time so different. The idea of heroin addiction only first came into my life last October when I found some in a persons things who was staying with us. (I had no idea what I had just found, a gray powder in a shot glass that was wrapped in tinfoil but I knew it was bad) A person who will be part of my life for the rest of mine or the rest of his depending on how this plays out. Anyway so I appreciate all the insight, It’s helped me a lot. He’s supposed to spend the night with us Saturday, if he passes a drug test (going to be looking for the fake penis this time). I’m worried and nervous. Heroin scares me, SO MUCH, maybe because I’d never done it, or because it seems closer to death than alcohol. Idk I have anxiety already about him coming and he’s not even here yet.

Hey there, "C"☺.
So I would like to point out something you know how there was that debate about addicts being stigmatized? Especially heroin addicts?
I think it's because it does scare people more than most drugs. But here's a fact mg/mg heroin is actually VERY week being only slightly comparable to oxycontin in its potency as they are both about three times stronger than morphine per mg. Methadone (a mixture of buprenorphine and oxycodone) is 4.9 times stronger than morphine. Souboxone (buprenorphine and naloxone) is 39.6 times stronger than morphine per mg. Those patches, fentanyl patches they give you for bad migraines, they are even MORE STRONG being 49to50 times stronger and that's why they are prescribed in mcg. dosages instead of. Mgs.
And it actually keeps going up from there.
What I'm getting at is that everybody is under the assumption, most anyway, that heroin is so much more dangerous than any other drug-hints the stigma around it.
I can honestly say that having been a long term IV heroin user. I was simply an opiate addict, heroin is just cheaper and junkies are poor. Its that simple.
Given the option to be able to afford "better" drugs, hands down heroin would be on the bottom of my opiate list down there next to codien, I would much rather spend money on oxycontin or roxycontin, they feel stronger and last nearly half the day compared to to H which has you loading another shot while yours still high from the last one because you know its only going to be a few hours before those cravings come on.
That's what I'm ultimately getting to is that what is more dangerous, if anything I I think, about heroin addiction is not the drug its the lifestyle. No one differentiates between the two evils not anyone I've every met anyway.
See H is crap, its not a clean high like the pharmaceutical companies many stronger versions of the opiate. You never know what you're getting along with your dope, is that baby laxative or ground up porcelain I see in there?
See you shoot ground up ceramics you're gonna die. You snort it you're just an idiot.
I know there's the whole opiode epidemic going on right now, but I'm thinking hey I've been off heroin completely, even pills not prescribed for a year now. I'm thinking to myself are the media industries just lobbying for a big story, because I was doing all the stuff their now saying people are "starting to get into heavily" a decade ago with a whole bunch of other people doing the same thing!?!
Idk, has it always been an epidemic, but its now getting attention? Is it really worse or are people just spotlighting heroin because big pharma wants the attention off of there many kinds of heroin that insurances will cover?-That might be my paranoid addict mind speaking there, but I have thought this over a lot since I've been clean, something's wrong with the story I know that much.
I digress, try to look at it from the viewpoint that like you said, addiction is addiction, and in that all addicts share a common bond, and maybe your anxiety won't be absolutely off the charts.
Statistically, many more people die from drinking than any other drug, and that's the legal one! (I didn't look up nicotine so I could be wrong there)
Hope that helps, anything further and I would just be ranting. You and your friend, this other person, are in my prayers along with all of us who suffer from addiction. Let me know how it goes wishing you the best.

@Josh111187 the Opioid epidemic is in reference to the Fentanyl crisis if we are trying to nail it down to a time frame,when I was bad like prior to my 27 day's fentanyl was just starting to become available anywhere infact i remember being the only person in my group of junkie buddies who could get it and it's odd that I was more than 10 year's older than the people i would get high with and maybe this has something to do with why i see the crisis in a slightly different way than most but at 30 i was hanging out with college students and they were just starting their journey with addiction but i remember one person who i would buy oxys from who was paying his way through college selling opiates was smoking 4-5 80's a day which at first i thought was worse than my addiction but at the time i noticed that most of the pill went into the air while he would smoke but anyways 1 college student turned 80-90 other people on to oxy and i imagine those 80-90 did the same with other's so i watched the addiction basically infect half the student body and before i cut ties with him he had fentanyl patches and he would give me a few just to learn how to use them in a abusive way but i would cut the corner of a new patch and eat half the gel at a time well i'm sure you kbow how high i would get that way and actually i nodded off more on fentanyl than any other substance but fast forward a bit and now we are taking out all the gel and letting it dry basically letting all the alcohol evaporate or whatever it was that smelled and tasted like alcohol and he would scrap it all up and mix small portions in bags of heroin which he started selling just as i cut ties but that was boosting the heroin to insane potency and he made a ton of money but it destroyed the student body of this college,so the current epidemic is caused by people doing exactly the same thing and i watched it shatter a college campus so i can only imagine what it's doing nation wide as this method get's more popular.Of course there are other contributing factors to the epidemic but i think we were the beginning of the epidemic,(you and myself)so i think about how it has affected us and try to see 1/3 of the nation struggling with the same thing and ohhh my god we have a big problem.I'm worried about the epidemic personally because i think we were the tip of the iceberg

I hope everything goes well and the person you speak of seeks the help i'm sure your trying to offer.Heroin is a scary substance for sure.I hope and pray he considers something like Suboxone as it has something in it to kill the ability to get high from other opiates which in my opinion is a big help to get sober as i imagine the desire to get high will slowly decrease over time if the individual is actively trying to get help.I heard the shot helps but doesn't eliminate the ability to get high so from what i've heard i think Suboxone is the way to go at this point either way i hope and pray thing's get better for you both

Yeah, I can remember putting a plate of gel cover with tin foil in the oven on warm just to speed up the drying process.
Man when I say a small line I mean like smaller than a cat hair is what we would snort and that was the highest I've ever been. Never shot heroin with fentanyl, but from what I know about snorting that gel after you powderize it, sounds like a lethal injection. I didn't know that's what they were referring to, as honestly when they start talking drugs on tv now I usually mute it. It just bothers me too much.
But I think back on my use and I think I would have been very apprehensive to shoot that stuff. No I know I wouldn't unless it was a last resort. I mean a full cat hair line would have you overdosed if you snort it. So there can't even be a good way to measure injection amounts.

There isn't a way to measure it and alot of people are ODing with the mix of heroin-fentanyl it's literally destroying entire district's

This might be a dumb question and I’m sorry if it is. When I found the heroin in his things it was a gray powder. Not really knowing what heroin looked like I googled it. It said that fentyal mixed with heroin is a gray powder that looks similar to like concrete dust. Apparently it’s called “gray death” That is what this looked like EXACTLY. However, the addict just said it was heroin. My question is can “regular” heroin be a gray powder or was he most likely lieing and it was infact mixed with fentyal? I’m wondering for my own personal knowledge. If I were to ever come across it again or whatever I’d like to know. He was also taking morphine pills regularly but I’m not sure what the route of delivery was. Since he was using needles I’d imagine that to be the case but I can be sure.