Celebrate Medication Supported Recovery Through Advocacy
by Zac Talbott, BA, CMA
Director | NAMA Recovery of Tennessee
Administrator | The Peer Recovery Network of the MARS Project
Chair | Private Clinic North Patient Advisory Committee
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declared
September "National Recovery Month" 25 years ago this [past] month. The past
quarter century has witnessed an explosion in our understanding of
addiction as well as why and how different medical treatments for substance use
disorders work. But it isn't neuroscience alone that has enhanced our
understanding and acceptance of evidence based medical treatments for substance
use disorders; The advocacy movement across the spectrum of recovery approaches
has seen an increase in participation, involvement and interest over the past
25 years as well. On this 25th anniversary of National Recovery Month let us
all celebrate medication supported recovery through participating in and
supporting our own patient advocacy movement.
Dr. Vincent Dole, one of the three original founders and pioneers
of methadone maintenance treatment, along with Doctors Marie Nyswander and Mary
J. Kreek, recognized the importance of the patient advocacy movement when he
said, "Just that you people who are involved in advocacy, keep up the
work. I have seen changes come about in the current system because of people
becoming involved. It is these who are the real heroes in all of this. Without
advocacy, changes will not come about within the present system."
Positive change is brought about through advocacy. Whether it is a clinic
director explaining to a patient's probation officer that methadone is not a
"substitute drug" but a legitimate medication for a chronic health
condition or a patient fighting stigma by writing a fact-based letter to the
editor in her local paper, advocacy is the key to not only defending patients'
rights but also raising awareness about and around the true face of and the
evidence base behind medication assisted treatment with methadone and
buprenorphine.
The celebration of National Recovery Month over the past 25 years
has served as motivation for the formation of a variety of new recovery-based
advocacy organizations and events. But what truly gives hope to those of us who
understand and have experienced, many of us first hand, the life-saving and
life-restoring potential of this treatment modality is that medication assisted
treatment has largely been not only included but celebrated by SAMHSA. It was
during the past 25 years that the phrases "medication supported
recovery" and "medication assisted recovery" began to become
common. It has been during the past 25 years that the medication assisted
treatment community has come to realize that we own recovery too and that
taking a legal, proven effective medication once or twice a day has absolutely
nothing to do with determining whether or not an individual is "living in
recovery." If anything we have come to realize that medications like
methadone and buprenorphine can foster and help encourage a life
of recovery.
SAMHSA's official "working definition" of recovery is "a
process of change through which individuals improve their health and wellness,
live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential."
Medications like methadone and buprenorphine don't hold individuals struggling
with opioid addiction back from those things. Methadone maintenance treatment
has been an integral part of allowing me to improve my health and
wellness and start working toward achieving all the goals that active opioid
addiction had put on hold. I am once again a contributing member of society who
focuses on my family, faith and community thanks to methadone treatment.
I am living in recovery because I am able to be a patient of an opioid
treatment program that offers what the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has
deemed the timeless "gold standard treatment" for the
substance use disorder by which I am afflicted, and when the hundreds of
thousands of patients living in methadone supported recovery like me
realize that, and become empowered by and proud of that fact, the advocacy
movement will become a force like no other in helping turn the tide on the
opioid addiction and overdose epidemic plaguing our nation and growing the
number of individuals celebrating lives in recovery.
This 25th Anniversary of Recovery Month let us all - providers,
patients, family and friends alike - commit ourselves to advocacy. Write to
your local chapter or the national offices of NAMA-R and ask how you can get
involved. Go to tnmethadone.org and make a donation. Tell
your neighbors, family and friends the truth about medication assisted
treatment and how it fits into SAMHSA's working definition of recovery. We all
can do something to help support the advocacy movement that is our movement,
and that is one of the greatest ways we can celebrate and help spread
the life-saving message of recovery this month and throughout the year.
This column was originally written for
, the Quarterly Newsletter of 'Opioid Treatment Providers of Georgia' (OTPG), the Georgia State providers association and Chapter of the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, Inc. (AATOD), originally appearing in the September 30, 2014 edition.

What a great post! I believe more patients become involved in advocacy and be proud to be in recovery, rather than ashamed to say they are on methadone. I know I too feel the shame when I utter the words methadone and I should not feel this way! Stigma has a huge impact and it's time it changed! I applaud the work which you all do as methadone advocates! You are true hero's at work! Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment, support and encouragement! As a reporter with a prominent publication that reports on substance use treatment & news of interest recently said to me about patient advocacy, "It's God's work." Empowered and educated patients are patients who are more likely to find recovery and spread the truth about the life-saving and evidence-based nature of medication assisted treatment with methadone and buprenorphine. Keep up the work YOU are doing as well... NAMA-R's slogan is so true & so important: "TOGETHER we can make a difference!" And together, the advocates of NAMA-R and folks like you, we ARE making a difference!
DeleteThanks for reading the NAMA-R TN blog and visiting our website!