Understanding How Suboxone Helps Patients Beat Opioid Addiction

Overcoming an opioid addiction comes with the challenge of coping with chemical withdrawal. Until opioid drugs fully leave your system, you must face a range of symptoms that can dominate your life. 

At New Spirit Health in Mesa, Arizona, we frequently recommend Suboxone® for our patients who are fighting opioid dependence. Suboxone breaks the withdrawal cycle, giving you better chances of detoxing from a range of addictive substances. 

When you understand how Suboxone works, it’s easy to see how it manages the effects of withdrawal, removing some of the challenges that can lead to relapse. Let’s take a look at how this powerful addiction-breaker helps patients beat opioid dependency.

The effects of opioids

Opioid pain medications do their job by attaching to chemical receptors in the brain, blocking pain signals. They also trigger the release of endorphins, your body’s feel-good hormones that create euphoric feelings while also contributing to pain reduction. 

However, these benefits are best used in the short term. Eventually, opioids affect the way nerve cells in the brain work, disrupting the brain stem's function, which is responsible for controlling breathing, heart rate, and sleep cycles. 

Brain changes lead to changes in mood regulation and decision making. The addiction process starts when opioids begin to affect the brain’s reward process, leading to the release of dopamine and, eventually, cravings that support the drug abuse cycle. 

How Suboxone helps patients beat addiction

Since the opioid effect attaches drugs like oxycodone, morphine, and heroin to brain receptors, it’s necessary to replace these substances so that their absence won’t cause withdrawal symptoms. That’s where Suboxone comes in. 

Suboxone takes over the receptors formerly stimulated by opioids. Withdrawal is essentially a physical reaction to loss of opioid stimulation. Since Suboxone prevents opioids from activating pain receptors, both opioid cravings and physical symptoms of withdrawal become controlled. 

Part of a medication-assisted treatment (MAT) plan

Suboxone is only one phase of treatment. Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) combines Suboxone with behavior therapy and counseling to provide a multi-faceted, holistic approach to addiction care. 

Physical addiction is only one challenge of opioid dependency. It’s also a habit in a behavioral sense, where a patient uses opioids as a comforting action that provides a sense of well-being, even when the drugs cause negative effects. MAT provides more effective long-term recovery than either Suboxone or counseling on their own. 

Learn more about addiction recovery with Suboxone by consulting with owner and family nurse practitioner John Risi, at New Spirit Health. Call or click to book your appointment with us today.