Why Managing Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms Is Essential to Long-Term Addiction Recovery
Managing addiction is a multi-step process that’s different for each individual. Whether substance use dates back years or began only in the short term, withdrawal can present a significant challenge. Separate from cravings for the effects of a substance itself, withdrawal symptoms can often surprise those managing addiction, resulting in an unexpected obstacle.
The idea that quitting a substance “cold turkey” is somehow morally superior has long been an unhelpful myth of addiction management. Withdrawal symptoms are the body’s natural biological response to developing a chemical dependency. These physical symptoms cannot fix themselves simply with willpower or positive thinking.
Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) has been proven to help people successfully manage addiction, in part by addressing the physical symptoms of withdrawal. In combination with other forms of treatment, including behavioral therapy and group-led support, MAT can be a key component of long-term addiction management and cessation of substance use.
Understanding Withdrawal as a Separate Obstacle
In starting out on the road to addiction management, it’s important to recognize and separate the appeal of a substance itself from physical symptoms of withdrawal. Quitting opioids, for example, may entail making lifestyle adjustments and seeking out support systems. These strategies, such as developing an awareness of the people and contexts that are associated with substance use, may be considered a matter of personal mindfulness and lifestyle change.
But opioid cessation can be accompanied by physical withdrawal symptoms as well, such as anxiety, restlessness, nausea, diarrhea, and intense cravings. These biological responses may occur regardless of setting. It’s one thing to manage cravings, but getting through the physical symptoms of withdrawal can constitute its own challenge.
In combination with other strategies, MAT completely resolves the symptoms of withdrawal that accompany other challenges of addiction management.
How MAT for Opioids Can Target Withdrawal Symptoms
Medications designed to help people manage addiction utilize a number of strategies that often work in combination. Depending on the prescribed treatment, and the substance it’s intended to address, some medications may work to reduce cravings or blunt the effects of a particular substance so that people may be less inclined to seek it out.
MAT can successfully help manage both the attraction people may have to the effects of a substance, and the physical symptoms experienced in the body when substance use stops. Addressing the body’s chemical dependency on a substance is an essential component of maintaining addition management over the long term.
Buprenorphine, for example, can be used to address both cravings and withdrawal symptoms for people working to manage opioid addiction. It may also be used to address the underlying pain that led to the use of opioids to begin with.
As part of an overall patient-centered strategy to treat addiction, MAT can be an important tool for addressing physical withdrawal symptoms that lie beyond personal control.
Developing a Patient-Centered Approach to Withdrawal
Just as each person’s relationship to addiction is different, so, too, is their response to withdrawal. Centering individual experience is essential to Skyler Health’s strategies for medication titration counseling and support. That includes helping members who are facing the multiple challenges of withdrawal.
Skyler Health’s approach to Medication Titration Counseling is tailored to individual members and the needs they express. Maintaining consistent communication, through regular check-ins with expert providers, is a crucial component of successful long-term treatment.
Ultimately, understanding that withdrawal is a natural part of the process of managing addiction can help facing it feel less overwhelming. There are multiple strategies that can be used in combination with a proven track record of success.
It’s also important for anyone facing addiction to know that they’re not alone. Skyler Health facilitates access to support groups, counseling, and compassionate, experienced providers.
Visit us at Skyler Health, where we empower people to prevent and stop anxiety, pain, or medication and substance use with professional, licensed, and vetted counselors that you can trust.
